The dates of the long awaited and overly discussed migration from analogue to digital television have been confirmed and are set for December 30 in Nairobi and January 30 for the rest of the country.
Following the new set dates, the Cabinet Secretary for Information, Communications and Technology has been directed to commence the digital migration process immediately through a review of the legislative framework in the communication sector.
The government announced this move saying the country was now ready to undergo migration after the various issues causing delay in the process had been resolved.
Kenya has faced setbacks with the analogue switch off process, leading the country to bypass set dates, with the recent being a court case from three mainstream media houses Standard Group, Nation Media Group and Royal Media Services.
The case was presented to the Supreme Court to challenge the award of a Broadcasting Signal Distribution (BSD) license to Chinese company PANG, denying the three. It was then directed that the Communications Authority (CA) review the three media houses’ BSD application.
Now Kenya’s Cabinet has approved the new dates and appointed a committee to review the allocation of the digital frequencies.
Chinese Company Pan African Network Group (PANG) has been allocated a total of 120 frequencies, KBC and GoTV will get 51 frequencies, Radio Africa is set to get 11 and National Signal Networks, a consortium of the three media houses, will get 10 frequencies.
Kenya will have to speed up in its process to meet the global deadline set for June, 2015 when all analogue television signals are to be switched off, according to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) agreement.
