{"id":79061,"date":"2015-02-04T13:02:07","date_gmt":"2015-02-04T11:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=79061"},"modified":"2015-02-04T13:02:07","modified_gmt":"2015-02-04T11:02:07","slug":"anc-pushes-for-encryption-in-digital-tv-debate-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/media\/79061\/anc-pushes-for-encryption-in-digital-tv-debate-report\/","title":{"rendered":"ANC pushes for encryption in digital TV debate: report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The impasse that has prevented South Africa\u2019s migration from analogue to digital broadcasting has been solved, Business Day <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bdlive.co.za\/business\/technology\/2015\/02\/04\/anc-clears-the-way-for-digital-tv-rollout\">reported<\/a> on 4 February 2015.<\/p>\n<p>According to the report, the ANC confirmed at its lekgotla last week that an earlier Cabinet decision on set-top box control must be implemented.<\/p>\n<p>The Cabinet decision referred to was a solution recommended by former Minister of Communications Yunus Carrim in December 2013, which lets broadcasters decide for themselves whether they want to encrypt their signals.<\/p>\n<p>However, Cabinet also decided that the government would use a control mechanism on the set-top boxes (STBs) it subsidises for the poorest households in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>Set-top boxes are decoder-like devices that South Africans will need to receive the new digital television signal.<\/p>\n<p>Cabinet\u2019s decision to include a control feature in its STBs means that the government\u2019s choice of encryption would essentially become a de facto standard that all digital TV STBs in South Africa would have to support.<\/p>\n<p>The reason the government may wish to implement STB control on subsidised boxes is to prevent the taxpayer-supported decoders from being bought up cheaply and resold elsewhere in the world.<\/p>\n<p>STB control also allows a level of standard enforcement, preventing cheap, and potentially below-spec boxes, from flooding the market.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Disputed<\/h3>\n<p>However, not everyone was\u00a0happy with Carrim\u2019s recommendation and Cabinet\u2019s decision. MultiChoice and one of its business partners, Namec, were\u00a0vocal opponents.<\/p>\n<p>MultiChoice argued that the government should not use taxpayer money to subsidise the entry of broadcasters such as E-tv into the pay-TV market.<\/p>\n<p>It also said that an STB with a control mechanism would end up costing the South African consumer more at the end of the day.<\/p>\n<p>In spite of this ongoing dispute between MultiChoice, E-tv, and the government, Business Day reports that the ANC has instructed Minister of Communications Faith Muthambi to take its decision to the Cabinet lekgotla which is currently being held.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on set-top boxes<\/h3>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to Beware pirate set-top boxes\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/media\/53756\/beware-pirate-set-top-boxes\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Beware pirate set-top boxes<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to Govt stalls on R2.4 billion set-top box project\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/48135\/govt-stalls-on-r2-4-billion-set-top-box-project\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Govt stalls on R2.4 billion set-top box project<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to Altech targets 5 million set-top-boxes\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/it-services\/47272\/altech-targets-5-million-set-top-boxes\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Altech targets 5 million set-top-boxes<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The impasse that has prevented South Africa\u2019s migration from analogue to digital broadcasting has been solved, Business Day reported on Wednesday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":7370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5554],"tags":[25,1875,2058],"class_list":["post-79061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","tag-active","tag-anc","tag-set-top-box"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79061"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79063,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79061\/revisions\/79063"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}