The National Broadcasting Commission has said that the Federal Government would release N30 billion to boost the process of Digital Switch Over in the country. The Director-General of the NBC, Ishaq Kawu, told newsmen in Lagos on Friday that the money would be released in two batches of N15 billion each.
Kawu said that the money would be repaid from resources that would be realised from the list of frequencies to be auctioned. He said that the commission had concluded the digital mapping of the country, to ensure effective DSO rollout. According to him, NBC now has a plan for all the points and locations it is going to have digital transmission facilities in the entire country.
“It is very important because if you look at the demography of Nigeria, the majority of Nigerians for the first time in history now live in the urban areas. “And so, what we have decided to do is to look at taking digital broadcasting to all those major population centres. “In the past, we started with the regional roll-out, so we choose a state by geopolitical zone, but with a little mapping process we now have all the major population centres. “So over the next 15 to 25 months, the possibilities are that we are going to be rolling out in these major centres. “More significantly, we are working on the possibility of bringing the original plan that we had and then go to launch in Lagos, Kano and Port-Harcourt.
“So this is a major development,” he added. Kuwa said that the NBC had been in discussion with a company from South Korea concerning the Set Top Boxes since the past three months. (NAN)
