Communications minister Faith Muthambi said in a statement early on Wednesday morning that government has decided to abandon South Africa’s digital migration project.

This follows years of wrangling over the switchover from analogue to digital television. South Africa agreed to the process with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in 2006.

The shock move, which has caught the broadcasting and telecommunications industries off guard, would save government billions of rand that otherwise would have been spent on subsidising set-top boxes.

South Africa would become the first country in the world to abandon the move to digital television.

“Seeing that none of our neighbouring countries has switched over to digital television, we have taken a decision to ignore the 17 June 2015 ITU deadline and remain with analogue television for the foreseeable future,” Muthambi said. “The government will save billions that can be used in better ways, like funding the SABC.”

She said the decision also neatly fixes the ongoing war between broadcasters over whether government-subsidised set-top boxes would contain encryption. “This solves the debate — there won’t be any set-top boxes and so there is no need for encryption.”

Most neighbouring countries have yet to complete the digital migration process and will not be in a position to interfere with South Africa’s analogue signal, she said.

Telecoms operators, which had wanted access to the “digital dividend” broadcasters would have freed up by moving to digital technology, have expressed outrage at government’s decision, saying they would now have to repurpose more of their existing spectrum allocations for data at the expense of voice services and cancel investments in new infrastructure.

“We may even have to switch off our 3G and 4G networks altogether and revert solely to offering GPRS and Edge data connectivity because of this,” a source at one of the companies complained.

In a phone interview with TechCentral on 1 April, Muthambi warned mobile operators against using spectrum that has not been allocated to them. “They have enough spectrum,” she said. “They must just use it better than they are.”

She reiterated that government would not back down from its decision.

“The poor just want TV and don’t care whether it’s digital or analogue,” she said. “They just want to watch Generations, Muvhango, Isidingo and the SABC news. They don’t need digital for that.”

Government’s shock move has also been greeted with dismay by set-top box manufacturers, which had been hoping a tender to produce more than 5m boxes for poorer households would have helped kick-start the local electronics manufacturing sector.