South Africa’s state-owned broadcast signal distributor Sentech, is being threatened with court action over an allegedly flawed encryption system, according to Business Report.

The matter, brought by the Botswana unit of South African broadcaster e.tv, is expected to be heard by South Gauteng High Court in July or August. E.tv Botswana hopes, through the action, to force Sentech to change its current encryption technology to better protect its transmissions from signal pirates.

The South Africa Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) signal, which also includes E.tv and is delivered by Sentech, is reportedly being intercepted and illegally re-broadcast to Lesotho, Namibia, Swaziland, Angola, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi.

Signal piracy is an acknowledged problem across much of Africa; indeed a regional seminar in early June highlighted Zimbabwe as the major offender on the continent.

Mashilo Boloka, director of broadcast policy at the Department of Communications, told delegates that with only 30% of Zimbabweans having adequate access to broadcasting services, 92% of the population received illegal TV signals.

Sentech currently uses Vivid decoders to enable those South Africans who are unable to access terrestrial broadcast signals to watch the SABC1, SABC2, SABC3 and e.tv channels. However, outside South Africa the signals can be allegedly picked up illegally using an inexpensive modified Philabao decoder.

The South African distribution company acknowledges its current conditional access (CA) system has been compromised, and that it has “explored various options to mitigate the risk” of installers importing decoders with bridged software embedded into the set top box.

Nthabeleng Mokitimi, Sentech spokeswoman told Business Report the company is “currently in the process of migrating to a more reliable CA system,” but declined to comment on the reported legal action.

Sentech is listed as the first respondent in the legal challenge, and has indicated it would oppose, according to Business Report. The SABC and the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) are second and third respondents.