East African countries risk failing to meet the December deadline for the planned digital migration due to conflicts over signal distribution and weak laws.

The EAC Council of Ministers has warned countries that delaying in passing laws to give the migration legal backing that this could expose them to court battles.

A report by the Council, which met in Bujumbura two weeks ago says that EAC partner states have agreed to scrap import-duty on set-top-boxes (STBs) to lower the cost of digital broadcast migration.

STBs are devices that convert signals from digital television broadcast to a form that can be viewed on a standard television set.

The global deadline for migration to digital TV is 2015, but the EAC member states pushed their deadline forward to December to assess the impact before the global cut-off date.

“Partner states should expedite the process of putting in place legislation for the implementation of digital TV broadcasting, and to monitor technology developments for digital broadcast receivers, with a view to developing receiver specifications that minimise the cost of digital broadcast migration,” the report reads.

The Council also said partner states needed to decide on whether to limit the number of signal distributors, where a public signal distributor is fully funded by the state, or where the government is unable to fund a public signal distributor, open the signal distribution market to competition.

In Uganda, private broadcasters are opposed to the appointment of state backed Uganda Broadcasting Corporation as sole signal distributors, citing its inefficiency.

According to the Council, partner states have so far accomplished a number of policy actions, among them the establishment of national committees to spearhead the digital broadcast migration process, and develop minimum standards for digital receivers and STBs.

Uganda and Burundi are among the countries that lack a legal framework and face infrastructure deficiencies.

While Uganda has a digital migration policy, which has been disputed for allowing only one signal distributor, Burundi is still carrying out a feasibility study to come up with one.

READ: Uganda, Burundi to miss region’s December digital migration deadline

Apart from normal broadcasting and larger content generation, the switch is expected to expand opportunities for digital terrestrial TV, broadcast mobile TV, commercial wireless broadband services, public protection and disaster relief.

The Council also warned that one of the greatest barriers to the success of digital migration would be access to affordable set top boxes.

Last month, Kenya eased the minimum specifications for set-top boxes to allow for importation of cheaper gadgets for converting analog signals to digital format.

ALSO READ: Kenya to beat deadline on digital migration

Previously, the government only allowed the importation of set-top boxes on the Digital Video Broadcast Technology 2 (DVB-T2) that could access both pay and free-to-air channels whether or not the consumer subscribes to pay TV.

The EAC has set up a technical committee on broadcasting, which has proposed that partner states adopt the Unified Licensing Framework (ULF) for digital broadcasting, as recommended by the International Telecommunications Union.