Federal Government moves to meet deadline for digital migration

The Federal Executive Council (FEC) at its meeting, yesterday, resolved that it would leave no stones unturned to beat the June 2017 deadline for migration from analogue to digital broadcast mode.

Information and Culture Minister, Lai Mohammed, while briefing State House correspondents after the meeting, said the present administration believed the exercise would put Nigeria in the league of developed countries.

Already, the Ministry, in April this year, deployed some set-up boxes in Jos, Plateau State, as part of its pilot scheme towards digitalisation.

Mohammed confirmed that over N34bn had been earmarked for procurement of digital spectrum necessary for the migration policy.

He explained that the migration policy fell under the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) directive that all countries comply by exiting from analogue to digital broadcast mode on or before June 2017.

Mohammed said the migration was essential to enable Nigerians continue to receive television signals after the deadline.

He cautioned that the country might be cut off from the world, if it failed to meet up with the deadline by next year, adding that the project held the prospect of totally eliminating piracy from the system.

The Minister also said Council members approved a directive that all government agencies involved in the project ‎be made to do follow-up, to ensure success of the initiative.

He said funds for the project were available and contracts had been awarded for the supply of digital set-up boxes at affordable prices to Nigerians.

As part of the new digital migration policy, signal distributors would henceforth be solely responsible for sending out broadcast signals to consumers while broadcast content would be the responsibility of station owners.