Earth Stations: Scalability Is the Key
2015-16 did not see much procurement for earth station installations. A total of 96 new TV channel licenses were issued in 2015-16, which did not require new earth stations to be set up. The four leading vendors Indiasign, Decibel Technologies, Planetcast, and General Dynamics are finding leasing the preferred option.
On marketing strategy
Earth station operators have to meet the challenge of providing multiple services to a large number of customers at the highest data rates. The overall volume of data serving critical applications necessitates an infrastructure with a higher level of scalability and redundancy to meet customer requirements.
Broadcasters are faced with the challenge of digitizing operations on the right satellite, with coverage of their choice, and broadcasting content to reach new audiences in an efficient, reliable, and cost-effective manner.
Earth stations host communication systems that provide mission-critical, high-bandwidth services to broadcasters. Within these earth stations are a number of frequency-based equipment that generate and convert carrier frequencies, and modulate and demodulate data.
The satellite broadcasting TV services are available in India through multiple distribution platforms. These services are mostly delivered through cable TV, DTH, and HITS networks. There are 700 MSOs providing digital TV services, more than 60,000 cable operators, 7 DTH operators, and 2 HITS operators.
Each distribution platform operator retransmits on an average 350 satellite TV channels along with other services that may be unique for that particular operator.
For optimum utilization of available infrastructure, there is a need to examine technical and commercial issues in earth station facilities. It is expected that benefits of reduction in CapEx and OpEx of operators will ultimately be passed on to the subscribers.
For optimum utilization of available infrastructure, there is a need to examine technical and commercial issues in earth station facilities. It is expected that benefits of reduction in CapEx and OpEx of operators will ultimately be passed on to the subscribers.
Indian Scenario
2015-16 did not see much procurement for earth station installations. A total of 96 new TV channel licenses were issued in 2015-16, which did not require new earth stations to be set up. The four leading vendors Indiasign, Decibel Technologies, Planetcast, and General Dynamics are finding leasing the preferred option.
Indiasign upgraded its teleport facility at Hyderabad valued at Rs. 4 crore.
Planetcast received orders from Asiasat-5 for setting up earth station at captive basis valued at Rs. 3.5 crore.
Industry Speak
Bandwidth Optimization Is the Need of the Hour
Bandwidth Optimization Is the Need of the Hour
On marketing strategy
Based on the ever-changing market dynamics and trends, we have equipped ourselves in such a way that all our earth stations (teleports) are capable of meeting every specific requirement of our customers in a cost-effective manner.
On market trends
Looking at the ever-growing demand for high definition and ultra-high definition including OTT, the current earth stations have to keep pace with this latest trend to hop to next level of transmission. Upgradation has become an ongoing process these days and our teleports are upgraded on regular basis to absorb all these new changes.
On major customers
Upgradation of earth stations is always a complex process and it is even more challenging when it is done on live channels. Indiasign smoothly upgrades its teleports with live channels without any interruption.
On plans for 2016-17
Our plan for the year 2016-17 would be to bring in technology which optimizes bandwidth. We are also planning to work on different delivery platforms to cope with the future trends.
On price trends
The new compression and modulation techniques help us to render the services in competitive manner even though the equipment vendors and satellite operators are increasing their prices alongside an always-appreciating dollar.
On technology trends
The future technology trends are HEVC and DVBS2X with OTT also making inroads.
On key demand drivers
The customer is moving from traditional TV watching to viewing on mobile devices and watching programs when they wish to and not as per broadcaster’s schedule. This change in trend would be a major market driver in the coming future.
The customer is moving from traditional TV watching to viewing on mobile devices and watching programs when they wish to and not as per broadcaster’s schedule. This change in trend would be a major market driver in the coming future.
On product portfolio
Our earth stations are known to be one-stop shop for all our valued customers who are getting uplinking services with all the facilities such as SD/HD transmission, encryption, OTT, etc., giving TV channels wide visibility across various mediums and platforms.
Our earth stations are known to be one-stop shop for all our valued customers who are getting uplinking services with all the facilities such as SD/HD transmission, encryption, OTT, etc., giving TV channels wide visibility across various mediums and platforms.
Indiasign is actively working on various government and private projects from uplinking to OTT, to broadcast solutions. In 2015-16, Indiasign has upgraded its teleport facility at Hyderabad.
The business strategies for satellite communication must be highly flexible and should respond to technological changes immediately. The technology around us is changing faster than ever before and it becomes very important for industry players to be agile and innovative to keep the industry thriving.
Broadcast earth stations or teleports continue to be the backbone of the satellite communication industry as they offer the most reliable mode to receive and transmit digital signals without any compromise on quality and network up-times.
Earth station enables instantaneous access to content for millions of viewers and the demand for high-quality content is continuously growing in both developing and developed economies of the world. Diverse demographics due to population shift are creating demand for television channels across the globe and channel broadcast is no more limited to its home country. This calls for a huge support from the teleport industry to help its customers expand their base and outreach.
The challenge to provide content on the mobile devices makes this industry very exciting. International collaboration for teleports is very critical to enable the worldwide reach of the quality content and to utilize satellite output to its full potential for delivering bandwidth-hungry high-resolution content.
The wild push for innovation is making the industry explore new horizons such as providing content to dynamic setups like ships and airplanes. New technology will ultimately lead to seamless multi-teleport and unified global delivery of high-quality content. Further, technology pertaining to bandwidth utilization is also changing with higher modulation techniques for increasing data efficiency. Satellite companies are also coming up with high-throughput satellites which will significantly reduce the per-mega-hertz cost of bandwidth in future.
Teleport industry is contentiously challenged by other terrestrial technologies such as optical fiber and 3G and 4G networks. Over-the-top content delivery directly to the mobile devices and through mobile apps poses another challenge to the teleport industry, but with every challenge also comes an opportunity. Broadcasters are reaching out to their trusted teleport service providers to manage their distribution across all channels in all formats according to demanding schedules, which means teleport players need to develop superior quality of automated content management systems.
Sanjay Duda
Chief Marketing Officer,
Planetcast Media Services Limited
Chief Marketing Officer,
Planetcast Media Services Limited
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