With much of Europe already on the road to switching off analogue television broadcasts in favour of digital, countries in the region are already actively looking to auction spectrum in the so-called “digital dividend” spectrum band.

The digital dividend is spectrum that will be freed up when broadcasters migrate to digital. SA has finally started the process of digital migration, with analogue TV slated to be switched off by December 2013.

Ross Bateson, the government affairs specialist at the GSM Association, an industry body, saysSA could learn much from the way Europe is planning its assignment of the dividend.

SA broadcasters and telecommunications companies are vying for the spectrum, hoping either to increase broadband connectivity or provide a wider range of television services.

Bateson says the European scenario has been a long haul, with France taking almost four years to figure out how to assign the spectrum, even after the digital coverage had reached 95% of that country’s population.

“It has been a tough grind in Europe, although we have now just about got it right,” he says.

Over the next two years, spectrum auctions for access to the digital dividend will occur in France, Netherlands, Italy, Spain and the UK. “We fully expect to see all of Europe switched to digital, with spectrum on auction, by 2013. Only the countries surrounding Russia are going to take up to 2015,” he says.

In the past two days, the Independent Communications Authority of SA has held a workshop allowing companies and government entities to express how they feel the digital dividend should be assigned.

Bateson says to make sure that everyone is accommodated in the space, the spectrum needs to be harmonised, a process which could see Neotel moved out of the band it is currently in, or it could be given a larger block of spectrum in the same band.

What Bateson says is the most important part of migration and assignment of the digital dividend is that the regulator must start at the bottom of the band (470MHz) and work its way up until it is effectively assigned.

“The economic value of some of the digital dividend being assigned to mobile operators for broadband networks has been defined. What Icasa now needs to decide is how much of the dividend should be given to operators and how much should be given to broadcasters,” he says. — Candice Jones, TechCentral