Namibia discusses digital broadcasting migration

 The workshop was aimed at deciding which technical standard the country is to adopt for digital migration and to do a detailed analysis and evaluation of the broadcasting market.  This is important for Namibia as a SADC member state in order to prepare the country for an upcoming SADC meeting aimed at deciding on a common migration standard for the region.  Speaking at the event, Minister of Information and Communication Technology Joel Kaapanda said Namibia has about three years to plan and for the migration from analogue to digital broadcasting.

 The broadcasting migration and the workshop followed a global request set by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in 2006 during the Regional Radio Communications Conference of the ITU in Geneva, Switzerland.  The ITU is a United Nation's agency that regulates information and communication technology issues worldwide.  The agency has set the date of June, 17 2015 as the global deadline for broadcasting to transit from analogue to digital.

 If Namibia fails to meet the global deadline set by the ITU, the country is at risk of paying the painful penalty of being isolated from the world's broadcasting community.  SADC ministers responsible for information and broadcasting issues resolved earlier this year in Angola that SADC member states should strive to migrate from analogue to digital broadcasting earlier.  This will leave some space to address possible unforeseen technical hitches before the ITU's global migration deadline.  

Namibia has set itself the date of end of December 2013 to meet the ITU's global deadline for the transition for the whole country to be degitalised.  Namibia this week initialised the process of finding a standard that the country is likely to put into practice.  The Japanese government together with the Brazilian government at the workshop had presentations on digital broadcasting standard that is suited for the Namibian situation.  The Japanese government is selling its idea of the Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting-Terrestrial (ISBD-T) as the latest system for digital terrestrial television broadcasting which was developed in Japan and Brazil with latest technology to Namibia.

 The ISDB-T has several advantages such as it is applicable for any business model, mobile/portable TV and efficient use of radio frequency resource, it has excellent robust against noise and it has an emergency warning broadcasting system.  The Japanese say their standard system is widely used in South American countries and they said since 2009 all countries who conducted deliberate comparison in technical as well as economical aspects between its ISBD-T and the Euro-zone designed Digital Video Broadcasting Terrestrial (DVB-T) adopted the ISBD-T.

 The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Communication Mbeuta Ua Ndjarakana told the Southern Times that it was early to tell what standard system the country is likely to implement.  'Out of our traditional knowledge, we will make recommendations as to which system Namibia should adopt focusing on the pros and cons, he said.