There is no turning back to analogue, Tanzania media owners told

Being the first country in the East African region to have switched off the analogue signal, MOAT had earlier this week called for the government to reconsider its decision to switch off the signal, arguing many Tanzanians had been locked out.

MOAT requested the government to run both signals concurrently as is happening in Kenya, to allow those who had not bought the set top boxes more time to acquire them.

“We will have a meeting in the near future where we will discuss this matter but what I can say for now is that we do not intend to go back to analogue,” TCRA’s Director General Prof John Nkoma told Tanzania Daily News in a side interview at a seminar on radiation in Dar es Salaam.

Nkoma’s comments are a repetition of earlier remarks by the Deputy Minister for Science, Communication and Technology, January Makamba, who on Monday said industry players have been discussing the migration for the past six years and that there is no point in going back.

“Our position is that we will keep moving forward. Delaying the migration will make the process more chaotic when the global deadline of 2015 approaches,” Makamba told Tanzania Daily News.

TCRA explained the main problem facing the migration is that only two out of the three multiplex operators licensed in 2010 are operating, something the commission had not expected. This has forced consumers to pay high prices for the decoders available.