Small satellites play a crucial role in telecommunications sector as they have been responsible for reducing the time to connect communities, thereby reducing the overall costs and can offer budgetary options for bridging digital divide in Nigeria, while also the promoting the growth of IoT market
Most of the satellites launched by African institutions in the last ten years are small satellites with South Africa boasting of 7; Algeria 5, Egypt 2, Ghana, Kenya 2, and Morocco 1 each while Nigeria has 3. Satellite like any other wireless technology does not respect borders. Unlike the other wireless technologies however, Satellite has an international outlook as it transcends many geographies.
In Nigeria, Section 1 d, e & i of the Nigerian Communications Act 2003, encourage local and foreign investments in the Nigerian communications industry and the introduction of innovative services and practices in the industry in accordance with international best practices and trends.
The Act also fair competition in all sectors of the Nigerian communications industry and also encourage participation of Nigerians in the ownership, control and management of communications companies and organisations.
Once a smallSat project is identified, the next important thing to prepare is identifying and contacting and notifying the administrators. In Nigeria, this is the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC.Worldwide, industry players are developing constellation of cubesats for IoT applications.
The Nigerian Telecommunications market space is fully liberalized and totally private sector driven. It transited from full public driven sector through partial liberalization and now fully liberalized. According to the Commission, every segment including networks and applications services are open to competition and substantially licensed.
In addition, Section 31. (1) of the Nigerian Communications Act stipulates that no person shall operate a communications system or facility nor provide a communications service in Nigeria unless authorised to do so under a communications licence or exempted under regulations made by the Commission under this Act.
Analyst have said that before any project manager finalizes a spacecraft design or operations plans, the team in charge of proposing the project are expected to understand the core regulatory rules, including technical constraints, to enable sharing between systems in specific frequency bands, according to an industry analyst.
For instance, the manager don’t want to design and build a system that violates regulatory rules. “While its possible to still correct issues found during the licensing process, but correcting them will cost a lot of time and money”, he said.
If it’s very first space mission, he continued, it is highly recommended to consult with Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC familiar with spectrum regulations during the mission definition and the design phase to ensure compliance; and remember that it’s easier to prevent a problem than to fix it.
ITU frequency filing
The Nigerian Communications Commission have put in place a a priori planning procedures which guarantees equitable access to orbit and spectrum resources for future use.
The Federal Ministry of Communications and digital economy is the Administration of Nigeria that interfaces with the ITU on Filing and coordination matters While the NCC interfaces between the applying entity and the FMIC
Section 121. (1) of the same Act, stated that notwithstanding the provisions of any other written law but subject to the provisions of this Act, the Commission shall have the sole and exclusive power to manage and administer the frequency spectrum for the communications sector and in that regard to grant licences for and regulate the use of the said frequency spectrum.
In the planned bands, equitable access to spectrum and orbital slots is guaranteed by a priori planning, according to the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC. This may be by an allotment plan, in which case particular channel, orbital location, technical characteristics and given service area is allotted per administration.
However, the entire ITU frequency filing process will ideally take six months, but it will most likely take longer, up to 2 years or more, with complicated filings. It depends on several factors, such as the requirements for satellite orbit(s), uplink/downlink frequencies, bandwidth(s), transmitting power, the completeness of the filing team including all supporting documents, drawings, and schematics included, as well as how well you deal with coordination and/or ‘resolution of difficulties’ with other networks.
If the mission is just a simple educational cubesat that requires only a few 2-3 beams and no other special requirements, the project manager may want to try doing the filing on their own. On the other hand, if the mission has more complex requirements for radiofrequency spectrum where the team have limited or don’t have prior experience with the ITU filing process, it is highly recommended to seek support from the Nigerian Communications Commission.
Following this, the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC will look at the submitted Advanced Publication Information filing to decide whether or not the satellite network is likely to cause harmful interference to their existing networks. If this is the case, they will have to submit a comment.