The tables 02 and 03 above should inform policy on STB distribution and access. There may be more TVs than recorded in urban areas where you find more than one family sharing the same house and each family having its TV set. STB distribution must be done quickly so that most of the viewers have the gadgets in the shortest possible time before the analogue services are switched off. Dual illumination is a costly exercise , eg it cost Sentech the signal distribution company in South Africa R150 million per annum to do simulcasting. Consequently delaying ASO will be costly and undesirable given the country’s constrained resources. 03 DTT migration in South Africa. • Sentech was mandated by government to begin work on migrating the country’s broadcasting infrastructure in 2006. • Sentech received R 100 million for the project in 2006 • Simulcast or dual illumination commenced in 2006 • 2009 the broadcasting digital migration policy and implementation plan was completed. The technical specifications of DTT set top boxes and plan to subsidise 5 million households was put in place • 2010 the director general of communications threw confusion to the project by advocating for change of technology from the European DVB-T standard to the Japanese ISDB-T standard. There was strong opposition from Sentech and M Net who had successfully carried out DVB-T trial transmissions to their satisfaction. Going ahead with adoption of the Japanese standard would throw away all the DVB-T infrastructure investments that had been put by Sentech and M Net, as well as all the progress made then to manufacture set top boxes in SA. • In 2011 government confirmed that it was going ahead with DVB-T2 technology. New standard meant the regulator , Independent Communications Authority of SA ICASA had to revise the DTT decoder specifications to include DVB-T2 technology. • 2010 -2012 Universal Services and Access Agency of SA- USAASA was given R86 million to fund capacity building for the set top box subsidy system. • By end of 2012 Sentech had 63% population coverage of DTT transmission and 25% geographic coverage. • Some parts of SA have already undergone analogue switch off -ASO. This includes Square Kilometer Array community in the Nothern Cape and Free State. • • Cabinet set july 2020 as date for complete analogue switch off - ASO. Mnet a private player has already completely switched off analogue transmitters 04 South Africa’s DTT Project Expenditure 2006-2016 The DTT migration project is one of the largest and most expensive public infrastructure projects ever undertaken in South Africa. The following is expenditure breakdown of the DTT migration components. Table 04 South Africa DTT rollout expenditure: Organisation 1. Sentech – Signal Carrier Activity Cost (Rands) i) Rolling out digital transmission network ii) Dual illumination 1.94 billion 330 million 9