Magic Box casts ‘black magic’ on MultiChoice

BUSINESS

By John Churu, Gaborone, Botswana

MultiChoice Botswana is currently faced with a sticky quagmire in which unscrupulous persons continue to use a decoder called Magic Box to illegally access DStv channels licensed to the organisation. In a media statement, the Botswana MultiChoice manager Billy Sekgororoane could not deny or statements that some people were tempering with transmission at MultiChoice.

Sources say Magic Box is a free to air satellite decoder that first surfaced in the country in 2011."There might still be another unidentified similar operation in or outside the country that supports similar devices," he explained.  

A lot of people allegedly are still able to watch MultiChoice channels through the Magic Box. This comes after the recent announcement by MultiChoice that it has managed to successfully interrupt signals used by the illegal operation, which allowed people to view DStv channels without paying the monthly subscription fee that Multi Choice charges for the service.

The MultiChoice boss said he was sure that the pirate operations they raided are off air. Botswana was the hub of the operations. Initially the company thought the illegal operations were coming out of the country only to realise that they were an ‘inside job’. He further revealed that the equipment used by the arrested operation has been confiscated.

He said the raided operation was using smartcard sharing control for world redistribution via both the Internet and satellite. In the meantime, MultiChoice is looking forward to the prosecution of the culprits since it has lost a lot of revenue as a result of this piracy.