The Ministry of the Interior (MININT) and the Ministry of Telecommunications, Information Technologies and Social Communications (MINTTICS) have created a joint team to map and locate operators involved in piracy on cable and satellite television networks.
The initiative was discussed on Wednesday, February 12, during a meeting between the Minister of the Interior, Manuel Homem, and the Minister of Telecommunications, Mário Oliveira. The aim is to strengthen the fight against piracy and ensure the protection of the rights of licensed operators.
Piracy has caused the loss of approximately 200 pay TV customers in Angola in recent times.
Angola has more than 200 “ghost customers” who illegally use the cable television signal, which is provided clandestinely, said the Minister of Telecommunications, Information Technologies and Social Communication, announcing that the ministry he oversees and the Ministry of the Interior are preparing to map the “pirate” operators.
“There is a great need for us to approach operators who are not regularly established and who use the infrastructures of regular operators, so that we can then find a regularisation mechanism”, said the minister, quoted by Angop, stating that this situation represents a great loss for the State.
The head of the telecommunications portfolio said that a team from MINTTICS and the Ministry of the Interior had been created to map out clandestine operators, calling on them to regularise their situation with official operators and the Angolan Institute of Communications (INACOM), so that they can “move from clandestinity to formality”.
Regarding vandalism of infrastructures, such as the theft of cables or amplifiers and signal distribution boxes, Mário de Oliveira announced that there will be differentiated treatment, “with an exclusively police component”.
Illegal broadcasts, carried out through clandestine decoding devices and unlicensed IPTV services, allow consumers to access paid content without proper authorization. This scenario not only reduces the subscriber base of legal companies, but also impacts tax collection and job creation in the sector.
