Nigeria’s communication satellite, NIGCOMSAT1R, which was meant to deepen broadband penetration, which had been stagnated at eight percent, promote e-government, tele-medicine, tele-education, and anti-counterfeiting system amongst other lofty plans has yet to deliver value in driving growth in Nigeria’s fledging ICT industry.
The situation, experts say is not due to lack of demand for services by NIGCOMSAT1R, as foreign satellites such as Eutelsat, Rascom, Intelsat, Yahsat, Arabsat, SES, occupy the space which ought to filled in premium, cost-effective service delivery by the country’s satellite. There exists lack of confidence in ability to manage the satellite to optimally deliver premium to Nigeria’s rapidly expanding ICT sector.
Former President Goodluck Jonathan while speaking after the launch of NigComSat-1R in 2011, a replacement of dysfunctional NigComSat-1, explained that Nigeria “will substantially reduce the annual expenditure of over $1 billion arising from the use of foreign bandwidth for GSM Communications, cable television, e-commerce and e-government by both public and private users in the country.”
The satellite so far, falls short of the lofty expectations had of it, and benefits that should have been derivable haven’t quite been forthcoming. It has also been considered yet another ‘white elephant project which is doing little to advance the cause of Nigeria’s blooming ICT industry.
Olusola Teniola, President, Association of Telecommunication Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), told BusinessDay that; “the cost of basic services (telecoms) and broadband over satellite to rural communities for Universal Access and delivering e-Medicine, e-Learning and e-Health was to be solved by deploying NIGCOMSAT1R infrastructure. Especially of note, we recall a Chinese loan sought by the previous administration from Chinese EXIM Bank to support the roll-out of such services. To date it has not been recorded what and where such services exist in Nigeria. This is an unfortunate situation as expectation by key stakeholders was for this to be spent in a manner to produce an outcome to improve the lives of those in the ‘unserved’ communities.”
NigComSat-1R is a hybrid geostationary satellite with 28 transponders for providing cutting-edge telecommunications solutions that are both reliable and cost-effective. The quad band satellite is located at 42.5 degrees East with a lifespan of at least 15years and footprints in West, East and Southern Africa, Europe and Asia. NigComSat-1R inherits many flight proven technologies used by NigComSat-1, VENESAT-1 and DHF-3 series spacecrafts.
The NigComSat-1R communications subsystem consists of C-band, Ku-band, Ka-band and L-band. The Ku-band payload consists of fourteen (14) active channels, with a bandwidth of 31.5MHz each and three fixed beams over East Africa, West Africa and Kashi. The C-band payload consists of four (4) active channels, with a bandwidth of 36MHz each and coverage over West, Central and Eastern Africa. The L-band Navigational payload receives two uplink signals on C-band, using a separate C-band antenna covering Europe and Nigeria, and transmits two downlink signals on L-band (L1 and L5) using a global coverage. The Ka-band payload consists of eight (8) active channels, with a bandwidth of 120MHz each for communications and broadcast services. It has three fixed spot beams over Nigeria, South Africa and Europe.
The satellite’s many capabilities would ordinarily ifer it should be a promosiing venture; delivering value to corporate Nigeria, and steady revenue to the government’s coffers. Its unimpressive posturing as however suggested the need for more private sector involvement, and weaning it completely off the government so it truly functions as a business.
Franklin Adekunle, Manager, Adsofun Concepts LLC described NIGCOMSAT1R as a colossal failure.
“Many years down the line, it is still relying on govt subvention to survive. It never really took off business wise. It has not really impacted ICT in any way, to my knowledge. Indeed, the level of ICT penetration witnessed in Nigeria is owed more to its competitors than NIGCOMSAT1R,” said Adekunle
He explained further that MSMES use competitors, TV stations, communication companies, hospitals, even the Nigerian Military all use competitors.
“Isn’t that a direct indictment of NIGCOMSAT outfit? Why would the Company launched with so much fanfare yet to turn a profit?” Adekunle wondered.
Teniola of ATCON said he hopes that the commercial viability of NIGCOMSAT1R will allow it to enter the satellite market in a competitive manner that provides an alternative in what is an already crowded and declining segment of market in the city/urban areas of Nigeria. The business model for NIGCOMSAT1R needs to be urgently reviewed to include a content provision piece in addition to the basic connectivity capability and the needs to be urgently addressed by the Government in partnership with the Private sector.
Teniola explained that “this effectively means putting NIGCOMSAT1R under Private sector control or under a concession agreement with a private sector vehicle running the operations of the NIGCOMSAT1R, which I believe may not happen without the political will of the current administration. What needs to be urgently addressed is the 20 accredited ISP(s) working with NIGCOMSAT1R under a reseller model is effective both in terms of speed to market, pricing, competitiveness (versus foreign owned satellite providers) and whether Government is prepared to protect or provide exclusivity to NIGCOMSAT1R to provide services to all MDA(s) in the country to ensure the financial viability and capacity building required for sustainability of this project.”
Caleb Ojewale and Martins Noel
