By Prince Osuagwu

Nigerian Communications Satellite, NIGCOMSAT, Ltd, at the weekend announced the lease of its Direct To Home, DTH platform to Indegenous investor, Platinum Plus Television, (PPTV) Ltd.

Head Corporate Communications, Nigcomsat, Mr Sonny Aragba -Akpore, said that the lease was actually a formalization of a deal struck between the two companies in 2013.

He added that the hand over of the platform was successful because it happened after after a series of update meetings between the board and management of the two companies.

The handing over ceremony according to Aragba -Akpore was performed by the Acting Managing Director, Abimbola Alale and PPTV Chairman, Mr. Dumebi Kachikwu.

Aragba-Akpore indicated that Alale, at the handover ceremony, confirmed 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” Alale was quoted as haven said during the event.

Meanwhile, Kachikwu commended Alale and her team for seeing the exercise through, 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, that all Nigerians should be 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 explained that an assembly plant to manufacture the setup boxes shall be put in place to complement the technology that is on ground. Indeed prototypes of the set up boxes are already in place. He 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, Kachickwu agreed with her that the partnership would benefit greatly from the optimal utilisation of the existing expertise of NIGCOMSAT staff trained on the functionality of the DTH Headend.

The ceremony closed with an assurance from PPTV that services shall be delivered before the end of the year.