After being dogged by challenges such as high cost of switching over for consumers, Uganda is now set to move to digital transmission in three months time although the exact date is still not known.
The New Vision Uganda reports that the Uganda Communications Commission was to meet the parliamentary committee of Information and Communications Technology to agree on the actual date when the switching off should begin.
Godfrey Mutabazi, the UCC executive Director said that they have the necessary digital equipment in place and they are now laying digital signal infrastructure across the country for the switch whose deadline is in June this year.
Mutabazi said: “We decided to have duo-elimination where both digital and analogue broadcasting platforms run concurrently because we wanted to allow people without DVB-T2 decoders enough time to acquire them.”
Uganda has had to change its digital migration dates before due to challenges that come with digital migration with the initial ones being December 2012, December 2013 and later December 2014
It is estimated that although there are about five million television sets in Uganda, only about 300,000 are digital.
So far only Tanzania, Rwanda and Mauritius have successfully completed the digital migration while Tunisia, Zambia, Morocco, South Africa, Ghana and Kenya are still in the process of transitioning.
