The Director General, National Broadcasting Commission
(NBC), Emeka Mba, has announced a Home Assistance Scheme which is aimed at
enabling Nigerians realize the digital switchover, ITRealms reports.
He stated that government would bear part of the cost of
the Set Top Boxes in order to protect Nigerians from cut-throat prices, even as
the scheme would also address the concerns of the investors who have pumped in
huge amount of money into the project of manufacturing the boxes. He assured
Nigerians that the boxes when produced would not cost more than N1500.
Mba was speaking at the official signing of partnership
agreement between Media Concepts International Limited (NBC licensed Set Top
Box manufacturers) and KAON Media, South Korea (MCI chosen OEM partner) with
National Broadcasting Commission, Tuesday in Lagos.
The NBC boss thanked both MCI and KAON for being part of
the digital migration process, stressing that Nigeria offers a huge market and
with Digital switchover the entire value chain in Broadcasting will change,
switching from analogue to digital, adding that beyond being able to watch
television with the set top box it can give you internet services thereby
shutting the digital divide in the country.
He also thanked the indigenous investors like MCI who are
investing in this project, adding that there
will be massive job creation as a result
of the project bearing in mind that the manufacturing of the boxes will be done
in Nigeria.
The DG who said the digital migration project include set
top boxes, signal distribution and content, said the 2017 switchover date is
sacrosanct not closing the door for other possibilities because according to
him “we are switching off people and government would like to carry everybody
along.” He warned those who may wish to embark on brisk businesses by bringing
boxes from outside to kill the dream. He said there are 13 NBC certified
companies for the boxes and any other
set top boxes from other sources will not work in Nigeria.
He also stated that there is budget that have been mapped
out to tackle e-waste resulting from the disused televisions and set top boxes because
all electronic devices have life span. He said because many analogue television
sets will be affected there will be locations for dumping so that appropriate authorities
could collect them for disposal.
Cyriacus Nnaji/GEE
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