Johannesburg — South Africa enters a new broadcasting era on Saturday when the country officially converts its television broadcasting signals from analogue to digital technology.

The digital signal will be officially switched-on on 1 November 2008 and the analogue will be switched-off on 1 November 2011.

Speaking at the official launch of the "Switch-On" in Johannesburg, the Department of Communication Director General Lyndall Shope-Mafole said Broadcasting Digital Migration (BDM) will bring several benefits for South Africans.

"Broadcasting Digital Migration will bring many benefits including efficient use of the frequency spectrum, a public and scarce resource. It will bring more channels and therefore more diverse content delivered to the South African public," Ms Shope-Mafole said.

The Director General added that the BDM also had the potential for special interactive services to cater for people with visual and hearing impairments such as audio description and subtitling, and e-government delivery.

"The Broadcasting Digital Migration is made necessary by the developments in telecommunications technologies which enable a more efficient use of radio frequency spectrum as well as better quality pictures and sound," she said.

The migration from analogue to digital signal was first agreed to at the International Telecommunication Union, which is a United Nations agency for telecommunication.

The union took a decision that protection for analogue signals would seize in 2015. Member states were given time lines per region to comply with the decision. Africa forms part of region one together with Europe and the Middle East.

Ms Shope-Mafole said between the period of 1 November 2008 and 1 November 2011 there would be a dual illumination period wherein both analogue and digital signals will be available and no Set Top Box needed. After 1 November 2011 the analogue signal would not be available.

A set top box will be needed to convert the digital signal to analogue for the television sets that would not be digital compliant. It will therefore only be required after 1 November 2011.

Speaking at the event, Communication Minister, Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri said the department would have a Scheme-for-Ownership-Support of Set Top Boxes for the poor, thus increasing universal service and access to such services by vulnerable communities and individuals.

The set top box will be sold around R700 of which R400 will be subsidised by government for poor households using the Universal Service Fund.

The minister further said Cabinet has approved sufficient radio frequency spectrum, which is freed up by the digital migration process.

She said through the sufficient radio frequency they would be able to provide new television channels and specialised television services dedicated to education, health, youth, sports as well as three regional service channels.

The Acting Chief Executive Officer of SABC, Gab Mampone said the public broadcaster will provide up to eight new video channels in the same bandwidth as one analogue channel.

"The migration to digital process is expected to take a minimum of three years. Viewers will still be in a position to receive the current analogue services of SABC 1, 2, 3 and eTV and M-net," said Mr Mampone.

During the official launch, two new SABC channels were also showcased which are the SABC Entertainment Channel as well as SABC International News Channel.