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TOP
STORIES |
Thursday, January 03, 2002
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On
Ku: Govt weighs uplink option
Nivedita
Mookerji in New Delhi
The government is examining the option of allowing Ku-band uplinking
for broadcasting purposes, information and broadcasting minister
Sushma Swaraj told The Financial Express.
So far, broadcasters are permitted to use only C-band for uplinking.
Although the ban on Ku-band frequency was lifted last year specifically
forthe Direct-to-Home (DTH) TV platform, now the government
is looking at alternate commercial use of this band in the area
of broadcasting. This move may be prompted by the fact that
DTH has been a non-starter till now.
Allowing Ku-band uplinking for broadcasting purposes, besides
DTH, will have to be an executive decision of the Union cabinet,
said senior government sources. It is felt that opening up of
Ku-band uplinking may even encourage broadcasters to invest
in the DTH platform.
As C-band is almost full, there has to be another platform for
uplinking, pointed out an official in a broadcasting company.
Not only that, Ku-band is much more powerful and economical
due to use of digital technology. According to sources in the
cable and satellite industry, a transponder on Ku-band will
hold many more channels than on C-band and therefore bring down
the overall cost.
Major beneficiaries would be satellite/transponder companies,
which will be able to accommodate more broadcasters on Ku-band,
said Col K K Sharma, editor, Cable Quest, a cable industry journal.
Also, as Ku-band has a much smaller bandwidth than C-band, the
Ku-band quality will be better, he added.
But, uplinking on Ku-band makes much more sense for a group
of channels than an individual channel, according to Star News
senior vice-president Jaya Ramanathan. So, in that sense Ku-band
uplinking is synonymous with DTH, where a bouquet of channels
is on a single platform. Ms Ramanathan said satellite and transponder
companies would benefit if there’s a decision to allow uplinking
on Ku-band.
International channels have been using Ku-band for uplinking
from the news spot, making it a much faster and easier process.
Broadcasters in the West are even using the Ka-band, which is
of a higher frequency than Ku-band. In India, however,the use
of Ku-band is mostly limited to the area of telecommunications.
It may be recalled that in a meeting of broadcasters a few months
ago, there was consensus that the government should allow Ku-band
uplinking for broadcasting purposes. Broadcasters had said that
C-band frequency, on which uplinking is allowed for broadcasting
purposes, is much weaker than Ku-band.
Probably serving as an impetus for the government to open up
Ku-band uplinking, the working group on the information &
broadcasting sector for the Tenth Plan also talks about the
use of Ku-band. Ku-band installation is cheaper than that in
C-band, it says. Also, reception of Ku-band channels requires
a very small dish antenna as against large antenna in the lower
C-band frequency.
The group recommends that public broadcaster Doordarshan should
come on the Ku mode. It may be seen that the investment required
for covering uncovered areas by a single channel terrestrial
network is far higher compared to a satellite-based distribution
system for 20 channels in Ku band for free-to-air reception,
the group says. |
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