Engr. Isaiah A. Mohammed, managing director, Globaltouch West Africa is a known personality in the telecommunications industry in the country. He started his career in Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (Nitel) where he retired in 1996 as executive director. He thereafter, was appointed into the board of Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), it was after leaving NCC that he started Globaltouch. He spoke to chike onwuegbuchi and funmi ilesanmi on the roll out plans of his company and other issues in the industry.
Unique Feature of Global Touch Tracking System
The difference is in coverage. Our coverage is ubiquitous because since our satellite hovers at 1500km, so we are able to cover the whole country. GSM operators delivering data services use bandwidth stations invariably there is always black spot. Subscribers will always have to contend with lack of coverage but in our case, data is always available so we have full coverage all over the country and beyond.
Accessing the Service
What you will purchase are modems which you programme and put on your handset and you can track the web. We are going into voice service later, when we start selling our voice phones, we will always have the same universal coverage. Presently, we can program our modems to send SMS messages on existing GSM phones, so, if we could do that on GSM phones, we can also do it on our phones certainly.
Launching Voice Service
We cover the whole country from day one. From our gateway in Kaduna, we access the whole country so we are not going from village to village. When we started in November, the whole country was covered. We are looking at connectivity between our gateway and the rest of the networks. Nitel unfortunately which we would have connected to in Kaduna is now a little bit narrow band, so we are now looking at the licensed carrier to carry our voice service. When this is sorted out, we will roll out voice service. We cannot loose hope on Nitel because it is a national asset and I am sure it will bounce back but of course we have to continue offering services until that time comes.
How your Data Service Works
We have standard lamp modem, electric powered with batteries that can last up to seven years. So if you put it on your remote asset you can sit down in the comfort of your office and see the performance of that asset. If it is a moving asset, you can see it as it gets boosted or integrates you to be monitored by you remotely.
Monitoring Information
Oil companies can use it to monitor let’s say pipelines. Anybody can also use it to control their data acquisition. Our platform is suitable to provide that service because people can sit down in their offices and see what happens with their assets. They can monitor the condition of their pipelines, warehouse, tankers and everything else.
Relationship with Global Star
With over 350,000 subscribers, Globalstar is the world’s largest provider of mobile satellite voice and data services. Globalstar offers these services to commercial and recreational users in more than 120 countries around the world. The Company's products include mobile and fixed satellite telephones, simplex and duplex satellite data modems and flexible service packages. Many land based and maritime industries benefit from Globalstar with increased productivity from remote areas beyond cellular and landline service. Global customer segments include: oil and gas, government, mining, forestry, commercial fishing, utilities, military, transportation, heavy construction, emergency preparedness, and business continuity as well as individual recreational users. Globalstar data solutions are ideal for various asset and personal tracking, data monitoring and SCADA applications.
Globalstar is the owner of the constellation of which there are 48 satellites hovering around at lower orbit. This means1500 kilometres above the earth, so if you imagine a tower 1500km high, the coverage is very very high indeed and that is why we cover the whole country.
Also, with broadband of fibre, we have involved Globalstar in the operation of Global Touch and they have up to 30 percent equity interest in GlobalTouch. That means that we can guarantee that they will be with us forever, they are not running away by the reason of the equity interest they have in GlobalTouch.
By virtue of having equity interest, they are on the Board of GlobalTouch. It means that the performance of management of Globaltouch is strictly on them. Whatever it takes to ensure that GlobalTouch succeeds, I am sure they will perform.
Mapping
Mapping is a different thing all together. There are many mapping people out there, so we are going to use them. It depends on whichever mapping the operator wants to do. We will offer Google Earth as a matter of cost but if you have your own preference about mapping, we can still compose our tracking maps to suite your need.
Tracking Kidnappers, Others
Yes, that is called the personal tracker which you carry around with you, which consist of alarm setting and so on. That is one of our prime offering; we hope that with that data, security is guaranteed. When you subscribe to that it is very cheap and the lifespan is very long.
Challenges
Doing business in Nigeria is always a challenge and we try to overcome the challenges. In terms of starting a service, we have scaled a lot of hurdles. Now with marketing, we will penetrate the market and compete with what is on ground and in doing so, we have our strengths which we are going to ensure is fully exploited. Starting GlobalTouch some years after acquiring license is part of the challenges we have to face. Raising funds and getting the banks to support long time projects.
Power
The power issue is not peculiar to telecoms, it applies to every facet of Nigerian life but since we have only one gateway, we have made sure we have full backups. We have giant generators that will ensure that 24/7 we have power on site and PHCN access standby.
GlobalTouch in the next Five Years
In the next five years, we will be the foremost data carrier in Nigeria and beyond. Our gateway also covers all the way to Cote d’ivoire and all the way down to Gabon. We will saturate all of these sub-regions with our services in terms of data and voice. That is where we hope to position ourselves in the next five years.
Global Touch in the Telecommunications Space
Global Touch has been licensed to provide a type of service called Global Satellite and Mobile Communications (GMPCS). We use orbit satellite which is a footprint that covers the whole country so that there is no black spot in the whole country. We commence data services mostly tracking in November last year. Our tracking services are far superior to anything that is on ground at the moment because we do not have any black spot at all. Later on, we will extend to full duplex and voice services. Full duplex is a two-way data, it means you can send and receive information.
We also offers asset tracking service which enables you to keep track of your mobile assets anywhere in West Africa. A satellite tracking unit is to secure your asset. The self contained, self powered satellite tracking unit sends location and alarm information across the Globalstar satellite network which enables you to locate, map and track mobile assets throughout West Africa and its surrounding waters.
Collect and deliver telemetry data from your remote monitoring solution - with or without mapping.
View and manage assets online through the secure, feature rich, simple to configure Web based application. Always stay in touch through sophisticated schedule or event driven alerting functionality delivered via email or SMS (where available).
Globaltouch will be offering high quality and affordable voice services to our customers using either fixed phones or handheld. Trial commercial voice services started late in 2009 with full commercial services being launched in 2010.
Globalstar data communications allow businesses the power to access, send and receive data from remote areas around the world. Special Purpose Modems can be integrated into solutions for asset tracking and remote sensing, monitoring and control of in-field operations. Two-way data communications may be either asynchronous or packet based with connection speeds of up to 9.6 kbps. Trial commercial of 2-way data services commenced last year with full commercial services bid to be launched in 2010
