Zimbabwe has failed to meet today’s International Telecoms Union (ITU) deadline to cross over from analogue to digital.
By Tinotenda Samukange
The ITU in 2006 agreed to have the rest of the world switch from analogue to digital by June 17, but several countries, including Zimbabwe, have failed to meet the deadline due to financial challenges.
However, speaking at a Press conference in Harare yesterday Transmedia, chief executive officer Florence Matambo Sigudu said June17 was not necessarily a deadline, but a date for compliance of which they have done.
She said ITU had stipulated that if any country had not managed to go digital by today, they had to make sure that none of their operations affected neighbouring countries that had migrated from analogue.
Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) chief executive officer Obert Muganyura said there were 10 transmission sites in the border-lying areas of which only three had the potential to interfere with neighbouring countries like Zambia and Malawi.
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He, however, said due to age, the transmitters were working with much less capacity thus they would not interfere with any UHF signals in another country.
“We have done consultations and we have been assured that there will not be any interference as the said countries will not be migrating tomorrow (today),” Muganyura said.
He said Zimbabweans would only start receiving digital signal in October as there was still a lot of work to be done in upgrading of infrastructure.
The failure to meet the target will mean that the country now has to operate under a dual elimination process.
Dual elimination refers to the simultaneous function of analogue and digital systems where BAZ is still trying to do away with the former while initiating the latter at a cost.
Sigudu, however, said they had budgeted for the dual elimination.
