South Africa’s department of communications & digital technologies has stepped in with an effort to solve the long-running dispute between public broadcaster SAB and transmission company Sentech. The move has seen the government publish a tender document in an attempt to solve the dilemma between two state-backed entities. “There has been an ongoing tariffs dispute […]

South Africa must totally end analogue TV transmissions by March 31st. The problem is that there are at least 220,000 homes needing new set-top boxes in order to receive digital signals. The obligation for the installation falls on the country’s signal transmission company, the publicly-owned Sentech. It has regularly failed to meet previous ‘switch-off’ dates. […]

Sentech, South Africa’s state-backed TV transmission business, has started its move towards an all-digital broadcasting model. At midnight on July 31st Sentech switched some frequencies to all-digital transmission. The switchover is about 13 years late. The government’s communications minister had set the end of July as the end-date for analogue transmissions across the country. Broadcasters […]

Sentech, South Africa’s broadcast transmission provider of terrestrial signals, is planning to launch a streaming service to rival that of public broadcaster SABC. South Africa’s communications minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni announced the scheme in the country’s parliament and said that Sentech will “soon launch a homegrown OTT platform that will be anchored by Nemisa but which […]

There are a number of complaints coming from public and private broadcasters that Sentech, the provider of TV signals around South Africa, is overcharging and using anti-competitive behaviour. Public broadcaster SABC, itself financially challenged, has argued to the media regulator ICASA that publicly-owned Sentech, as a monopoly, is guilty of excessive pricing. Private broadcaster E-tv’s […]

South Africa’s SABC public broadcaster is in an acrimonious spat with the nation’s transmission company, Sentech. SABC has reportedly written to South Africa’s Competition Commission as well as regulator ICASA alleging that Sentech is levying “unfair and anti-competitive price” for carrying SABC’s transmissions. The move is seen as being a potentially extremely damaging showdown between […]