Cameroon finally toggles to TNT after a month's delay

After a month's delay in the switch to digital television, households in Yaoundé and Douala have received 12 channels for free via digital signal since Tuesday, July 14, 2015.

The package include 8 local channels; CRTV, Canal 2 International, STV, Equinoxe TV, Vision 4, LTM, DBS, Camnews 24 and 4 foreign channels; BBC World News, TV5 Monde Africa, France 24, Tiji.

This was disclosed by the Minister of Communication, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, who also acts as the vice-chairman of the national Steering Committee of the migration from analogue to digital.

The deadline for this transition was set on June 17, 2015 by the International Union of telecommunications (ITU). To justify the delay, the Cameroonian Government had mentioned concerns over the clearance of the equipment at its main port, the port of Douala.

Households equipped with poles appropriate with TNT integrated and equipped with a simple indoor antenna can now receive variety of channels broadcast in digital mode for. Viewers with no such equipment must have a decoder; tool that will receive and convert the digital signal into analog signal.

Digital broadcasting is carried out from the infrastructure of the public broadcasting corporation, CRTV, chosen by the Cameroonian Government. This changeover to DTT will be gradual and progressive said the Ministry of Communication. Yaoundé and Douala as well as their surrounding localities were selected for testing, and then followed Bamenda and Garoua with their devices. The rest of Cameroon will be covered gradually.

Digital terrestrial television (DTT) is a technical evolution of television based on the distribution of digital television signals by a network of terrestrial radio transmitters. Compared to analogue terrestrial television, digital terrestrial television reduces the use of the electromagnetic spectrum through the use of more efficient modulations, to obtain a better image quality