By Emmanuel Elebeke

Pinnacle communications Limited last week emerged the winner of the 2nd Broadcasting Signal Distribution license Network for transition from analogue to digital broadcasting.

The company won the bid after a keenly contested bidding process by the Presidential team on digital migration, BSDGROUP, set up to oversee the implementation process from analogue to digital broadcasting in Nigeria..

This bidding process came after the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC experimented the switch-on of broadcast transmission from analogue to digital broadcasting in Jos, the Plateau State capital.

Announcing the winner, the Chairman of the DigiTeam, Engr. Edward Amana, said about 15 companies originally expressed interest in the first phase of the biding process and out of the 15, five companies bided for the license.

From the five bids, Phase3 Telecoms Limited, Pinnacle Communications Limited and Trendcorp Africa limited met the mandatory requirements and were therefore qualified for technical evaluation.

Following the technical evaluation, two companies, Pinnacle Communications and Phase3 Telecom Limited scaled through to the financial phase with 71.1 per cent and 74.8 per cent respectively.

In the financial evaluation, Pinnacle bided N618 million, which translates to 31.1 per cent higher that 20 per cent prescribed for the preserved price of N500 million, while Phase3 bided N100 million, which is less than 20 per cent.

Amana described the process as another milestone in the Nigerian transition programme, saying that DigiTeam would leave no stone unturned to achieve a successful migration programme.

“As I speak, 14 companies have submitted proposals to manufacture Set Top Boxes in Nigeria and we are engaging them all to ensure that a manufacturing base is set up earliest to meet the attractive market in Nigeria,” he added.

He said the winner will be issued the license as soon as it pays the license fee, which it has one year to do or lose to the second bidder.

He encouraged them to harmonise existing broadcasters in the country for either outright buying over or leasing of their existing transmitters to be able to meet up with the roll out of network.

With the emergence of Pinnacle as the winner of the license, Pinnacle Communications Limited is now expected to deploy and operate a national terrestrial broadcasting signal distribution network and to television and other multimedia services in the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Going by the regulatory requirements, the license is expected to provide distribution services to other duly licensed broadcasting service providers upon their request on an equitable,

and non-preferential and non-discriminatory basis.

The license, according to NBC, shall be prohibited from broadcasting content services unless it established separate entity that is duly licensed by the Commission.

Recall that the International Telecommunication Union, ITU had in 2006 fix 17 June 2015, as the deadline for the transition of analogue to digital terrestrial broadcasting in the VHF, 174-230 MHz and UHF, 470-862 MHz frequency bands.In the agreement, it was also stated how frequencies will be used  in an all-digital environment as well as governing cross border interference in the transition period leading to the final deadline of 17 June, 2015.

After the switchover date, it is expected that countries will broadcast terrestrial signals in the digital format as analogue transmission would no longer be protected from interference.

Following this development, Nigeria as a signatory to the regional agreement, which established the  technical criteria for transition from analogue to digital terrestrial television broadcasting, through the Federal Government set up a Presidential Advisory Committee, PAC to over see the implementation process.

The Federal Government’s Committee was set up  in March 20, 2014 to prepare a framework for the implementation of the ITU decision and following a report submitted by the PAC, the Federal Government  issued a White paper  setting out the implementation  framework and established the DigiTeam

and in the process Kemilink International was appointed as the consultant to DigiTeam.

In the White Paper, the Government decided to award three Broadcasting Signal Distribution Licenses, one of which is to be reserved for the infrastructure entity that will mainly be carved out of the existing Nigerian Television Authority, NTA.

It was also decided that a second license will be awarded through a bidding process to stimulate competition in the broadcasting signal distribution market segment. The third license would is expected to be awarded in the future based on market developments.

In his acceptance speech, the representative of Pinnacle Communications Limited, Mr. Dipo Onifade described the process as transparent and assured that the company would deliver on its mandate.

Meanwhile, the representative of Phase3 Telecom, Mr. Abiodun Bamidele, said, his company did not accept the biding process, claiming that his company ought to have been declared winner for the inefficiency of Pinnacle Communications in the technical segment.

He vowed that his company is going to contest the process to the logical conclusion, even though, Pinnacle had been declared winner by the Committee.

“When they opened the bids for the technical segment, Pinnacle was not with two documents, the Pencom document and another one and on that basis, I expected the Committee to  disqualified Pinnacle, but now they have been declared winner because their price was higher but they are not better technically. And we know what it means to the country because we know the job very well.

We pray they do it well.

“Personally, we are best, I am not happy with this process, because they supposed to have been disqualified before the financial process, since they did not have the two missing requirements as prescribed by the rule of procedure. From that point, they were supposed to be disqualified.  They are not supposed to be here in the first place to continue the bidding.  I did protest it then but my protest was not enough, we can not be fighting there. Well, we know how to pursue it. I can’t talk for my office now, if my office wants us to pursue it, we will do. Maybe we will write to them officially.

Pinnacle Communications Limited is an international communications equipment company focused on providing product, system, and service solutions that takes its customers to the next level. The company provides a wide range of products and services for wireless, broadcast, network support, and government markets. It is also into advanced transmitter equipment, systems, and services for digital television, DTV, and digital radio equipment.

The company was incorporated with the Corporate Affairs Commission of the Federal Republic of Nigeria with Registration Number RC 245722 on the 9th of May 1994. Pinnacle Communications Limited has been solely responsible for the radio communication of several states in the Federal Republic of Nigeria as well as design, supply, installation and commissioning of Radio, AM/FM and Television broadcast equipment.