For the sake of policy clarity, the Director General of National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Mallam Is’haq Modibbo Kawu has explained circumstances that will warrant deployment of DTH boxes in the ongoing drive to deliver Digital Switch Over (DSO) to Nigeria.
Giving the explanation at a recent stakeholders’ meeting with indigenous manufacturers of Set Top Boxes (STBs) in Abuja, Kawu noted that “There are stories making the rounds, that some stakeholders are advocating and are even surreptitiously planning a DTH option”.
NBC averred that “We want to make it clear, that the NBC and Digiteam Nigeria, are the bodies that take the decision in respect of authorizations for the technical parameters for the DSO process, including the STBs”.
“The main platform of conveyance of the DSO remains the DTT boxes; DTH boxes are to be used as gap-fillers in areas where topography makes it near impossible to deploy DTT boxes. All stakeholders are aware that it is the standard international practice; and it is the route that we have also chosen in Nigeria.
Kawu therefore implored the STB producers to “please walk the straight and narrow path that we have chosen for the Nigerian process. Let us not be seen to be allowing a desperate desire for short-term gains, to derail a long-term national process. Our idea is to drive the DTT proposition with local transmission as a key component factor”.
NBC used the stakeholder’s forum to broker partnership discussion with the Bank of Industry (BoI) who was on ground to brief the STB manufacturers how best to access facilities at the bank so as to deepen their manufacturing capacities over time.
