Kottler Masoko
Senior Member
- May 28, 2010
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| Ugandans allege Star Times selling fake decoders | Send to a friend |
| Thursday, 27 September 2012 09:37 |
| By Nicholas Kalungi,BusinessWeek Correspondent Kampala. The Uganda Communications Commission has directed Star Times - a pay TV service provider - to immediately withdrawal DVB-T1 set top boxes from the market. UCC issued the order after consumers petitioned the industry regulator to clarify on a recent announcement that approved DVB-T2 set top boxes as the standard technology for the switch from analogue to digital broadcasting. In a petition, the Uganda Consumers Protection Awareness Association, asked UCC to act on Star Times which they accused of advertising and selling DVB-T1 set top boxes yet they had been suspended. Suspend Star Times from operating digital television broadcasting services till such a time when it has upgraded its technology to DVB-T2 in compliance with UCC standards, Mr Mulwani Taminwa the associations chairman said in a statement. Eng Godfrey Mutabazi, the UCC executive director told Daily Monitor on phone that the commission had written to Star Times (September 20) instructing the company to stop the sale of DVB-T1 set top boxes. We sent a letter to Star Times instructing them to stop selling DVB-T1 set top boxes. They must comply and immediately withdraw these set top boxes, Eng Mutabazi said. He added: The standard for digital migration is DVB-T2 and nothing less. We agreed this is the best technology for the market and all service providers must comply. However, Mr Kevin Cehen, the Star Times chief executive officer told The Daily Monitor on Saturday that he had not received any such letter and was just hearing about the order from the media. We have not received any letter from UCC about the matter, Mr Cehen said, adding: The good news though is our DVB-T2 stock will be arriving before the end of this week and we shall replace all customers (Star Times) decoders with DVB-T2 set top boxes at no additional cost. The Daily Monitor could not independently verify whether the letter had been received although Eng Mutabazi insisted UCC had sent the letter, promising to furnish this newspaper with a copy tomorrow (Tuesday). UCCs directive comes exactly four months after it (UCC) announced that Uganda just like other East African member states had adopted DVB-T2 as a standard for the switch from analogue to digital. This means only DVB-T2 set top boxes will operate after the digital switch is implemented. East Africa set December 31, 2012 as the deadline for the digital switch, however, it is highly doubted whether Uganda will hit the deadline. Recently Mr Nyombi Thembo was quoted in this newspaper as saying that if Uganda fails to hit the East African deadline, it would shift its focus to December 2015, the internationally set deadline for the switch. From the sale of 130,000 disputed decoders, Star Times has raised UShs7.8bn (about TSh4.836 billion). |
