Nigcomsat 1R and the confidence challenge (1)
Nigcomsat-1R
is here. It will commence full commercial service next month to
re-ignite the return of a public sector presence in the highly
aggressive competitive communication satellite industry. It will
also mark the end of disillusionment over whether Nigeria will ever
have a sustainable presence in the global communication satellite
industry.
2011 is definitely a year of remarkable achievements for Africa’s
most populous country. It successfully launched three satellites in
orbit to firm up its increasing visibility in an industry where
risks are high and dividends take time to come.
With the launch of Nigcomsat 1R in space, it is Open Sesame for the
managers of the pan African communication satellite, Nigcomsat
Limited and their Chinese partners. The exciting times are here; so
too the challenges; and they are as intimidating as are the
inspiring underlying prospect for a pan Africa satellite.
Nigcomsat 1R is expected to help boost communications, broadcasting
and broadband multimedia services across large swathes of Africa and
parts of Europe and Asia. It is a replacement satellite for
Nigcomsat -1, the first African geosynchronous communication
satellite effectively launched at 16:01 GMT on 13 May 2007, aboard a
Chinese Long March 3B carrier rocket, from the Xichang Satellite
Launch Centre in China.
The spacecraft was operated by Nigerian Communication Satellite (Nigcomsat
) Limited. On November 11, 2008, Nigcomsat -1 failed in orbit after
running out of power due to an anomaly in its solar array thus
temporarily pulverizing the dream to have an Afro-centric
communication satellite. Coming just after the crash of RASCOMstar,
another pan African satellite owned by over 40 African countries
including Nigeria and launched immediately after Nigcomsat-1, Africa
was simply flummoxed.
Its first attempt at joining the global communication satellite
industry had crashed most expensively. An expected service life of
15 years for Nigcomsat-1 and another 15 years for RASCOMstar or a
combined lifespan of 30 years in which Africa was expected to have
redrawn its communication destiny had crashed in less than 18
months.
Thankfully for Nigcomsat Limited, Nigcomsat -1 was still being
managed by the Chinese and they agreed to have the entire craft
rebuilt and launched back into space on China’s accounts. The result
is the return of the satellite as Nigcomsat-1R. The communications
satellite is currently undergoing test to ascertain its fitness
after the successful launch and barring any hiccups, full commercial
service will start February 6, 2012.
Nigcomsat-1R may have buried the doubts of skeptics who had ruled
out the prospect of a successful return. But its return to orbit
marks the beginning of a greater ache in a market where foreign
based private sector players are increasingly shoring up their
relevance through services targeted at the same market segments and
offering carrots in form of lower charges. The market dynamics have
certainly changed. More so with the entry of privately owned
undersea cables that are bringing Giga bandwidth at incredibly low
cost to the world’s most exploited connectivity market. The old tale
of Africa paying almost a billion dollar yearly on bandwidth
connectivity to offshore satellite backbone providers is becoming a
fairy tale.
Between the time Nigcomsat-1 deorbited and now, a lot has happened
to completely reconfigure the market. Consider these remarkably
defining realities. More satellites have established footprints on
the continent hinged on the complex mix of an evolving market with
expansive un-served green areas in the public and private sectors.
In December 2011 that Nigcomsat-1R return to space, the AMOS-5
communications satellite successfully orbited too. Owned by Tel
Aviv’s based Spacecom, the AMOS-5 satellite has a pan-African C-band
and Ku-band payload designed to make it a prime carrier of African
satellite communications traffic in both broadcast and data
services.
Months earlier, the Intelsat New Dawn, a joint-venture between a
consortium led by Convergence Partners and Intelsat S.A. opened for
business to address the capacity backlog faced by ‘African wireless
telecom operators, broadband service providers, corporate network
service providers and media operators who have experienced
exceptional growth along with .’ Add all these to the
reconfiguration ushered in by the entry of sea cable operators, the
likes of Main One, ACE, and EASSY, there is no longer an easy
walk-through process for any satellite provider.
In the new era, all operators must contend for market relevance and
market space. The more reason managers of Nigcomsat-1R must address
the contentious issues that made so much fuss out of a routine
happening in the satellite industry. Satellites crash as often as
they are launched, therefore operators invest in back-ups whether by
partnering with other operators or having other satellites in space
to which they can migrate clients whenever a particular craft
develop glitches. In addition, they kit their service on satellites
in orbit offering real assurance scheme in case the worst happens –
one of such is AsssureSat.
Nigcomsat Limited must address its past and live up to its present.
The past is the very embarrassing situation in which it was selling
services to clients without having a single backup to migrate its
clients to. When the satellite packed up, it had signed on clients
who were simply left in the cold. And worst still, it was beginning
to win over doubtful clients who were ready to stake their business
on Nigcomsat-1. The already signed on clients and those already on
the list constituted the worst referral that any business would
never hope to have. In private and in public, they lampooned
Nigcomsat-1 as a misadventure. That is the past.
The present is a communication satellite in space with all the
robust features to service an industry hungry for service. The
market will not come to Nigcomsat Limited. It is Nigcomsat Limited
that must go to the market to prove its credential as true and
strong. Nigcomsat will have to defeat its own awry past and bring a
formidable credential that could win the market. The months ahead
will test its capacity to rebrand and re-instill marketplace
confidence. The entire game-plan is winning genuine acceptance
outside of government’s patronage. It is only in squaring up to its
past and leveraging on the existing market dynamics sufficiently
enough can it truly tell skeptics to hang their doubts.
