Page 68 - 40th Summit Brochure 2020

Digital Terrestrial Television Migration • Phase 2: Wholesale and Retail Price Cap
Six Member States have completed the tran- Regulation: Roam Like At Home; and
sition from analogue to Digital Terrestrial • Phase 3:Cost-based Roaming Price Reg-
Television (DTT) -- Eswatini, Malawi, Mau- ulation.
ritius, Namibia, Tanzania and Zambia. T ere are 10 Member States implement-
Seven others are at an advanced stage, op- ing the SADC Roaming Project. Phases 1 and
erating both analogue and DTT networks 2 have been completed. To implement Phase
(dual illumination) and are to pursue Ana- 3, the SADC Roaming Cost Model was devel-
logue Switch Of (ASO) by the end of 2020 oped, which is a generic costing model to es-
-- Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozam- tablish the actual wholesale costs incurred by
bique, Seychelles, South Africa, and Zim- the visiting Mobile Network Operators
babwe. T e remaining three Member States (MNOs) within the SADC Community for
have deployed DTT networks but these are purposes of estimating the true retail tarif s
privately owned and provide Pay-TV serv- cost of roaming services within the region.
ices, mostly in the densely populated city T e cost model determines both
areas. Availability of Set Top Boxes (STBs) wholesale and retail tarif ceilings for
for reception of DTT transmission is a various roaming types of calls and
major challenge. services. Ministers responsible for ICT
Eight Member States (Eswatini, Malawi, approved these ceilings during their
Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanza- 2019 meeting. T e journey towards
nia, Zambia and Zimbabwe) are streaming the cost-based roaming tarif s will be
their national public TV channels via the In- made in two phases from 2019 to 2025.
ternet while four (Namibia, South Africa, T e critical policy and regulatory re-
Tanzania and Zimbabwe) have mobile appli- quirement will be for Member States to
cations to access their public TV channels. review their appropriate regulations to
Angola and Botswana are piloting broadcast- allow for harmonisation of international ter-
ing TV content directly to mobile devices mination rates in the region.
using 1Seg capability of their DTT networks.
T e SADC TV Channel is an initiative 65
anchored on the Revised SADC Communi- METEOROLOGY SECTOR
cations and Promotional Strategy 2016-2020.
Its pilot phase involves sharing and playout Weather and Climate Services
using an online Content Sharing Hub. T e The primary objective is to ensure
programme name is Eye on SADC and is timely and credible meteorological
presently a 30-minute current news pro- and climate information and prod-
gramme until it becomes a full-f edged chan- ucts are disseminated to stakehold-
nel. A successful demonstration of the SADC ers to support planning for
TV Channel was made to the SADC ICT socio-economic development,
Ministers at their meeting in September 2018 weather-related disaster risk man-
in Windhoek, Namibia. Ten Member States agement and the rational use, con-
(Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, servation and protection of natural
Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, resources. The interventions are to
Zambia and Zimbabwe) are broadcasting the improve the meteorological infra-
Eye on SADC programme. T e language is structure that are fully integrated, effi-
English but the plan is to carry subtitles in cient, and cost-effective to meet the
other SADC of cial languages which can be requirements of the users, and to min-
accessed using the DTT technology through imise adverse effects of severe weather and
STBs. climate phenomena by the uptake of
weather and climate information services
Pricing of Roaming Services for development planning. In this regard,
The SADC Roaming Project, whose major the SADC Secretariat, through its Climate
aim is to facilitate transparency and af- Services Centre, is implementing the conti-
fordable roaming voice, data and SMS nent-wide Satellite and Weather Information
services, is being implemented in three for Disaster Resilience in Africa (SAWIDRA)
phases: project in the SADC region under the name
• Phase 1: Liberalisation and Transparency Southern African Regional Climate Services
of Roaming Tarif s, Information and for Disaster Resilience (SARCIS-DR) Project,
Data Collection; funded by the African Development Bank