The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Satellite dish back in new form

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Tuesday, Jun 17, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Satellite dish back in new form

Shyam Ranganathan

It allows consumers to choose their own channels

— PHOTO: V. GANESAN

SMALL IS POWERFUL: Direct-to-Home “mini-dishes” are increasingly making their presence felt. A couple of such “mini-dishes” on the terrace of an apartment in Chennai.

CHENNAI: After being nearly obliterated by cable television, satellite dishes are coming back with a vengeance. Only the new avatar is not a huge dish sitting on top of the house, come rain or sunshine, but the much smaller Direct-to-Home (DTH) “mini-dish.”

For cable TV, the cable cost in the last mile is the most important consideration for operators. But in a network where almost every house was subscribing to the same operator, the average cost for the operator, and hence the consumer’s subscription rate, came down.

However, consumers did not have much flexibility as they were at the mercy of the particular cable TV operator or the Multi-System Operator (MSO) in their area.

In contrast, DTH allows the consumers to choose their own channels. The digital data is transmitted in scrambled form and decoded by a set-top box (STB) like in the conditional access system (CAS) used in Chennai currently.

The DTH uses high frequencies in the 10-12 gigahertz range to ensure that the size of the dishes can be as small as 45 centimetres in diameter, fitting on a window sill.

The frequency band ensures there is no interference from terrestrial wireless transmissions. However this requires a device to ‘down-convert’ the signal to a frequency that the STB can receive.

The technology also allows for telecast of DVD quality channels. While the DTH does not suffer from maintenance problems as often as cable TV does, the frequency band can be hit by interference owing to rain. This may result in outage, called ‘rain fade,’ during heavy rain.

The cost of installation and the absence of many dedicated service providers also makes DTH costly for the end user. Another problem for DTH service providers is the fact that only 360 satellites can be stationed in geostationary orbit at the required spacing. This creates a ceiling on the number of channels that can be provided by DTH, even if this number is huge and more than enough for practical needs.

While DTH operators can claim to have transformed the television experience, it is another matter that they are often not meeting the benchmarks in customer satisfaction.

Though the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) clearly stipulates that no DTH operator shall take off the air or discontinue exhibition of any channel without giving prior notice to the Direct-to-Home subscribers, this is not always the case.

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