9. Madagascar 2020 10. Botswana Date not defined 11. Mozambique Date not defined 12. Zimbabwe Date not defined 13. Namibia completed 14. Angola Date not defined 17 Digital Dividend Digital dividend refers to the frequency spectrum that is released after the digital terrestrial television transmission migration is completed.. Digital television transmission requires less spectrum than analogue transmission. This is because digital television transmission deploys compression technologies that enable transmission of numerous TV channels on the same frequency spectrum occupied by one analogue channel. DVBT-2 standard can transmit up to 20 standard definition television channels on the same frequency space used by one analogue TV channel. The frequency bands that are going to be released after complete migration to DTT are 698-790 MHz and 790-862 MHz frequency bands referred to as digital dividend 1 and digital dividend 2 respectively. The following countries in SADC have already authorised use of the spectrum 790-862 MHz for mobile broadband.DRC • • • Lesotho Madagascar Mozambique • South Africa • Swaziland • Zimbabwe Zambia, Botswana and Mauritius are yet to authorise. Zimbabwe is currently transmitting its analogue TV services in the VHF band 175-230 MHZ. It has no TV transmission in the UHF band so there is nothing to rearrange and reassign. Implementation of the digital dividend is as easy to roll out. In 2014 the government of Zimbabwe offered mobile network operator Netone the digital dividend spectrum at a discounted price of $200 million to fund the DTT migration project. The $200 million charged Netone would have been adequate to meet the $142,9 million that was required for the project through an off budget facility. Netone failed to raise the $ 200 million and in 2016 government started looking for new buyers. The spectrum has still not been sold to date. There is no clarity on how the spectrum will be sold. Other countries worldwide auction the spectrum to derive 16 maximum value from it. Consequently the DTT project to date has only relied on funding from the fiscus and hence continuous failure to meet project implementation targets. South Africa commissioned financial services firm Deloitte to conduct a study on the use of the digital dividend. The study was to determine social and economic benefits of using the spectrum either for mobile broadband services or broadcasting services taking into consideration future spectrum requirements for 3DTV , SHDTV etc. Deloitte concluded the following: • • Spectrum must be used for mobile broadband valued the frequency spectrum at R3.5 billion. The digital dividend frequency spectrum is ideal for mobile broadband because it is lower than the current mobile broadband spectrum and requires fewer DIGITAL TERRESTRIAL TELEVISION MIGRATION IN ZIMBABWE - CHALLENGES & OPPORTUNITIES