Nigeria’s SAT-1 replacement next year

THE managing director of Nigeria Communication Satellite (NIGCOMSAT), Timasaniyu Ahmed-Rufai, has assured that Nigeria’s SAT 1 replacement would be commissioned by next year as work on the satellite was 65% complete.

Speaking to the media Ahmed-Rufai said the failure of SAT 1 was not peculiar to Nigeria or the fault of the Chinese firm that put the satellite in orbit, but was due to an international crisis.

Nigeria in 2008 lost SAT 1 as a result of what many believed was poor work by engineers that handled the project.

The country lost millions of dollars to the failure a few months after it was commissioned by former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Ahmed-Rufai said the failed satellite was one of the best in the world as it was at par with any other. “A few days after we lost SAT1, America lost 10.

Fortunately for us, the satellite was well insured to the tune of US$46 million. As of today the replacement for SAT 1 is 65% complete and will be ready next year.”

The communications satellite, NigComSat-1 was launched on May 13 2007 and was sub-Saharan Africa’s first communications satellite.

NigComSat-1 provided a backbone for both upstream and downstream telecommunication services.

Ahmed-Rufai said Nigeria had moved from 500 000 active fixed telephone lines in 1999 to less than 5% of that in 2010, and from 100 000 mobile subscribers in 2002 to over 81 million mobile subscribers as at August 31, 2010. He said for the past 10 years Nigeria was one of the most desired investment destinations, adding that the telecoms industry had witnessed remarkable growth.

SIMEON OGOEGBULEM in Abuja, Nigeria