Nigeria urgently requires a broadband policy to improve its rating on the global ICT league table, says Ernest Ndukwe, former executive vice-chairman of the Nigeria Communications Commission.
Ndukwe, who was the keynote speaker at the stakeholders' conference and exhibition on the proposed NigcomSat-1R launch earlier this week, said the absence of such a policy was hampering Nigerians' access to broadband-related services.
Such policy would also open up the sector for international investments, he noted.
He said more than 50% of broadband connections in the country were via satellite; therefore the need for a policy to regulate the sector was imperative.
“Nigerian companies are paying relatively high broadband charges for satellite links and charges have remained high in spite of the huge demand,” he said.
Ndukwe, who now lectures at the Lagos Business School, said Nigeria has the largest telecommunication market in Africa, and accounts for 16% of total mobile users on the continent.
“Nigeria belongs to the 10 fastest developing economies of the world in terms of mobile connections, it is also on record that Nigeria deployed a 3G network ahead of countries such as China, and India.
He noted that Nigeria has an active 90.5 million subscriber's line while tele-density remained at over 63%. “Access to communication facilities is within easy reach.”
“Only 10 million Nigerians have television sets as compared to over 100 million mobile phones in use in the country,” he added.
Timasaniyu Ahmed-Rufai, MD of NigComSat, speaking on the replacement of the Nigeria Communication satellite which was de-orbited on 10 November 2008 following some technical challenges, said work has reached 95% completion on the new satellite code-named NigcomSat-1R.
“NigcomSat-1R will be a pride of Africa; it will justify government's and stakeholders' interest and provide the continent the best platform to increase Internet penetration and other satellite based services,” he said.
He said NigcomSat-1R was a hybrid satellite built with radiation-hardened technology with high reliability, onboard software re-programmable ability, fault tolerance, redundant components and high efficiency.
Ahmed-Rufai said the new satellite would have a stronger footprint and centre beams over the African continent. The features of the new satellites include payload comprising 40 transponders, 28 of which are going to be active and 12 redundant, KU band covering Asian, L-band to provide global coverage on navigational overlay services, he pointed out.
He said the company was set to unveil two other communication satellites to be known as NigcomSat-2 and 3 to serve as backups to starve off crisis that may follow any possible breakdown.
NigcomSat-1 was unveiled with great fanfare in May 2007 as Africa's first owned communication satellite but was de-orbited in 2008 as a result of technical challenges.
The contract for the design, building and launch of the de-orbited NigcomSat-1 was awarded to China Great Wall Industry Corporation in 2007 at the cost of N40 billion ($300 million).
Turner Isoun, Nigeria's former minister of science and technology who supervised the contract, told Nigerians that the satellite (NigcomSat-1) would generate about $200 million annually over a 15-year period. “NigcomSat-1 will generate between 1.5 million to two million jobs within three years and train over 50 world-class engineers through technology transfer.”
However, none of these promises came to pass before the 15-year life span of the satellite was cut short after 18 months in orbit.
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