Digital InfrastructureImplementedQuick WinCommunications and Digital Technologies

Digital TV Migration and Analogue Switch-Off

Theme: Spectrum digital infrastructure

First raisedNov 2024Last discussedDec 2024Dormant — not discussed in 12+ months2 meetings on the record ↓

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Assessment

Growth Impact4/5

Feasibility4/5

Responsible: SENTECH / Department of Communications and Digital Technologies

Feasibility Assessment

Medium: the disputes that stalled this since 2011 — procurement, the encoding-policy impasse, set-top box subsidy design — are settled, and DVB-T2 distribution through SENTECH is operational, but switch-off has been achieved regionally rather than nationally, so the implemented status flag runs ahead of the record. What remains is a household logistics problem rather than a broadcasting-policy one: 3.5–5 million qualifying low-income households still require subsidised STBs, and switching off analogue signal before they are installed strands SABC and e.tv viewers. Because the 694–862 MHz digital dividend cannot be released until ASO completes, the follow-on spectrum auction is gated on that subsidy rollout.

Description

South Africa's transition from analogue to digital terrestrial television (DTT) using the DVB-T2 standard is among the most persistently delayed policy deliverables in post-apartheid infrastructure history — originally planned for 2011, it has been deferred multiple times due to procurement disputes, an encoding policy impasse, and contested set-top box (STB) subsidies. The analogue switch-off (ASO) matters beyond broadcasting: completing it frees the "digital dividend" spectrum in the 694-862 MHz range, low-band frequencies essential for affordable rural mobile broadband and central to 5G coverage economics. SENTECH manages DTT signal distribution; the SABC and e.tv are the primary transitioning broadcasters. An estimated 3.5-5 million qualifying low-income households require state-subsidised STBs. A 2023 settlement resolved the encoding policy dispute. As of early 2026, the ASO has been completed in some regions but not nationally.

OECD

Referenced in OECD Economic Surveys: South Africa

OECD SA Survey (2020). Land reform acceleration recommended in the 2020 survey.

International Comparisons

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🇰🇷South Korea1999

South Korea achieved 99% household broadband penetration by 2003 through the Cyber Korea 21 plan: government subsidised last-mile fibre rollout in rural areas, mandated open-access unbundling so ISPs competed on the state-owned KT network, and provided computers to 10 million low-income households. Broadband penetration drove the gaming and e-commerce export industries. SA's broadband penetration remains below 60%; Telkom's legacy infrastructure, like Korea's pre-reform KT, creates bottlenecks that open-access unbundling could resolve.

Approach

Cyber Korea 21 combined supply and demand measures deliberately. The state financed backbone capacity and lent to carriers at concessional rates for last-mile build in areas that would not pay commercially, while mandating unbundled access to the incumbent's local loop so competing ISPs could sell over infrastructure they did not own. On the demand side it ran mass computer-literacy campaigns and subsidised equipment for low-income households, and the regulator published comparative service-quality ratings to make the competition legible to consumers.

Timeline: Programme launched 1999; near-universal household broadband within about four years

Lessons for South Africa

The case for finishing the analogue switch-off is the demand side of Korea's argument: the 694–862 MHz digital dividend is the band that makes rural coverage affordable, and every year it stays occupied by analogue transmission is a year rural broadband economics stay broken. Korea also shows what the set-top box subsidy is for — a device subsidy to low-income households is the cheap part of a connectivity programme and the part that determines whether released capacity has anyone to serve. The unbundling lesson applies to the other half: releasing dividend spectrum to incumbents without access obligations reproduces the bottleneck rather than clearing it.

Parliamentary record

2 meetings

Committee sittings this reform was drawn from, most recent first. Each row opens the meeting on this site; the PMG link goes to the source record.

Status History

tracked since Mar 2026

Recorded as Implemented when status tracking began — held since at least Mar 2026.
Mar 2026

Data as of 2026-08-24 · latest PMG meeting 2026-08-21