Platco Digital’s managing director, Maxwell Nonge could once not even operate a payphone as an 18-year-old student in Durban.

This experience catalysed Nonge to study electrical engineering, and he would eventually work his way through the ranks of Vodacom, Siemens, Sentech, and now E-tv.

Nonge heads Platco Digital, the division of the E-tv group of companies that will soon be launching free-to-air satellite TV service OpenView HD.

Speaking in an interview with the City Press newspaper, Nonge explained that he has been working on OpenView HD since October 2011.

While heading E-tv’s digital migration plans, Nonge is said to have come up with the concept for OpenView HD. His peers credit him with the idea, but he insists on sharing the credit with the team.

Nonge said the dominance of pay-TV and the flaws of DTT (digital terrestrial television) posed a risk to free-to-air TV operators.

“E-tv wanted to launch HD channels but felt it couldn’t do that on the spectrum allocation it had been given by the regulator,” said Nonge. “People feel like they have to go pay-TV because there is nothing else out there.”

For Nonge, an exciting element of OpenView HD is that children will have access to education and child-friendly content. “If I had these channels when I was at school, I would have done a lot better,” said Nonge.

OpenView HD will offer 16 channels when it launches its first services in October.

Source: MyBroadband (originally via City Press)