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By Umoru Abubakar
In 2015, when Chinese President Xi Jinping attended the Johannesburg Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, he announced that China would help implement satellite TV programs for 10 thousand African villages. The project, known as “Access to Satellite TV for 10,000 African Villages”, has been undertaken by StarTimes, the leading digital-TV operator in Africa. There shall be 10,112 rural villages of 23 African countries benefiting from the project. Each village is aided with two StarTimes Projector TVs, one 32 inch Digital TV set, and 20 DTH decoders with satellite dishes. Projector TVs and Digital TV set are equipped with solar power systems and DTH access units. The Projector TVs and Digital TVs set are available in the public area of the village, like school or youth development committee, which allows all villagers to enjoy the wonderful digital TV programs of 20 channels including the national station, local channels and international channels.
The “Access to Satellite TV for 10,000 African Villages” project has established a wide coverage of programme signals, a secure and reliable infrastructure network and a comprehensive operating system, enabling people in remote areas to have stable and long-term access to the world’s information, thus bridging the digital divide between urban and rural areas in Africa.
