Niger discusses collaboration with Nigeria on digital switch over

Monday, June 12th, 2017
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Niger Republic seeks collaboration with the Nigerian Government on digital switch over (DSO)

The Director General, National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) Mall. Is’haq Modibbo Kawu and the Hon. Minister for Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, today 12th June, 2017, received the Minister of Communications, Niger Republic, Mrs. Abdoulaye Sani Koubra.

Welcoming the Nigerien Minister, the Hon. Minister for Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, gave an overview of the DSO in Nigeria, he said two Signal Distributors have been licensed – Integrated Television Services Limited from the Transmission Infrastructure of the government-owned NTA and the privately-owned Pinnacle Communications Ltd; that 13 companies have been licensed to manufacture STBs; that a company, INVIEW Ltd, has been contracted to make available a Conditional Access System software for the boxes or decoders while another company, CCNL, is the Signal Aggregator.

Alhaji Lai Mohammed, noted that “Because of digitization, we now have opportunity for many more channels of programming. When all the technology is in place what are you going to feed your public through all these available channels? The easiest way to colonize the minds of our people is via the Mass Media. If we do not seriously address the issue of Compelling Indigenous Content, we will be exposing our population to further colonization”

The Minister of Communication of Niger, Mrs. Abdoulaye Sani Koubra while congratulating Nigeria on the progress so far made on the DSO in Nigeria, said she was in Nigeria to learn how the country has made so much progress in its DSO project, noting that Nigeria is way ahead of other countries in Africa in the analogue-to-digital transition in television broadcasting.

The Minister’s visit ended with a facility tour to Pinnacle Monitoring center, Asokoro and its transmission site at Mpape hills as well as NTA- Startimes Digital TV Center at NTA headquarters, Area 11, Garki, Abuja.

Nigeria and other ECOWAS Member Countries have agreed to adopt a Common Minimum Standard for Set-Top-Boxes in the Sub-Region, meaning that STBs manufactured in Nigeria can also be available for use in all the ECOWAS Countries.