Ghana calls for digital dividend harmonisation in Africa
Ghana's cabinet has approved a policy document and roadmap to complete the country’s digital switchover by 2014.
According to reports in “Modern Ghana online” Haruna Iddrisu, Minister of Communications has said that the government would pursue in earnest, the roll-out of nationwide digital terrestrial television by 2012, adding that the expectation was that the digital switchover would be completed in 2013 ahead of the deadline.
Iddrisu told a three-day workshop on Digital Switchover and Spectrum Harmonisation in Africa organised by Kemilinks International in collaboration with the National Communications Authority (NCA) in Accra that the "digital dividend" afforded many African countries the opportunity to facilitate national development especially in providing leverage in areas as e-health, e-commerce and e-governance. He went on to call on the participants, drawn from 15 African countries including Ghana, to consider practical steps that could be taken to harmonise the use of the digital dividend in the 700MHz band, which had been discussed as part of the Africa common proposals for next year's World Radio Communication Conference in 2012.
Iddrisu also said that the government had directed the NCA to "show its presence" in all the 10 regions of the country to ensure that customers could have any grievances addressed. He said construction of NCA offices would commence in Tamale, Sekondi-Takoradi in December 2011 while work is expected to begin in Volta and Brong Ahafo Regions in 2012.
Source: Telecompaper
Item added: 28th November 2011
Ghana Adopts DVB-T2
The government of Ghana has accepted the recommendations of the Digital Broadcasting Migration Committee to adopt DVB-T2 as the standard for digital terrestrial TV in the country.
The terrestrial stations GTV, TV3, TV Africa, Crystal TV, Metro TV, Viasat1, Net-2 TV, e-TV Ghana, Coastal TV, GhOne, Top TV and all other stations with similar licences will migrate from analogue to digital. The ministry said that it has accepted Advanced Video Coding (AVC)/MPEG-4 (part 10) and High Efficiency Advanced Audio Coding (HE-AAC) as the compression technology standards, with MHEG-5 selected as the Application Programming Interface (API) for additional and interactive services. All vendors and equipment suppliers have been directed to cease importing DTT decoders immediately. The Ministry of Communications is collaborating with other government agencies to ensure that only receivers that conform to the national standard are sold in Ghana.
Source: Telecompaper.com
More on the Ghana News Agency website
Item added: 3rd October 2011
Smart TV Launched in Ghana on DTT
Ghana has become the first African country to have SMART TV, a new digital terrestrial television service. The service was launched by Next Generation Broadcasting (NGB) in collaboration with Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) and a commercial roll-out will take place in the next few weeks.
The service offers both pay-TV service and free-to-air service of existing local stations on the Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) network. SMART TV will initially air in Accra and Kumasi and will be extended to other regions in Ghana in the near future.
Future Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) services in Ghana are based on DVB-T technology and MPEG-4/H.264 video compression.
Smart TV belongs to a Swedish multinational company called Next Generation Broadcasting (NGB) which is partnering Fox International Channel as the only platform to provide Fox Entertainment in Ghana. It starts operations in Ghana with 16 channels including FOX, Showtime, Star, TRACE Tropical, Setanta Africa, BBC News, HiNolly, HomeBase, GOD TV, Kids, NET2, Viasat1, TV3 Ghana, GTV and TV Africa. Smart TV is set to launch in Kenya and Uganda later this year.
Source: GhanaWeb
Item added: 17th May 2010
Ghana to complete Digital Migration by 2013
Ghana plans to complete its migration from analogue to digital TV by 2013 according to Mr. Edmund Yirenkyi Fianko, Secretary of National Digital Broadcasting Migration Technical Committee (NDBMTC). He was speaking at a day's workshop organised by the National Communication Authority (NCA) in Accra on Friday (7th May) to brief the media on progress made by NDBMTC charged to make policy recommendations to government for a smooth and successful transition from analogue to digital transmission. The 24-member committee inaugurated early this year, was mandated to consult widely all stakeholders and monitor performance of other countries within Africa to be able to present credible and practical policy recommendations to realise objectives of digital broadcasting migration in Ghana.
Mr. Fianko said the committee had already started a pilot project and in addition, projected that by 2012 it would have completed covering all regional capitals and their environs. "The regional agreement for digital services has been reached in the frequency bands 174-230 MHz and 470-862 MHz", he added.
Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) launched a pilot DTT Project in Accra in November 2008 with transmissions covering a 15km radius around GBC’s Kanda Premises, which covers Accra and Tema. The pilot is a collaboration of Next Generation Broadcasting (NGB), TV Africa, Net 2 and CNBC Africa. About 300 Set Top Boxes were installed in some Government and private institutions, including pubs, hospitals, salons, private homes and advertising agencies in both Accra and Tema.
NGB Ghana Ltd is a Ghanaian-Swedish (Next Generation Broadcasting AB based in Stockholm, Sweden) joint venture, established in 2006. NGB Ghana Ltd as a service operator is launching a Digital Television Pay TV services in Ghana branded SMART TV. The service will provide both Pay TV and free to air services.
Main source: GhanaWeb
Item added: 17th May 2010
DMTV enlarges Mobile DVB-H TV in Africa
Nokia Siemens Networks is providing mobile television provider DMTV with a state-of-the-art Digital Video Broadcasting Handheld (DVB-H) solution in Ghana, Kenya, Namibia and Nigeria. The system will allow operators across the region to provide an enhanced TV viewing experience on multiple devices, including the latest Nokia phones, according to a recent press release.
Aleksi Toikkanen, Head of Consulting and Systems Integration for DMTV at Nokia Siemens Networks said, “We are glad to support DMTV to be among the first to launch OMA BCast compliant mobile television broadcasts in Africa. With our open standard solution we help DMTV attract new customer groups with a state of the art Mobile TV service. We are excited with the prospect of DMTV becoming the largest DVB-H broadcaster in the continent. Knowing the specific market in Africa we foresee huge growth potential in connecting people via mobile television and the Internet.”
Source: Nokia Siemens Networks Press release
Item added: 6th July 2009
The information provided on these pages comes from many sources and while DVB believe it to be correct we cannot guarantee its accuracy.
If you have more up to date information or corrections please send them to dvb@dvb.org
Last page update: 28th November 2011, Barry Tew
