East African Partner states Ministers responsible for Transport, Communications and Meteorology have called for the speedy creation of frameworks enabling achievement of the planned analog-to-digital migration in the region.
At their 9th Meeting of the Sectoral Council on Transport, Communications and Meteorology (TCM), held Friday last week in Arusha, Tanzania, the Ministers reviewed implementation progress of projects and programmes; roads, railways, civil aviation, maritime transport and meteorology sub-sectors.
Also discussed were developments in the communications sub-sector, where the Ministers directed member states to expedite the process of putting in place legislation for the implementation digital TV broadcasting, and to monitor technology developments for digital broadcast receivers, with a view to developing receiver specifications that minimize the cost of digital broadcast migration.
The Sectoral Council urged Partner States to consider zero-rating duty on Set Top Boxes as a means of accelerating digital broadcast migration programmes, and directed the Secretariat to submit this recommendation to the Ministers of Finance for consideration.
The Ministers were also of the view that Partner States limit the number of signal distributors, provided that a public signal distributor is fully funded by the state, or open the signal distribution market segment to full competition, where the government is unable to fund a public signal distributor.
EAC Partner States were further called upon to develop human and institutional capacities for conformance testing and certification of ICT equipment.
At its 8th Meeting, the Sectoral Council on TCM considered and approved the EAC Roadmap for Analog-to-Digital Broadcast Transition, and following the approval, directed Partner States to align their national programmes on analog-to-digital broadcast transition to the Roadmap, while the Secretariat was directed to monitor and report on the implementation of the Roadmap.
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