Former Head of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon (rtd), chaired the well-attended ceremony.
IT&Telecoms Magazine Editor-In-Chief, Mr. Mkpe Abang said this year's event was a testament the progress recorded so far in the sector. Excerpt of citation on DOPC was captured like this:
"Providing world class Internet service has always been the driving force behind the success story that is Direct on PC. And to sustain this, this unique company discovered early in its life that remaining ahead of competition means being creative, innovative and proactive."
Since 2002, Direct on PC has completely altered the Internet services landscape in Nigeria through its unique products that it continually improves upon and adoption of technology that excites customers and gives services whenever and wherever they are needed.
"And since the formal launch of its WiMAX technology, simply named Unwired, Broadband service has not been this good in Nigeria. A completely Non-Line of Sight Product (NLOS), it comes with no external antenna with a Thruput of up to 2Mbps on Desktop Modem and 1Mbps on PCMCIA Card, it is currently roaming in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt."
"As it continues to expand the reach of this and its numerous other Internet products, it continues to provide the Nigerian market unmatched leadership. Highly affordable and easy to use, the Unwired has become the darling of corporate bodies and private individuals."
Today's DOPC is the toast of financial institutions, banks, SMEs, NGOs, government and educational institutions. With its headquarters in Ilupeju, Lagos, DOPC enjoys the extensive technology compliments of its partners like Intelsat, iDirect, Navini, Verso, Hughes, ESS, Juniper, OKI, Onspeed, SkyVision, Main.net, net2phone, Alvarion, Redline, elitescore, among others.
Highly innovative, Direct On PC has complete presence in 16 countries in Africa and average coverage in 10 other countries, making it one of the leading ISPs in the continent. And to imagine that all this is coming within a short space of the company's emergence into the Nigerian telecommunications industry, the influence of DOPC on the industry is still described as electric by many people.
DOPC has the best industry Bandwidth solutions with a Lagos Teleport (iDirect), a Disaster recovery hub (iDirect), a VNO solution, a Teleport based in Washington (HNS), and service coverage on IS907, there is little answer to the continued dominance of DOPC of the Internet landscape in Nigeria, the citation read.
Head of Operations, Mr. Anurag Garg said in a statement that DOPC has gone from strength to strength "doing and offering services we never believed we could offer."
DOPC, which was established in June 2002 and launched the Ku-Band Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) services same year, and by January 2003, the Ku-band SCPC services joined the bouquet of products on offer.
A year later in January 2004, C-band SCPC was introduced and quickly warned itself to the hearts, of its customers in Nigeria and the West Coast region.
In June 2005, the company launched its fixed wireless service in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt & Ibadan bringing basic affordable broadband to thousands of customers.
In September 2005, it turned its direction to the enterprise market and established an iDirect Hub in Lagos with KU and C Band Internet and intranet services coupled with its fixed wireless services, making it a serious player in hybrid networks in the enterprise market.
Simultaneously in September 2005 it launched a state of the art data centre Tier III designed by international experts meeting the highest specs.
In August 2006 it launched its updated TDMA KU Band DVBS-2 services on the Hughes platform and has established thousands of customers and has already expanded its services by adding a second hub. Both hubs are owned by DOPC and located in U.S.A. It made KU band v-sat, once again, a reality in pricing and affordable to the middle class and SME/SOHO sector.
"We have seen many platforms, but yet the best price for hardware and the best bandwidth for your money come from DOPC on its Hughes v-sat. There is just no comparison."
