Nairobi and its environs will have an all digital TV platform by the end of this year. Speaking at the launch of new digital TV provider StarTimes, Communications Commission of Kenya acting director Francis Wangusi said plans were under way to fully digitalize the TV signal and Nairobi will no longer use analogue signal by December.

"We have agreed in principle that Nairobi will be the first place to switch off analogue TV signal which we hope to have completely implemented by the end of the year but we will communicate the exact timeline." Wangusi said adding that the exercise will be implemented in phases, starting with Nairobi and Mombasa.

"Phased implementation of the migration will help us address mistakes that could arise more affordably than it would happen if we carried out a nationwide implementation." Wangusi said.

Acquisition of the CCK recommended DVB-T2 set box decoders is also a major challenge for most Kenyans and this has also contributed to the postponing of the exercise. The estimated cost of migrating from analogue to digital is so high that close to 16million Kenyan households with analogue TV sets could be left out due to the cost of migration.

A set-top box costs between Sh 4,000 and Sh10,000 while a TV set with in-built digital signal convertors retails  between Sh250,000 and Sh300,000.