Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Friday, Jan 27, 2006
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Friday, Jan 27, 2006 |
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Science & Technology Industry & Economy - Radio/TV ISRO sees mobile TV as the new money-spinner — Mobile video tech to be packed on to Insat-4E Madhumathi D.S.
Bangalore , Jan 26 IN the world of entertainment, what after digital radio and DTH? Don't tell this yet to the cops who flag you down for touching the cell phone while driving - in around three years from now, you could be watching television while you move around in your car, on highways, ships or what have you, if national space agency ISRO has its way. If DTH broadcasts beam pictures directly into fixed, single-focus platforms like homes, the revolutionary thing in the offing is a to have digitally coded signals beamed on to any automobile moving on the ground and fitted with a suitable antenna. ISRO is working on a specially-loaded satellite that would have a large, unfurlable antenna, the complex technology to vastly compress data (to MPEG4 for small screens) and the extremely high power to enable the omni-directional transmission. "It is a unique experiment to provide TV signals for people on the move," the Chairman of ISRO, Mr G. Madhavan Nair, told Business Line in a recent interview. "We are now in the process of finalising the satellite design; it will have a new technology for data compression, on-board antenna that will be at least 5 metres in diameter, high power and mostly S-band communication." The mobile video technologies would be 30 months away and are to be packed on to the 2-tonne Insat-4E (or Gsat-6, the series for home-launched satellites). The recently approved satellite would also have provision for C band communication and a few routine uses. If the DTH platform leased to Tata Sky on Insat-4A alone is going to generate Rs 40 crore a year for ISRO's commercial arm Antrix, according to Mr Nair, the mobile platform is the next big business opportunity and ISRO does not want to be left out of it. The applications are not far behind: An NRI-promoted company in the US is ready to take all this forward in the Indian market with its own services, called Digital Enabled Video Audio Service (DEVAS), complete with a suitable ground system. The company is in talks with ISRO to lease bulk of the satellite on a long term, Mr Nair said, adding, "We are trying to work out the commercial basis of it." The challenge before the team at ISRO Satellite Centre in Bangalore is to raise the power onboard the satellite 4-5 times the normal and vastly shrink the bandwidth. The prototype is being evaluated. South Korea and Japan, according to ISRO officials, already just started sampling these services through MBSat while Europe and the US are looking at it. As for the Indian market, the private sector DEVAS player would have to build it up around a network of ground infrastructure, content providers and distribution channels. After all, "If our technology can find its use, then that is the best bargain for us," they said. Meanwhile, the cops can figure out their mobile rules.
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