Kenya ICT boss backs UCC on digital migration

By Billy Rwothungeyo                                                        

KAMPALA - Dr Fred Matiang'i, Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary of the Ministry of ICT has backed Ugandan authorities on the digital migration process.

“We have completed migration in Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda, the worry has been, if Uganda does not migrate from analogue to digital broadcasting soon enough, you will not have TV because the spectrum will not be available,” he said while addressing a press conference at the Kampala Serena Hotel.

The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) recently switched off analogue signals in Kampala and surrounding districts as the June 17, 2015 International Telecommunications Union (ITU) dawned on Ugandans.

As many have been hurrying to buy set-top boxes that are compliant, some spectators have slammed UCC for apparent ill-preparation ahead of the switch.

“We have to be candid with our people and say this, we signed up to Geneva 2006, and the world deadline was June 17th. It is good for all of us.”

The cabinet secretary, an equivalent of a cabinet minister in Uganda, accused broadcasters of sabotaging efforts to migrate from analogue to digital migration.

 “In certain cases, public broadcasters who have dominated the analogue broadcasting space have had it so good, for so few for so long.”

Mutabazi, who flanked the cabinet secretary, slammed people who were intimating that the whole digital migration process was illegal.

“When we changed from Short Wave to FM, was that illegal? How different is this from analogue to digital?” he said.

 “We plan the spectrum together as a region. The frequencies we have planned as region are taken to Geneva to the International Frequency Registration Board.”