A digital television antenna.
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

[Via Satellite 09-05-13] Frequency coordination negotiations have succeeded in setting up the mechanism to deploy digital television in 47 Sub-Saharan African countries. The consolidation of national plans to implement the digital switchover in the African region is in line with the deadlines of June 2015 for UHF and June 2020 for VHF in 33 countries. The deadlines were set in 2006 by ITU’s Regional Radiocommunication Conference (RRC 06), which adopted the GE06 TV Plan.

As a result of this milestone, Africa is positioned to be the first region to allocate bandwidth freed up by the transition to digital television – the digital dividend – to the mobile service for both the 700 MHz and 800 MHz bands. Decisions of the World Radiocommunication Conference 2012 (WRC 12) to facilitate availability of the digital dividend to the mobile service will be effective with some technical refinements immediately after the next World Radiocommunication Conference in 2015 (WRC 15).