By; JACOB ONJEWU DICKSON
The Digital Switch Over (DSO) process which is taking place in phases in Nigeria is the country’s second digital revolution.
Kaduna State Governor, Malam Nasir el-Rufai expressed thus during the launch of the DSO in Kaduna on Friday.
El-Rufai said he was optimistic that it would be a success, owing to the fact that Nigerians yearn for things that will transform their lives.
He said that the first digital revolution was the successful introduction of the GSM, which market watchers predicted a slow growth.
“When we launched the GSM, they predicted that it would attract about two million users after two years, but were proved wrong when over six million sim users were recorded after just six months,” he said.
The governor said that he was optimistic that the same history would repeat itself in the DSO.
Speaking further, he said the DSO will further boost the diversification of Kaduna economy, as it woukd be used in reaching out to farmers in rural communities.
He said he was happy that residents in the southern part of the state who only rely on television signals from neighbouring Plateau and Nasarawa states can now watch programmes from the state courtesy of the DSO.
While fielding questions from newsmen after the ceremonial launch held at the premises of Pinnacle Communications, the Director General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Malam Ishaq Modibbo Kawu said that Nigeria is a large market of a population of about 190 million.
“With our population, we would be needing almost 40 million set up boxes, when considering it in terns of a television family of six,” he said.
The Minister of Information, Culture and Tourism, Alhaji Lai Mohammed said that the rollout in Kaduna coming two days after that of
Kwara State, has confirmed that the transition from analogue to digital television is now back on track.Until the digital television rollout resumed with the Kwara launch on Wednesday, the last DSO launch was in Abuja in December 2016, but the
Minister said the rollout will now continue apace.
”Within the next few weeks, we will be rolling out in many more states as we seek to take the digital television experience to all the six geo-political zones. We now have our two Signal Distributors in full operation mode, our aggregation platform for channels, FreeTV, is fast becoming a household name, our Set-Top-Box suppliers have started local production and we now have almost a million boxes supplied into the value chain,” he said.
Kwara State, has confirmed that the transition from analogue to digital television is now back on track.Until the digital television rollout resumed with the Kwara launch on Wednesday, the last DSO launch was in Abuja in December 2016, but the
Minister said the rollout will now continue apace.
”Within the next few weeks, we will be rolling out in many more states as we seek to take the digital television experience to all the six geo-political zones. We now have our two Signal Distributors in full operation mode, our aggregation platform for channels, FreeTV, is fast becoming a household name, our Set-Top-Box suppliers have started local production and we now have almost a million boxes supplied into the value chain,” he said.