Ibrahima Guimba-Saidou, senior vice president – Commercial SES Africa, has written
the following opinion piece about how satellite power is giving people in Africa more
choice and more voice. Guimba-Saidou writes: As everyone knows, many businesses
are excited about the opportunities being afforded by the African continent.
Being in the satellite industry, we foresee that we are on the brink of a tipping point
in the broadcast industry which signals the beginning of a new era on the continent.
And in my opinion, broadcast will eventually generate more revenue than cell phones.
The development of the mobile industry in Africa is one of the success stories of our
time. Nigeria, which has a population of approximately 150 million people, is a good
example of this. In about the year 2000, Nitel had approximately half a million active
landline subscribers with one million on the waiting list.
During the bidding process for mobile service providers, MTN was awarded its first
licence outside South Africa. Projections showed it would break even after a couple
of years, but this happened in a matter of months. There was quickly a shortage of
SIM cards, and people were queuing to buy them despite a swift cost increase to
contain the high demand. This was the starting point of democratising information for
the whole population.
Infrastructure is required for mobile telecoms and this is where
satellite proved its worth. Demand was high and the network had to be deployed
quickly – characteristics that mark satellite technology. SES and other operators
have deployed supplementary mobile networks in many African countries. Satellite
has played an instrumental role in the exponential growth of mobile in Africa.
The success of the mobile industry and the resulting access to information via the
deployment of the internet created new demand, where people started demanding
more locally relevant information. In many countries, local TV and radio stations have
been established where previously licences were restricted to the cities and regional
capitals. The nature of the information explosion caused a push to create more local
media.
Communication is a basic human need and technology has allowed the previously
unconnected population in Africa to access the myriad communication channels
enabled by mobile and satellite power. The migration from analogue to digital is
having an enabling effect, making much more frequencies available.
For example, in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, a good part of the population speaks the
same language. Here, this local language will create the demand for content;
content will be driven by demand. Technology will allow channels will be set up,
driven by demand. There’s now a low barrier to entry. It’s possible to broadcast from
a garage, over the internet. Small TV stations will grow up to serve niche markets.
They’ll have limited resources but they will play an important role in bringing relevant
content to niche markets. Initially this broadcasting will be small, but good local
content will follow. Content is very important in the chain of the broadcast business.
SES provides satellite capacity – there is a need for content to fill the channels.
The proliferation of free-to-air (FTA) and free-to-view (FTV) channels being
broadcast on the African continent will certainly push the creation of local and
locally relevant content. (The difference between the two is the fact that the FTV
decoder has the flexibility to have further additional encryptions added. All digital TV
requires the set-top box hardware.)
SES has played a major role in growing the broadcast neighbourhood on the
continent via capacity deals with:
• East-African pay-TV broadcaster Zuku TV (part of Wananchi Holdings);
• soon-to-be launched FTA service from Platco Digital, a sister company of .etv
in South Africa; and
• StarTimes Communication Network Technology, China’s most influential
systems integrator, technology provider and network operator and the fastest-
growing digital TV operator in Africa.
I foresee that the roll-out of satellite technology will be similar to what happened
when the internet first came on stream. At first it was only used for browsing
websites, and has now grown to permeate all aspects of human activity. This will be
the same for satellite technology as it is deployed more widely – initially it has been
used to carry mobile networks and broadcasting, but this will grow and develop
through innovations such as SAT-IP, which enables up to eight devices in a home to
share the same TV feed.
The fields of health, agriculture and education also
represent areas which could greatly benefit from satellite technology, providing
remote rural areas access to best practice care and information. The possibilities are
indeed inspiring.
