SES (NYSE Euronext Paris and Luxembourg Stock Exchange: SESG) has signed a multi-year agreement with Cable Channels Nigeria Ltd. (CCNL) to provide a strategic, reliable and stable video platform, via SES’s prime orbital position 28.2 degrees East, for the provision of Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) and Direct to Home (DTH) broadcast platforms in Nigeria—SES will use teleport services provided by its local partner, Computer Warehouse Group Plc. (CWG).
CCNL, a company licensed by the Nigeria National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), is the certified content aggregator and platform owner for the free-to-air DTT and DTH platforms in Nigeria, and is playing a key role in the Nigeria Digital Switchover (DSO) process by getting channels onto the land-based DTT network and onto satellite as DTH, both offered under the brand FreeTV.
SES will be providing the space segment and specific platform services for the DTH service which will be used to feed the DTT transmitters around the country—a Hybrid DTH/DTT solution. Using teleport services provided by SES local teleport partner CWG, the channels are aggregated from all over Nigeria by way of microwave, fibre, IP or satellite, and then multiplexed before uplink to the ASTRA-2F satellite at 28.2 degrees East.
According to Mohammed Bawa, the Vice Chairman of CCNL, this agreement will move more than 25 million households from three to four analog channels to 15 channels at launch. This will then increase to at least 30 channels that will be broadcast with digital picture quality and sound.
“This agreement with SES will have a massive impact on consumers as we move towards the Nigeria DSO process. It moves over 25 million households from three to four analogue channels to 15 channels at launch, increasing to at least 30 channels in digital quality picture and sound,” said Mohammed Bawa, Vice Chairman of CCNL.
The Senior Vice President of SES Commercial in Africa, Ibrahima Guimba-Saidou, added that the service will provide 100 percent coverage for the Nigerian DSO through DTT and DTH, enabling viewers to receive high quality TV throughout the country, regardless of the viewers' location.