31 March 2018 is the deadline to register for subsidised Set Top Boxes (STB’s)

31 March 2018 is the deadline to register for subsidised Set Top Boxes (STB’s)
 
The Department of Communications (DoC) has announced the  31 March 2018 as the deadline for registration to receive government-subsidised STB’s or decoders in North West and Free State provinces. This comes as the DoC forges ahead to meet the new official switch-off of analogue signal to digital in June 2019.
 
Families earning below the threshold of R3200 qualify to receive the government-subsidised decoders. Qualifying households in the Free State and North West Provinces are therefore encouraged to register at their nearest Post Offices before the deadline of the  31 of March 2018.Households that fail to register and receive these decoders before the deadline will lose access to television services as from June 2019.
 
Government has since last year been distributing free STB’s to those families that cannot afford commercial devices. Television viewing households who subscribe to pay-tv channels will face no signal disruptions as these services are already in the digital decoders that they have.
 
The DoC also encourages households that fall outside the qualifying criteria to get digitally-enabled TV sets. When buying a new TV set, to ensure that it has a digital tuner.
 
Officials from the Department of Communications are currently visiting various municipality districts in the North West and Free State  province to register and install government subsidised decoders to qualifying households. This move is aimed at accelerating the installation of decoders with view of completing the installations to qualifying households in both province.
SABC Corporate Communications