New digital television  platform  that will provide access to a greater number of stations to households in Nigeria and across west Africa at a relatively low cost has been launched in Nigeria.
The digital TV platform was launched recently in Lagos by the global satellite company, SES in partnership with Computer Warehouse Group Plc (CWG), a pan-African ICT company.
With the new collaboration, SES would provide the space segment and specific ground services, while CWG will manage the teleport services required to project the signals to users, using high operational standards.
The new digital TV platform would afford broadcasters the opportunity of reaching a broader audience; millions of satellite homes in West Africa that receive broadcast signals with their dishes facing 28.2 degrees East.
The platform offers end-to-end contribution, ground and space services to local, regional, national and international TV broadcasters across West Africa at cheap rates. It would also afford broadcasters the privilege to migrate from analogue to digital TV to meet the digital migration deadline of June 2015.
The Chief Technology Officer, CWG Plc, Mr. James Agada who spoke during the unveiling of the digital TV platform at the just concluded Broadcast Summit held in Lagos told the gathering that, “CWG  is evolving away from the traditional IT Company in the Nigerian context to becoming a utility enabler, under the CWG 2.0 initiative. According to him, “The brand new digital ‘Direct To Home’ (DTH) free-to-air platform is ultimately designed to help accelerate and alleviate the challenges broadcasters and content owners face in the digital migration process.
“The platform is packaged as an innovative approach in order to address the challenges of the cost of migration, operation, operational and support challenges, platform agility and flexibility and platform neutrality”.
Also speaking, Russell Southwood, CEO, SES Balancing Act said that, “SES shares a partnership history with CWG that spans about ten years and CWG has proven to be a dependable teleport partner for this project”.
According to Theodore Asampong, SES sales Director, Africa, “All that the subscriber is required to pay for is the cost of acquiring a decoder and installing a dish to receive broadcast signals. After this, they will have access to all channels available on the platform, without subscription fees”.
Speaking on the importance of the project, Mr. Austin Okere, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of CWG Plc, said, “For years, the majority of households in West Africa has been shut out of the digital broadcasting experience.
“ Together with SES, we are excited to enable broadcasters to deliver their content cost-effectively, and in excellent technical quality to millions of households across the region.”

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