The program which is aimed at meeting a full national migration by December 2014 is informed by the International Telecoms Union’s deadline date of June 2015 for worldwide migration onto digital services, to improve both sound and picture quality and allow for some spectrum dividends such as the renewal and granting of licenses for more digital radio and television stations.
Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show, Minister of Communication Haruna Iddrisu said subject to the payment of appropriate fees, all existing television and radio networks will automatically have their licenses renewed provided that they demonstrate to the national regulator that they have the appropriate infrastructure and up to date technology to drive the process.
He said the migration was in the best interest of TV and radio stations in Ghana as it will enhance their sound and picture quality, and make it possible for their clients to access emails via television sets. He said the era of mounting bamboo antenna poles up on roof tops to get TV signals would soon be over when some basic infrastructure such as transmitters will be set up in strategic areas as part of the migration process.
According to Mr. Iddrisu, it is the decision of government that every district capital in Ghana must house an FM station; whether community or commercial and appropriate directives have been given to regional and district coordinating councils to encourage a public-private partnership in meeting the objective.
The minister pointed out that for the entire period of 2009 and 2010, there was a freeze on the granting of television licenses largely because government had put in place a technical committee to advise it on how best to enhance the sector. He said that the committee has issued a roadmap which government will be implementing, with heavy investments.
Hon. Haruna Iddrisu said president Mills expressed concern about whether the process of digital migration of the service will not affect the use of set-up boxes by Ghanaians with respect to cost; a concern which is being given serious attention.
On the status of the electronic governance program which the Communication Ministry had embarked on in 2010, Hon. Haruna Iddrisu said his ministry is still working on it on two levels; the first being the World Bank’s $40 million e-governance project, and secondly the e-Ghana project which is being executed by Xuawei Technologies of China, both aimed at increasing transparency and efficiency in the delivery of public services and public goods.
The minister said the projects are focusing primarily on key public institutions, for example e-immigration (which will shorten the time spent by travellers at airports through automation of the check process and entry points at airports across the country) and e-justice (which will use automated processes to record notes and speed up justice delivery in Ghana).
He cited the heavy investment in infrastructure as a major impediment to the speedy deployment of the automated systems.
He said that about 60% to 80% of the total work has been done so far, with a major milestone achievement so far being the successful de-monopolization of the international gateway with almost all the Telecom companies in Ghana having their own international gateway.
He added that one of the dominant players MTN has joined the West African cable system, meaning that in terms of broadband availability, bandwidth costs are expected to come down.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Sedem Ofori
Quelle/Source: Myjoyonline, 02.02.2011
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