Two Years Down the Line Households Still Unable to Access Digital Television Broadcast

More than 1.5 million homes cannot access digital television two years after the Communications Authority of Kenya switched off analogue television broadcast in Kenya. This comes about as a result of the high cost related to the set to boxes required for digital broadcasting which most of these households are not in a position to afford.

According to a report released by GSM Association, out of the total 4.5 million households in the country that own television sets, only 3 million have acquired the gadgets that can convert digital signals for viewing on ordinary television sets, adding that while Kenya has had success in the switch over from analogue to digital broadcast platforms, the cost of set top boxes has locked out a big number of families from accessing TV services.

“By June 2016, the number of end-user decoders had increased to approximately three million, with an added 3.12 million STBs having been imported to Kenya,” said GSMA.

Locally, the decoders are priced at about Sh3,000, having declined by a substantial margin from the retail rates of between Sh10,000 and Sh15,000 in 2010 when the migration agenda was still at its fledgling stages. The decline in prices followed a move by the Government to forego revenue when it reduced taxes and regulatory fees in a bid to make digital TV receivers affordable.

“Although the STBs can be considered low-cost devices, low wages can still place them out of reach for many consumers,” noted GSMA.

“The high cost of STBs was an issue not only in the East African region, but also in many Western digital TV migrations, including in the United States. The problem is more pronounced in the East African region because funding constraints did not allow for subsidies.” Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) is currently considering using money from Universal Service Fund to lower costs of set top boxes (STBs). USF is a kitty where all CA licensees contribute a fraction of their revenues and used by the regulator to bridge the digital divide.

CA also plans to use money from the fund to increase coverage of the digital signal in remote areas, which currently covers 60 per cent of the Kenyan population. To date, Kenya is one of the seven -of the 54 African countries that signed the ITU agreement in Geneva to migrate to digital broadcast platforms by mid-2015- countries that have completed the analogue switch off. The migration process freed up resources that are currently being reassigned and are expected to help deepen mobile broadband in the country. The telcos have been issued with licences are currently at different stages of deploying 4G networks services using resources that were freed up by the migration.

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