The Hindu Business Line : Space shrinking for new DTH players

The country’s satellite infrastructure provider, ISRO, is advising prospective DTH players to this effect as the Ku-band frequency resources over the subcontinent are running out.

There are already seven DTH players who have been granted the licences, four of whom are already in service. DTH currently hogs the precious Ku bandwidth: 57 of the 88 Ku-band transponders on Indian satellites and some leased capacity are dedicated to it.

“The Government of India needs Ku-band spectrum for other equally important services such as VSat, DSNG (digital satellite news gathering), Internet, tele-medicine, tele-education, village resource centres and village telephony.

“In addition, the national services will require to be only on INSAT as they cannot be put on foreign satellites,” said Mr S.B. Iyer, ISRO’s Director, Contracts Management.

While there is no policy cap on DTH channels, ISRO is suggesting that new aspirants should look at non-DTH opportunities such as broadband connectivity. Alternatively they could find their own satellite resources — both the spectrum and the orbital slot.

The SatCom policy of 2000 allows private operators to own satellites, subject to equity and satellite control terms.

Mr Iyer told Business Line that with the high-power Ku bandwidth becoming scarcer, “We are advising them to find their own Ku-band resources by setting up their own systems as permitted under the Satcom policy or explore the newer and futuristic Ka band applications where it is less crowded at present.”

UNFORESEEN RUSH

Of the seven licensees, DD Direct, Zee’s Dish TV, Tata Sky and Sun Direct are already beaming in, while Reliance ADAG, Bharti Telemedia and Videocon’s Bharat Broadcast Channels will unleash their fare next. And the last five licences came in just the last couple of years.

ISRO says this is not the end of the queue and the rush itself has been a surprise. “We expected just 1-2 but never 8-10 players,” Mr Iyer said. Consolidation seems to be a far cry as all operators are major corporate houses with serious business intent.

The Asian skies are choking with more than 50 satellites and it will be difficult to get new slots over India.

At the most, one or two new capacity options may be coming up over Asia.

One could be ProtoStar-1, which the Zee/Agrani group is partially acquiring.

When future players do come up with their spectrum, Mr Iyer observed, “It would be like driving your car down your own road.”

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