Abstract
South Africa is in the process of implementing terrestrial Digital Sound Broadcasting (DSB), as stated in the Policy Direction published by the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies of South Africa. This research is focused on formulating a conceptual framework for rolling out DSB. This was done by literature review and doing a case study of four countries (Norway, Germany, UK and Australia) that have successfully implemented DSB. Their terrestrial DSB technology choice, policy and regulations, network roll-out process, market and trends were analysed to determine components that contributed to their success in the implementation of DSB and their challenges were considered as lessons learnt. Norway, Germany and UK were chosen as case studies, because they are countries in the International Telecommunications Union’s (ITU)’s Region 1, as South Africa is also in the same region [1]. The spectrum band plans of Region 1 are similar, to allow for frequency spectrum harmonization and to benefit from the economies of scale for the infrastructure required for setting up a DSB network. Australia is in Region 3 according to the ITU region classification but it also considered because it has similar DSB frequency allocations as the countries in Region1 [1]. In terms of the national radio frequency plan, South Africa is bound to follow the ITU frequency plans, as it is part of the ITU Regional Radio-communication Conference 2006 agreement (RRC-06). The outcomes of this research revealed the important sequence of events that must take place that leads to a successful plan of rolling out DSB, in a conceptual framework. It starts with setting a vision and clear target dates of when it must be implemented, followed by setting the Policy & Framework regulation for successful implementation. This is done to set an enabling environment for DSB implementation.
M. Phil, (Engineering Management)