africa2_africa 30/10/2013 09:33 Page 1
AdvancedTelevision
Africa
Market Briefing
2013
Africa set to deploy digital television
orty-seven sub-Saharan
African countries have
agreed on frequency coordination to enable digital
switchover in 2015
The consolidation of national plans
to implement the digital switchover in
the African region meets the deadlines of June 2015 (for UHF) and June
2020 (for VHF in 33 countries) set in
2006 by ITU’s Regional
Radiocommunication Conference
(RRC-06), which adopted the GE06
TV Plan.
This landmark also makes Africa the first
region to be in a position in 2015 to allocate
bandwidth freed up by the transition to digi-
F
tal television – the so-called ‘digital dividend’ – to mobile services for both the 700
MHz and 800 MHz bands. Decisions of the
World Radiocommunication
Conference 2012 (WRC-12) to facilitate availability of the digital dividend
to mobile will be effective with some
technical refinements immediately
after the next World
Radiocommunication Conference in
2015 (WRC-15).
ITU secretary-general Hamadoun
I. Touré (left) expressed his appreciation for the high level of cooperation
from the African Telecommunications
Union (ATU) and its SecretaryGeneral, Abdoulkarim Soumaila.
François Rancy, director of ITU’s
Radiocommunication Bureau, announced that
sub-Saharan African countries have submitted