Fifteen African countries will finally adopt DVB-T2

The Southern African Development Community has announced its decision to adopt the DVB-T2 standard for the entire region with a population of more than 250 million viewers in Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has announced that the region, which has a population of more than 250 million, will adopt DVB-T2, the second generation DVB digital terrestrial television standard. The decision to adopt DVB-T2 was made after rigorous testing and in-depth analysis comparing ISDB-T, DVB-T and DVB-T2 standards.

A special SADC committee was responsible for carrying out the necessary evaluations and advising Member States on the feasibility of the different technical standards with a view to adopting a common standard. The 15 member states represented by SADC are Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The decision of the SADC Committee urging member states to adopt DVB-T2 with MPEG4 compression has been announced by the Minister of Communications and Information Technology of the Republic of Namibia and Chairman of the SADC Committee, Joel Kaapanda. The SADC recommendations urge Member States that have already started implementing the DVB-T standard to migrate to DVB-T2.

The Minister has also announced that Member States would be willing to migrate to digital television between the end of 2013 and the beginning of 2015.

DVB-T2, one eye

The United Kingdom launched the first DVB-T2 services earlier this year. Since then, Italy has launched DVB-T2 pay TV services followed by Sweden. At the beginning of 2011, Finland will start its high definition services in DVB-T2. Advanced trials are currently underway in Austria, Denmark, the Czech Republic and Germany.

With the positive results of the launch in the United Kingdom, more and more countries are considering the adoption of DVB-T2, including Australia, India, Kenya, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand.