Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Nigeria can’t meet 24m target on digital migration by 2015 - Southwood



It is very unlikely that Nigeria, the most populous nation on the continent of Africa will meet self set target of deploying 24 million set-top boxes by the end of middle of 2015, reports DigitalSENSE Business News.

The chief executive officer, Balancing Act, Mr. Russell Southwood, made these assertions in Lagos at the one-day Digital Broadcasting Roundtable, hosted by the Paradigm Initiative Nigeria (PIN).

He noted that it has been three years since Nigeria multi-stakeholder Digital Task Force submitted its report.

He pointed out that until now Nigeria has been able to achieve 1.5 million out of 24m project with the intervention of Star Times through a collaboration with the National Television Authority (NTA), stressing that “Nigeria now has 3 years to go from 1.5 m to 24m. Unlikely in 18 months left.”

Natioonal Broadcasting Commission (NBC), he said, should ensure speedy approval of policy to give certainty and level playing field.

Southwood advised Nigerian government to give priority issues of digital migration by not allowing a single player the opportunity to entrench itself in a dominant position before opening up the market.


“Allow a realistic timetable even if it doesn’t meet the 2015 timetable,” he said.

Chuks Egbuna/GEE/EDops
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