Sentech is investing R300m in satellite facilities to be used for the 2010 World Cup, with a portion of the funds to be used to build a second teleport for the country. ITWeb reports that the satellite facilities will transport broadcast feeds from the 10 designated stadiums to the international broadcast centre (IBC), and from the IBC to the satellites transmitting the games to various parts of the world. According to Frans Lindeque, Sentech’s executive for digital systems, R25m of the R300m will be used to build satellite infrastructure, while R110m is to be used on satellite-related equipment at the 10 stadiums. Lindeque notes that the investment in satellite facilities is part of government’s move to meet its 2010 obligations.
Electronic City Entertainment has secured the exclusive Indonesian broadcast rights for the 2010 World Cup, the company announced Friday. ’We want everybody in Indonesia to be able to enjoy the quadrennial event so we will cooperate with at least two television stations and a radio station,’ sales and marketing director Fary Farghob said in Jakarta. Electronic City Entertainment is the first non-broadcast media company in the country to hold the World Cup broadcast rights. Fary said the company was entitled to process any sponsorship related to the World Cup and would soon hold a meeting for prominent sponsors and broadcasting companies to make bids.
Namibia Defence Force Lieutenant General Martin Shalli says armies in Southern Africa need to have efficient telecommunications equipment to keep up with the developments in the information and communications sector. Addressing a regional military conference this weekend, he said the military could only provide security and relief during disasters and conflicts if their communication and information systems were ’state-of-the-art’. ’Take into consideration that both the Cup of Nations and the World Cup are coming to our region in 2010,’ he said. Shalli added the Working Group on Telecommunications and Information Systems of the Inter-State Defence and Security Committee must ensure that both tournaments are held in a secure environment.
All-Africa Games local organising committee director David Diangamo has said K150 billion will be spent this year in infrastructure development ahead of the 2011 pan-African games. The Port reports that Diangamo also told the Parliament Committee on Youths and Child Affairs that the 2010 World Cup games would be televised free in selected parts of Lusaka. ’We are planning to put bill boards in major public places like the Independence Stadium which will show the 2010 World Cup games to people who have no access to DStv,’ he said.
South Africans will be able to follow the 2010 World Cup at no cost on SABC TV or at public viewing events, FIFA said. FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke said the SABC, FIFA’s official broadcasting partner, would not need a licence to show the Confederations Cup in 2009 or the 2010 World Cup. The Times reports that pubs, clubs, restaurants and bars would not need to apply for a broadcasting licence if they did not charge admission fees or participate in sponsorship activities. ’It is extremely important for us that the first World Cup in Africa touches as broad an audience as possible, not only those inside the World Cup stadiums, in the most meaningful way,’ said Valcke.
SA TV station opens to tourism sector - 01/04/2008
Local business people, especially those in the tourism sector, stand a chance to benefit from the newly-established Mpumalanga Broadcasting Television, which will be fully operational by the end of the month. According to a Filmmaker report, station Manager Welcome Magagula said people in the tourism sector should make good use of this opportunity since the new broadcasting station would be focusing on promoting the Mpumalanga province together with Swaziland. He said this would be part of the broadcaster’s drive to market the two countries to the oversees market in preparation for the much anticipated 2010 World Cup, which is expected to attract a lot of visitors from all over the world.
South African Broadcasting Cooperation (SABC), the Southern African Broadcasting Association (SABA) and the African Union of Broadcasting (AUB) will be working together to bring the World Cup to the audiences. SABC Head of International Affairs, Phil Molefe said this at a workshop organised to share information between the 2010 LOC and local business and sporting fraternity. Molefe said they mandated SABC, SABA and AUB to establish a consortium to secure broadcasting rights for African countries at reasonable prizes looking at the economical situation of different countries in the continent. He said they are going to implement this on the basis of the Africa Legacy project, which is intended at seeing Africa as whole benefit from the hosting of the biggest sporting event by South Africa.
The East African Submarine Cable System (Eassy) is confident it meets all the Department of Communications’ criteria and will be able to land in SA. Eassy announced that construction of its cable by Alcatal-Lucent had begun. This means the physical survey of the route will be conducted over the next two months, after which the actual cable will be manufactured and laid along the East African coast. Joseph Solan, a senior advisor with the International Finance Corporation’s Department of Global Information and Communications Technologies, says Eassy aims to be operational within the first half of 2010 and, while he would not commit to an exact date, he says: ’We will definitely be working in time for the 2010 World Cup.’
Undersea cable commercially available by 2010 - 17/3/2008
National Treasury’s decision to decline funding for Infraco’s West Coast undersea cable project has forced the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) to throw its lot in with the Nepad Broadband Infrastructure project, Uhurunet. In a presentation to Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Public Enterprises, the department revealed it had requested R2.09 billion over the next three years to fund Infraco’s national long-distance and West Coast undersea cable project. However, National Treasury only allocated R727 million towards the initiative, leaving Infraco with a deficit of R1.368 billion. DPE spokesman Lulu Bam says the West Coast cable has a mandate to cater for the 2010 FIFA World Cup Soccer Tournament, the Square Kilometre Array and the South African Women Entrepreneurs’ Network.
President Thabo Mbeki’s International Advisory Council on information technology is confident that the country is on track to accelerate IT delivery. Mbeki met his council in Tshwane to talk about IT matters and assess achievements and delivery in the sector. Recent reports have heavily criticized Government for not delivering fast enough on the countries IT needs, but the council says the country’s policies are clearer now. ’We are feeling confident that now we can inter- connect those various policies and start seeing the outcomes,’ says the NIIT Chairman, Rajendra Pawar. South Africa hosting the 2010 World Cup, means the country has been thrust into a unique and enviable position and in just a few short years will catch up with the rest of the world.
State-Owned signal distributor Sentech says it will be ready for November’s digital migration despite a massive funding shortfall. Sentech said the only constraint the company had was the lack of funding and clear direction from government. According to reports, this comes after the National Treasury cut the company’s funding because of its lack of confidence in Sentech’s management. But Sentech chairperson Colin Hickling supports the management. City Press reports that the entity says it has other options if the state doesn’t provide the required funds. Sentech has secured funding in the past from a private financial institution and the Development Bank of Southern Africa without a shareholder guarantee. But there are further problems with the digital migration programme. Sentech’s 2010 World Cup preparations seem to be the only project that has been adequately supported by government.
Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri came under intense pressure from ANC MPs to secure full funding for state-owned signal carrier Sentech, as resolved at the Polokwane conference. Business Day reports that Sentech has been tasked with rolling out infrastructure for digital broadcasting for the 2010 WC as well as a high-speed national wireless network, but has complained about lack of funding. Matsepe-Casaburri raised her frustration about the lack of state funding for Sentech, but reassured Parliament’s communications portfolio committee that ’most’ members of the Cabinet had been brought around, and the Presidency was seized with the matter.
Sentech, the troubled signal distributor, has laid the blame for its woes on the government’s doorstep, saying that as the shareholder it had failed to provide a ’clear direction’ and crippled the company by withholding crucial funding. According to a Business Report, the company needs funding to roll out crucial projects such as the migration of the television signal from analogue to digital, which is critical for South Africa to transmit high-quality coverage during the 2010 WC. Sentech has also been tasked with building a high-speed Internet network that will carry voice and data signals to schools, hospitals and rural areas.
Sentech has finally received the R500m funding from government for its national wireless broadband network. ITWeb reports that this will enable the state-owned signal distributor to begin the roll-out of the network that is to provide communications redundancy for the 2010 WC and assist government to meet its development agenda. Sentech’s funding follows the revision of Sentech’s project plan, which saw the state-owned entity halve its estimated budget for the wireless broadband network from between R600m-R1bn to R500m.
Concern over digital switchover for 2010 - 20/02/2008
Concern is mounting that SA might miss the deadline to have a fully functioning digital broadcasting system in time for the 2010 WC. Crucial policies relating to the migration to digital broadcasting and the landing of undersea cables have raised the ire of members of Parliament’s communications portfolio committee. Committee members said the Communications Department appeared to have not planned adequately for the migration from analogue to digital broadcasting. Business Day reports that the short period assigned for this migration in SA has raised eyebrows, as internationally the process has taken much longer than the three years envisaged here. The urgency for SA is that it has to have a digital broadcasting system in place for the 2010 WC.
The government named an 11-man team to oversee the country’s shift from analogue to digital broadcasting. It is estimated that 2.7m Kenyan households own a television set, most of which are analogue sets. The Nation Media reports that consumers will be required to purchase a convertor box to access digital content. Digital Television Committee chairman, Daniel Obam said the broadcasting industry needs to hasten towards digital broadcast considering that most countries were already in their final digital switch process. In the developed nations, Britain has already stopped the stocking of analogue televisions whereas in Africa, SA anticipates to complete the process by 2011, ahead of the 2010 WC.
Construction has begun on the Seacom undersea cable and South Africans will be able to benefit from vastly reduced telecommunications costs as early as mid-2009. IT Online reports that Brian Herlihy, Seacom president, said that the Seacom cable will be landed in SA by Neotel, which will provide the backhaul and provide access to SA users. ’With the construction now underway, and about 16 months left to commissioning date, we are on schedule to meet the bandwidth needs of the 2010 WC,’ Herlihy said.
Just as the phrase ’load shedding’ has become part of SA’ s vocabulary, so could ’digital migration’. According to a MyADSL.co.za report, the department of communications has set November 1 as the time from which all television channels have to start implementing plans to migrate to digital broadcasting. In SA the main driver behind the process is the 2010 WC. By the time it takes place, government aims to have 80% digital transmission. The state-owned signal provider Sentech has started upgrading its equipment at a cost of about R1bn.
Fifa 2010 has just received another boost, this time in form of a global agreement signed with Ericsson recently. This agreement enables Fifa to give football fans all over the world, the opportunity to watch their favourite game on their cellphones. Through the use of Ericsson’s content management and service delivery platforms, broadcaster and telecom content licensees will be able to propose a mobile content offer based on Fifa events in 2009 and 2010. According to a report on the News24 site, Ericsson’s platform and services are configured to meet the needs of telecom operators and media companies and other service providers acting in the marketplace.
Digital TV plans on track - 12/02/2008
Buying a new television set now might be like buying a record player before CDs took over.
SA is scheduled to start broadcasting digital TV on November 1 and will discontinue analogue broadcasts in 2011. President Thabo Mbeki indicated that the plans for digital TV were on track. ’We aim to provide digital broadcasting to 50% of the population by the end of the year. Attached to this will be a manufacturing strategy for the development in SA of set- top boxes, which should be finalised by the middle of the year,’ he said. The Times reports that the government announced it would switch to digital broadcasting as part of hosting the 2010 WC.
All systems go for for key 2010 cable - 11/02/2008
Work on undersea high-performance cables linking Africa to Asia and Europe is expected to begin by June. That’s according to Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri who said they would provide affordable and reliable telecommunications to Africa. ’Part of the cable is expected to be operational by the end of 2009, so it could provide additional capacity for the 2010 World Cup,’ she said. The $235m system is expected to provide a solution to East Africa’s international bandwidth woes – promising to bring affordable fiber connectivity to one of most bandwidth-starved areas in the world. Several other countries will also be linked to the system as terrestrial backbone networks are completed through a broader World Bank Group initiative.
Digital broadcasting in the spotlight - 30/01/2008
The convergence of telecommunications and broadcasting, how satellite can aid the digital migration process, and the liberalisation of broadcasting in Africa were some of the topics under discussion at the Special Focus Day of the Digital Broadcasting Switchover Forum in Johannesburg on 29 January. According to a Screen Africa report, in SA 9m people don’t have any access to terrestrial television, while over 5m people don’t have radio. The big challenge is to convert analogue signals to digital and we have three years to do this in SA, with the analogue switch off scheduled for 1 November 2011. It would be a sad day if the 2010 WC couldn’t be watched by African TV viewers.
Among the 15 guarantees required by Fifa for hosting the 2010 WC, catering for the international media’s telecommunications requirements is top of the list. With more than 20 000 media representatives expected to hit SA shores in 2010, uninterrupted power supply before, during and after the month-long tournament is of paramount importance. According to a Bizcommunity.com report, Fifa sponsors, who have already shelled out R14.7bn for the 2010 TV rights, are relying on the international media to broadcast the event and associated brand exposure without intermission across the globe.
The Arbitrator in the SABC/PSL matter has dismissed with costs all of the complaints made by the national broadcaster against the League which were the subject of various applications to the High Court for Interdicts and this arbitration. Irvin Khoza, chairperson of the National Soccer League said the decision confirms the PSL never acted in bad faith and that the process it followed in securing the broadcasting rights has been entirely correct and justified. According o a report on the News24 iste, the PSL was forced to respond on two occasions to the SABC applying for urgent interdicts attempting to prevent the PSL from going to market with its broadcast rights.
The Swaziland Television Authority invites all independent producers to submit demos to the station no later than February 29. The Observer reports that Swazi TV Programmes Manager Nomcebo Mbhamali said since the station would be celebrating 30 years of existence in April, they saw it proper to increase local content as per their mandate. ’With regard to live sports coverage, as we prepare for the 2010 World Cup to be hosted by SA, it is obvious that Swaziland should not remove herself from this big event and as a public broadcaster, we are mandated to broadcast these matches almost weekly beginning this year.’ she said. Mbhamali said this was a challenge but they had confidence in Swaziland’s producers whom she said had the expertise and capacity.
MultiChoice has licensed Silicon & Software Systems’ (S3) onHandTVTM Software Development Kit for digital video broadcast across handheld (DVB-H) to develop its mobile broadcasting services. ’MultiChoice has already made huge strides in the mobile TV broadcast environment, having launched commercial DVB-H services in Namibia, Kenya and Nigeria in 2007,’ says Linda Vermaas, CEO of DStv Mobile, the company’s mobile TV business unit. ITWeb reports that she says S3 is part of a technology investigation by the mobile TV unit into new broadcast options during the 2010 WC.
The new chairperson of the SABC, Khanyisiwe Mkhonza, has has emphasised the critical role the public broadcaster will play in the build-up to the 2010 World Cup. Mkhonza, who is the current chairperson of the public broadcasting services board sub-committee, said the new board would have to ‘increase attention on technology recapitalisation ahead of the 2010 Fifa World Cup’. This would include working closely with ICT partners on digitisation and positioning the SABC in the new competitive environment of convergence of technology. The Southern African Broadcasting Association (SABA), an association of state-run broadcasters in the region, has identified the World Cup as one of its focal points for the years running up to the global event.
The new chairperson of the South African Broadcasting Corporation, Khanyisiwe Mkhonza, has paid tribute to the outgoing board in a statement to the media. Mkhonza, who is the current chairperson of the public broadcasting services board sub-committee, acknowledged challenges facing the new board.It would have to "revisit the public broadcaster’s funding model, increase attention on technology recapitalisation ahead of the 2010 Fifa World Cup, including working closely with ICT [information and communications technology] partners on digitisation and positioning the SABC in the new competitive environment of convergence of technology as well as the introduction of more television players in the market," she said.
Orange has become the first British network to offer sports programming from pay-TV group Setanta, making its mobile TV service the only one available where football fans can watch all televised Barclays Premiership games. Last week it also grabbed the rights to most of the away qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup involving England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Alcatel-Lucent has started design work related to its 34 million euro (about R337 million) deal, announced last month, to design and deploy an integrated communication, security and IT system for the new King Shaka International Airport, north of Durban. ITWeb reports that the airport must be in service by the time SA hosts the FIFA Soccer World Cup, in June 2010, and will be able to handle more than 7.5 million passengers a year.
