Thursday, April 19, 2012

East African countries urged to harmonise digital migration

East African countries have been urged to harmonise their digital migration policies in order to be able to achieve full digital migration. The Africa Telecommunication Union (ATU) secretary general, Abdoulkarim Soumaila, said the region will only speed up its digital migration process through policy harmonisation. He said all the East African partner states are behind schedule. For instance, Uganda's road map indicates that by around this time, it should be in the implementation phase, moving closer to rolling out DTT services in Kampala and its surrounding areas. However, the country is still only working on the procedure to be followed. On the other hand, Kenya had planned to complete its digital migration by June but this will not be possible for lack of funds. A few areas in Nairobi have DTT but the government plans to have these signals available in 70 percent of the country by the end of this year. Samuel Poghisio, the Kenyan ICT minister, said it is only through harmonisation, equitable resource distribution and efficacy that East Africa will have full digital migration. Ruhakana Rugunda, Ugandan Minister of ICT, told Daily Monitor that he was still upbeat that Uganda was on course to meet the regional digital migration deadline, amid several challenges.

(Source : Telecom Paper)

No comments:

Post a Comment