The management of Nigerian Communications Satellite (NIGCOMSAT Limited) has formalised the lease of the Direct-To-Home (DTH) facility to an indigenous investor Platinum Plus Television Limited (PPTV). The deal was consummated at a handing over ceremony performed by the Acting Managing Director, Abimbola Alale and PPTV Chairman, Dumebi Kachikwu. The boards of both organisations had series of update meeting before an agreement was finally reached. Alale said that the agreement with PPTV was signed in November, 2013, after which PPTV carried out a technical audit to ascertain the workability of the system vis-a-vis the desired services to be delivered.
“Having been satisfied with the process, we decided to hand over the platform to PPTV today”. Kachikwu thanked the Ag. MD and the NIGCOMSAT team for this exercise, stating that the platform will definitely make a difference to Nigerians because PPTV will leverage on the NigComSat-1R capacity and DTH Head end to provide triple play services for subscribers. He admitted that while PPTV is the service provider, NIGCOMSAT is the brand, which we are all proud of. According to him, PPTV is already holding talks with major telecommunications operators like MTN, Etisalat and others who will key into this project to provide voice communication to their subscribers while the other aspects of video and data transmission shall be delivered by PPTV.
He further explained that an assembly plant to manufacture the setup boxes would be put in place to complement the technology that is on ground. “Indeed prototypes of the set up boxes are already in place”, he added. Kachikwu said, this shall take off in a matter of weeks because the equipment has already been imported. Kachikwu also said that his team, in collaboration with NIGCOMSAT staff has packaged a module for the educational sector for which talks are in progress with the Federal Government to take the services across secondary and tertiary institutions across the country riding on the NigComSat-1R satellite. Responding to Alale’s presentation, Kachikwu said the partnership would be greatly beneficial to PPTV, adding that the firm would benefit from optimal utilisation of the existing expertise of NIGCOMSAT staff trained on the functionality of the DTH Headend.
Ben Uzor
