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Al-Ahram Weekly 6 - 12 July 2000 Issue No. 489 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 6 - 12 July 2000 Issue No. 489
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region Focus International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters More space in space
By Rehab SaadOn 17 August, more than two years after Nilesat 101 was sent into orbit, a French Ariane rocket will be launched carrying Egypt's second media satellite, Nilesat 102.
The new satellite was completed in Toulose, France, in February as was the technical experiments to test its efficacy. By 15 July, all tests will have been completed after which the satellite will be transported to a base in Korou, French Guyana where it will be launched.
It will take 21 days before the satellite is affixed to its proper orbital path. TV channels will be loaded gradually afterwards.
"We are not launching a second satellite just because we want to," said Amin Bassiouni, board chairman of the Egyptian Satellite Company Nilesat. "There was a pressing need for a second satellite after Nilesat 101 was successfully manufactured and launched on 28 April 1998, and after the company succeeded in marketing its channels."
In 1998, Nilesat 101 made $3 million in profits; in 1999 it garnered $5 million. Its programmes are watched by two million viewers in Egypt and three million in the region.
Bassiouni said out of 12 transponders on Nilesat 101, each carrying between six and seven TV channels, 11 were rented to Egyptian and non-Egyptian stations. "Thus we needed a second satellite to provide us with extra channels to rent out," Bassiouni said.
Another reason for Nilesat 102 is that it will be manufactured at the same cost price of 1995. "The contract signed with Matra Marconi Space Company in 1995 stated that if we launched a second satellite within three years, manufacturing costs would remain the same," Bassiouni said. "So we entertained the idea of having a second satellite from the beginning." He said expenses would have multiplied had Nilesat not taken advantage of the stipulation "because we would have been forced to invite a new international tender at today's costs."
Nilesat 101 cost $170 million while $140 million was spent on Nilesat 102. "Expenditures went down because 10 per cent of the parts for Nilesat 102 were manufactured during the construction of Nilesat 101," he said.
Nilesat 102 has one added advantage not available in its predecessor: it's equipped with the Internet and information technology facilities.
Nilesat officials believe the use of the satellite will guarantee faster download, connectivity and browsing. Consequently, Nilesat built a ground station for Nilesat 102 equipped with facilities to transmit all interactive services, including the Internet, video conferencing, video on demand, distant learning, TV shopping and e-commerce.
Nilesat 102 is also equipped with an additional antenna that will relay its broadcast to new areas in Europe. "This will provide a greater opportunity for directly exchanging information and news with Europe," Bassiouni said. Channels that transmit from Europe, such as the BBC, MBC and Showtime, had complained that they could not transmit their programmes directly from Europe to Nilesat. Instead they were forced to rent channels on another satellite and transmit their programmes to a ground station for Nilesat to receive it, an enormously costly operation. "They do not have to do that now thanks to the additional antenna," he said.
Nilesat has two new ground stations, in England and Lebanon. "Our clients in Europe asked British Telecom to establish a ground station for Nilesat in England at their own expense in order to use it in transmitting programmes directly to the satellite. In Lebanon, we established a ground station because some private Lebanese channels have no ground stations to transmit their programmes. Now we have a powerful station in that area that will serve Lebanese channels as well as Syria and other neighbouring countries," Bassiouni said.
Nilesat 102 will be placed in the same orbit as that of Nilesat 101, seven degrees south, covering the same area which stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf as well as some parts of Africa and southern Europe. As such, viewers will not need a new dish or receiver.
Like 101, Nilesat 102 will use the latest available technology, the digital compression system, instead of the analogue system used by many other satellites. The digital system allows for more than one television channel to be compressed in the same transponder. "This digital system is the technology of the future whereas the analogue system is becoming outmoded day by day," Bassiouni said.
Nilesat says 50 per cent of Nilesat 102's programmes have already been marketed worldwide. New Lebanese and European channels, such as the BBC and TV5, will be offered. Egyptian TV will also have its own channels on the new satellite.
The price of renting a transponder on the Nilesat, according to Bassiouni, is $3 million annually. He said renting satellite transponders or channels is open to everybody, including Egyptians who want to launch private channels. "But this can only be done through an Egyptian share-holding company whose establishment is approved by the Investment Authority," he said. A step in that direction was taken recently by investors in the Sixth of October City and northern Sinai who formed a share-holding company for media production called Al-Mehwar [Axis] Group. "They applied to have their own channel on the satellite and we are discussing the matter with them. We welcome this initiative and look forward to more," he said.
Bassiouni stressed that satellite officials will never censor the contents of private channels. "Nilesat is an honest carrier that does not interfere with the content of its programmes. But we refuse to have sex channels or channels that can be used as a platform for violence or terrorism."
The idea of launching an Egyptian media satellite dates back to the 1970's when government officials acknowledged their use in serving the media was spreading worldwide. An orbital path was reserved in 1977 for future use. In 1995, President Hosni Mubarak took the first step towards launching a satellite carrying the name Nile.
After technical studies were made, the Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU) and Matra Marconi signed a deal to build Nilesat 101. The Ariane Company was chosen to launch it, using an Ariane 4 rocket, from Korou.
In July 1996, Nilesat was established to follow up on the satellite's construction, build the ground stations, rent out transponders and channels and provide Egyptian engineers with the necessary training.
Relates stories:
Countdown to Nilesat 102- 2 - 8 September 1999
Nilesat goes on air- 4 - 10 June 1998
