DCC Satellite and networks Limited is a pure computer communications company, specializing in VSAT, Metropolitan Area Networks, Wide Area Networks, Local Area Networks (LAN) and Systems Integration.
The company started off as one of the few companies in the country that could LAN to a few niche clients in the early nineties. Then the business appeared small but its drivers knew that for such niche business, the sky was the limit once it could guarantee efficient service delivery and the right support. The terrain for such services in the country was wide but it was difficult to get those who could provide the right expertise and give it adequate technical support, for a wide variety of clients in the Oil and gas, banking and manufacturing sector of the economy that needed such services. It was this void that DCC came to fill in 1993 when it opened shop.
Today, in less than twelve years, DCC has grown to become a highly professional company offering service support both locally and through her partners by providing World wide and local 24x7 Helpdesk support; first Level support to company’s IT dept by Gilat support resource; dedicated team of support engineers in Nigeria available on call; dedicated team of engineers and experienced VSAT network designers and installers from Israel, UK and USA; dedicated Technical Project Managers maintaining daily contact with sites.
It has become an integrated company that has found a lot of synergy between its operations and that of its sister companies of Expert Edge and Computer Warehouse Ltd., within the Computer Warehouse Group, in providing enterprise solution for companies in the West African coast.
Only last month, DCC completed the deployment of a major switch for MTN in Lagos. That switch described as the biggest in sub-Saharan Africa outside South Africa was deployed by DCC, making it the first local company to handle such a mega project. Phillip Obiora Managing Director of the company says the project was a challenge but that DCC was confident it could pull it through given of the expertise available within the group. He contends that MTN also had confidence in the company given that the two companies have partnered in many of such highly technical projects in the past.
After perfecting its skills in LAN; building a lot of mega projects for Multi Nationals in the country, DCC has moved ahead into building Metropolitan Area Networks which involves it providing digital radio services for metropolitan areas like Lagos.
DCC is a leader in the banking sector where it provides radio links services for a lot of banks. Today there are more than 18 local banks including Oceanic bank, Diamond, NNB ACB, UTB, Assurance bank, Reliance bank and many more, already benefiting from DCC’s expertise.
For Oceanic Bank, it established V-SAT links within 24 branches and the headquarters to enhance the company’s operational efficiency.
For Exxon Mobil, it has also implemented a structural cabling (copper & fibre) project for its offices in Lagos and Eket as well as an upgrade of microwave radio networks for the company involving more than 20 locations within Lagos.
DCC also provides services for Large Area Network services using VSAT. It has indeed implemented over 350-pt LAN for various branches of Diamond bank nationwide as well as for the audit giant KPMG.
Despite its successes so far in these areas where it chooses to play, the company is not resting in its oars. Currently on its drawing board are various products designed to give more added value to its clientele. The company plans to soon introduce a service, which would relieve its clients of the headache of managing their networks. The idea is to get the client concentrate on their core business interest while they leave the management of the network to the experts in DCC.
Another interesting product in the works at DCC is an internet-based product that would bring affordable Internet services to the mass market in Nigeria. It would be pre-paid and directed at households. Obiora says that as leaders in the Internet business, DCC was desirous of bring affordable Internet to the mass of Nigerians hence the introduction of the product.
As part of the strategy to bring down the cost of bandwidth for better access to the Internet and other networking needs of corporate Nigeria, Obiora also indicated that DCC was already discussing with some of its partners abroad including PanamSat which provides the company bandwidth, to bring down the cost of bandwidth in Nigeria and make it more affordable.
He however contends that bandwidth is not the only cost factor in determining the cost of bandwidth. Other cost factors, he said, include the equipment to deploy the service, which are also imported. He however indicates that because of the commitment of DCC to the Nigerian market it was also working on a mechanism to bring down the cost of equipment.
Having had a lot of experience within the banking sector over the years, DCC says it would be of tremendous assistance to banks in their on-going consolidation process.
Obiora says that the new requirements of banks of N25 billion would ensure banks that are strong and adequately funded to provide optimum services to its clients. He says that such big banks would need technology to deliver optimum service and that DCC was well positioned to further serve the banks in this regard. Indeed that is where the synergy within CWG becomes very useful to such clients, he asserts. While DCC is available to provide the networking infrastructure, Expert Edge provides the software, which would run on the infrastructure, and CWL provides the hardware in terms of the servers like the Sunservers and other storage solutions. Of course, Finacle banking application software pushed by Expert edge in the Nigerian market is reputed to be highly effective in large banking environments.
DCC is reputed to give adequate service support to its project. It has well trained local and foreign expertise who are fully in-charge of support on a 24 by seven basis.
Although much of its human resource is local, it has effective local and foreign training programmes to keep its manpower in top form. Says Obiora: What we do is to spend a lot of money on training and to augment; we have experts who are always around to help out. DCC also has support from its various partners.
Amongst its partners are WILAN for Digital microwave solutions, Avaya for structured cabling, and Gilat Satellite networks for VSAT, 3Com for Hubs and Routers, CISCO for Switches and Routers, and Brand Rex for cables and LAN accessories.
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