The government and business are on track to reaching full digital migration by November 2011, Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda said on Thursday.

Speaking after addressing a set-top-box (digital decoders) manufacturing summit in Midrand, Nyanda said: "We are not running behind, we are on track. For the man on the street it means they will have access to more television channels."

Nyanda said the aim of the summit was to set guidelines for the manufacturing of the decoders so that all South Africans would have access to digital television broadcasting by 2011, when the current analogue transmitters would be switched off.

These criteria included promoting black economic empowerment and enabling smaller companies to reap financial gains.

The department's director general Mamodupi Mohlala said the government had allocated R5 million to subsidise decoders for poor households.

It would contribute 70 percent of the around R700 a decoder would cost. Currently between six and seven percent of the population already used the digital technology.

Deputy Minister Dina Pule said South Africa was among 120 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa which had decided to embrace digital broadcasting after an agreement signed in June 2006.

"The digital switch-over will leapfrog existing technologies to connect the unconnected in under-served and remote communities and narrow the digital divide," she said.

The switch-over from analogue to digital broadcasting will create new distribution networks and expand the potential for wireless innovation and services.

It was necessary to move to digital as a result of the congested space available and low speed which analogue has become victim to. This has become a worldwide phenomenon.

Digital broadcasting, transmitted through the decoders, will allow viewers more interactivity. This is particularly useful as one aim of the digital "horizon" would be a channel dedicated to "e-governance".

"The set-top-box is unlike the conventional ones. A person should be able to use the set-top-box to actually access e-services, for example the filling in of forms," said Mohlala.

One of the hopes is that in time the public will be able to fill in forms and access government directories while tuned in to the television, avoiding queues and paperwork.

Other channels, of which the SABC has been granted an additional three, will feature education, health, youth and entertainment content.

Since October 2008 South Africa has been operating on a "dual illumination" period, a three-year stint where both analogue and digital are employed.

Pilot studies have also been running in 6000 households with a prototype set-top-box.

To date, the department has only covered 33 percent of the population, while its targeted aim was to cover 50 percent of the population by the end of the 2008/09 financial year.

It is projected that it would cover the balance of the population by 2010/11 enabling the switch-off of analogue.

Areas that are difficult to reach will be covered by satellite, said Pule.

Sapa

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