NBC celebrates DTT milestone
Minister of Information and Communication Technology: Tjekero Tweya, Albertus Aochamub, Director General, NBC and Sven Thieme, Chairman, NBC at the official Analogue Switch Off (ASO) on 17 June. (Photograph by Mandisa Rasmeni).
This was the date agreed by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) members in 2006 as the analogue switch off date and the target set for SADC was 67% of which NBC achieved 70%, one of the three counties in the region to reach this milestone.
Albertus Aochamub, Director General, NBC said that they managed to carry out the digitalisation without seeking additional funds from the Treasury, as they made use of funds allocated to them in the budget from infrastructure development. “With the NBC decoder, viewers are also able to pick up FM radio signals, which means that radio broadcast services that could only be picked up in a specific geographic location, can now be picked up nationally,” stated Aochamub.
Tjekero Tweya, Minister of Information and Communication Technology, thanked the men and women who worked tirelessly to make all this possible. “I am reliably informed that the NBC’s technical team performed their routine and daily functions of maintaining the existing network whilst managing to roll out round the clock and with minimal holidays,” he said. He also announced the many channels that are now on NBC and told of how they are populated with Namibian stories. “We know this will cost money and require careful planning,” he concluded.
Mr Sven Thieme, Chairman, NBC said that during the Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) campaigns they worked closely with regional councillors, governors and local authorities who rendered them with great support. “I want to say thank you all for making this Digital Migration a success,” he concluded.
NBC currently has seven channels on their DTT bouquet with more channels to follow. At present three channels are locally and internally produced by NBC, inclusive of NBC1, NBC2 and NBC3. The remaining two are also locally owned, one is a music channel named THISTV whilst the other, EDTV, is an educational channel.
