Testing commences @ DaarSAT, adds on Visafone Internet

The latest in satellite Direct-To-Home (DTH) pay TV in the country, DaarSAT apart from dangling 40 channels on arrival is offering subscribers Visafone internet access as add-on, just as it would commence test running next week Wednesday, September 17.

Disclosing this at the unveiling of DaarSAT at the corporate headquarters of Daar Communications Plc, the Executive Chairman, Dr. Raymond Dokpesi, said the new satellite pay TV outfit would be officially commissioned by President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua on October 7, this year.

He reiterated the decision of the company to Nigerianize the pay TV industry with avalanche of local and foreign contents, noting that DaarSAT has seven satellite dishes linked on to the main dish with optic fibre to enable it deliver as planned and across the Ku and C bands respectively.

According to him, all the 40 channels made up of about eight factual and 32 entertainment programming genres, are premium even as monthly subscription would not be more than N5,000.

DaarSAT decoder, he said, would not cost above N36,000 against $1000 (about N117,000) that is obtained among other pay TV service providers who also offer less channels.

“We have four levels of decoders and every buyer would get Visafone with Internet access,” he said, assuring that all the good movies nowadays which come on High Definition (HD) because of digital migration of broadcasting organizations globally are compatible with DaarSAT equipment on ground, even as news stations around the global are covered too.

“We’re going to give you 40 channels. Prime as they are and expensive as they are, it would not pass N5,000 monthly subscription,” Dokpesi reaffirmed.

As at the date of media launch, he said, all the 40 stations, DaarSAT has relevant Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed and paid all related dues as expected including with the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA).

He enumerated some of the 40 channels to include AIT-MoviStar, Daar-StarXpress, Sahara One, Sahara Filmy, B4U Movies, Fox Crime, Fox Entertainment, Luxe TV, Art Channel, Gamzaki Channel, Yoruba channel, NTA, AIT, Channels TV, MBI International, Nickelodeon, Fox Baby Tv, Kidsco, Fuel, Euronews, AIT News.

Others are BBCWorld, Al-Jazera, Fox News, AIT Parliamentary, African Business channel, CNBC Africa, AIT Sports, Fox Sports, Setanta Africa, EurosSportsNews, Quest TV, B4U Music, Fashion TV, SoundCity, Primetime Africa, National Geographic Music, MTV Base, MCM Top and Pop as well as SciTech TV.

Also, Dokpesi explained that the aforementioned channels were chosen out of the desire to offer high-end channels for less, pointing out that CNN was never approached and from African perspective “We have Al Jazera,” stressing that CNN could still be added if subscribers so demanded over time.


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