Users of set top boxes of the pilot switch-over from analogue to digital transmission in Plateau, risk blackout after April 30, according to Alhaji Nazif Mohammed, the Commissioner of Information.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that 420,000 boxes were given out to the public for free use that would last one year, at the onset of the switch-over on April 30, 2016.
Mohammed told newsmen on Monday in Jos that interested users must pay N1,500 access fee or face blackout at the expiration of the one year free service.
“The set top boxes can only work free of charge for one year after which an access fee of N1,500 per year should be paid,” he said.
He said that government provided 200,000 set top boxes free of charge to the people of Plateau, while other people bought the boxes from distributors at a subsidised fee.
“The idea was to give free television services to those who have received or bought the boxes for one year.
“It is almost one year now and we want to inform the general public that by the end of this month, 129 boxes will have total blackout unless they are recharged.
“Such blackout will continue till November 2017 when all free set top boxes will be deactivated if their owners did not pay the access fee.
“Government wishes to alert the general public that when they experience blackout, it wont be because the set top boxes or television sets are bad; it will be because they have not recharged by paying access fee,” he said.
Nazif said that the public would soon be informed of when, where and how to recharge, stating that distributors were still working on the processes of recharging.
The commissioner further explained that those using the set top boxes could establish when theirs would expire by pressing the menu button, and stressed the need for people to know when theirs would go off.
