Digital TV only for Mauritius
by RaymondI just read an old article on the website Servihoo where the local national broadcasting station, the MBC, is pushing for the switch to digital TV.
À partir de 2009, tous les foyers mauriciens devront avoir un décodeur pour capter la Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) en numérique. “Les Mauriciens devront obligatoirement avoir un décodeur pour capter ces émissions” …. d’ici 2015 la télévision analogique sera appelée à disparaître dans le monde. Un calendrier a déjà été préparé par l’International Telecommunication Union. Pour l’Afrique, la date arrêtée est de 2011-2012. Mais pour Maurice, précise-t-il, cela se fera dès 2009.
I might be wrong, but the way I understood the article, analogue TV channels are going to be stopped, and the local populace will be forced to fork out to buy a decoder box. Maybe as from next year. 
(Note: digital channels already being offered by MBC for a certain fee)
I support the move to offer digital channels to the Mauritians, and to make them pay for that. After all, those who want better variety of programmes and entertainment are already subscribing to satellite channels, and they have no problem in finding that extra money.
But I am totally against the MBC’s plan to force people to subscribe to their digital channels. We are already imposed a monthly (quarterly? annual?) fee to have to watch real crappy programs (90+% of the contents sucks, no decent local production, the foreign movies are of yesteryears). Now we will have to pay for a decoder box? I don’t care if they say it’s a one-off charge, these things will need to be updated/upgraded constantly, and they can break down. No need to say that we will probably end up disclosing some info about ourselves on registering. They are an additional charge to the low-income families.
If there is no more analogical (sp?) channels, am I allowed NOT to pay the monthly TV fee if I only watch channels from other satellite providers? After all, I won’t be able to WATCH OR RECEIVE MBC if I don’t have the decoder box. Right? So would I still be charged for a service I can’t receive?
Will the people in Mauritius really care about what I just wrote? Probably not. Nowadays we have become really apathetic and just put our hand into our pocket to pay while grumbling about poor or useless services. We are currently paying a TV fee irrespective of whether we do watch the MBC on the charge that our TV sets can receive the broadcasted channels. We will just accept the changes, think the MBC is more crap than ever (because we will hopefully see the programmes more clearly), then get on with our lives. After all, that article is over 6 months old, and nobody said anything meanwhile.
Servihoo article: Here
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