Washington, DC — The Kenyan government announced that they will complete digital migration by March 2015 in three phases. GSMA is excited about this because it shows Kenya's commitment to meeting with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) June's deadline for the analogue switch-off. There are significant economical benefits of the analogue switch-off and making the digital dividend available for mobile broadband.
For instance, an increase in national penetration of 10% can result in GDP growth of up to 1.8%. Additionally, GSMA commissioned research in Sub-Saharan Africa which shows that if the digital dividend licenses are issued to the mobile operators by 2015, within five years the GDP of Sub-Saharan Africa will increase by 49 billion dollars.
Digital jobs could surpass 500,000, along with significant increases in digital based business. Kenya is viewed as a leader in the African continent, especially among its neighbours in East Africa. Consequently, it is hoped that Kenya's digital advancement will encourage neighbouring countries to follow suit.
What are the challenges of acquiring new spectrum? In what ways can Kenya free up the digital dividend?
We've seen an explosion in data demand and because of this explosion, we need to build networks - or increase the capacity of networks - to meet that demand. The capacity of networks can be increased in a number of ways. One is building more sites, but then it becomes a physical limit to how many sites can fit within a specified area.
Another one is using additional spectrum, and third option is using more efficient technology. Moving from your old analogue broadcasting to digital - that frees up more spectrum because of the efficiency. Also with mobile, you have the old 2G which was purely voice.
Technology has improved over time and we are looking at the Internet and 4G, we are implementing 4G, and looking at 5G and beyond. The challenge is we don't have enough spectrum to meet the growing demand for data in Africa.
Can you explain what occurs in each of the three phases?
With Kenya, they're looking at are the geographical phases. They will switch-off in Nairobi, Mombasa, and then other areas. It wasn't more in technological phases, it was a geographical switch off - those are the three phases that they planned in Kenya. In general digital migration, what happens is that you need to prepare the broadcasters and the subscribers for the digital switch-over.
The broadcasters have to convert their equipment, the production and camera equipment, from analogue to digital and that was done a long time ago.
Then the signal distributor that takes the signal from the broadcasters and is transmitted by these powerful TV stations into your home has to convert from analogue transmitters to digital. The last phase is the end users, the people with the TV sets in their homes. Most of the existing TV are analogue.
Now, for them to view the digital content that is being broadcast, they need a converted or a set-up box and that setter converts the digital signal to analogue so that you can continue using your old TV. Typically what happens when someone wants to replace their TV, they will get an integrated digital television which doesn't need a converter setter box any more. So those are the three phases in digital migration in a nutshell.
Since access to the Internet is becoming more commonplace over mobile broadband networks, how are they incorporating the internet their your work?
Because of the relatively high mobile data costs, it's difficult for Africans in general to look at Internet TV. One movie for instance might be over a gigabyte of data, so it's expensive. What governments would probably want to do is encourage competition and put other measures in place, remove any other barriers such as high taxes in an effort to reduce the cost of communication.
What are the logistics of setting up a digital communications in rural areas? Will the service be slower?
The digital switch-over will not affect the coverage of television signals. The coverage depends on the frequency that is being used so the same frequency will be used and will just changing from analogue to digital.
The coverage would remain the same and if there were some empty spots where there was no terrestrial television coverage in the past then those spots will remain. The way that they could be addressed is by satellite so you can have direct to home TV. That will address those spots or 'not-spots' as we call them is some places.
Are there any recent public policies that have been developed to ensure digital information security?
This process started a long time ago. There was the ITU Regional Radio communication Conference in 2006, that conference was for ITU Region one which is Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. Since then the planning has been ongoing to move from analogue to digital transmission and also to free up some of the spectrum to make it available for mobile broadband.
The government has been at the forefront of the planning phases, now it's up to the broadcasting operators to migrate and to make that spectrum available. Once it becomes available then governments will licence it.
Has there been any resistance to the switch-over?
For switch-overs to be successful there are a few elements that need to be in place. One is people need to buy into it and usually the government will engage others in their campaign to let people know about the benefits of digital broadcasting. There also needs to be additional content. If in a country had, let's say, ten television broadcasters before the digital switch-over.
After the switch-over because of the increased capacity, we can multiply that by 20 or even more. So there will need to be additional new content to get people invested and wanting to move analogue to digital. Otherwise, they would just ask themselves "Why should I pay for a new setter box we don't want in order to receive the exact same services that are currently we are currently receiving."
So there would need to be new additional services - that's from a consumer perspective. In terms of the operators and broadcasters, they generally resist the change because they're reaching the point where they see the other operators as competitors. They don't want to make life easy for their competitors by making the spectrum available for the same operators that compete with them for a portion of their viewer ship. Those are the two main challenges.
GSMA says that it is concerned with "extending the coverage, reducing the cost and minimising the environmental impact of mobile networks by championing renewable energy." How is GSMA trying to minimize the environmental impact of mobile networks? What kind of renewable energy will Kenya be using?
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In terms of minimising environmental impact, most mobile operators conform to standards of good network deployment. You usually have national standards in addition to recommendations from the GSMA. For instance, if you are building a station in an area, there will need to be public participation and environmental impact assessment studies.
All of that needs to be done before the station is built. If there five operators in an area, all five of them should not build their own mass in the same area, they should become elements of network sharing to minimize the visual impact on the environment. Those are some of the things that we encourage our members to do. One is network sharing and to comply with the worker legislation wherever they operate.
How does this affect the average person? What will they get out of it (banking, access to info)?
They will be able to save a lot of time. There is a video created by our mobile development team that I would like to refer to. It shows that in Uganda mobile broadband assisted rural people to get a birth certificate within a day for a newborn child.
Previously, it would take weeks or even months. Now, if a child is born there are these community workers who move around and will identify the parents. They would record the mother and the father in the national database using the handset, get all the details, and on the spot will print the birth certificate for that newborn baby.
That is a vast difference from what happened in the past. Many times children did not get a birth certificate until they were ready for school and then it would be a big mission for them to get it, especially if one of their parents has died.
