Satellite broadcasting is the preferred medium almost by every television broadcaster worldwide as satellite communication is considered to be the most reliable channel with success rate of more than 99 percent and wide visibility.

Television broadcasting emerged with analog transmission gradually switching over to digital transmission in a span of 10 years. In today's world, the digital transmission is all about superior compression and higher modulation, which gives the broadcaster to go for maximum satellite bandwidth utilization, unlike satellite bandwidth which has limited availability and is quite expensive. The emergence of technology has provided elevated quality and cost effective solutions in the modern era.

When we talk about earth station, choice of the satellite is an important factor. Strong EIRP, wide footprint, state of the art monitoring services by the service provider, exceptional customer support and better rates are the various deciding factors while choosing a satellite. Broadcasters also look for commonly used satellite in respective region as the MSOs and cable headends can tune to the broadcaster's signal easily. Network18 is uplinking its various channels on satellites INTELSAT 10 and INSAT 4A and these satellites have the benefit of all the above requirements.

Next is the earth station equipment which comprises of antenna, RF and compression equipment. Normally broadcasters prefer widely used and market proven equipment with the commercial aspect as well. Broadcasters do expect moderate post sales support from the vendors that makes the vendor's first choice for recurring orders. It is highly unlikely that a vendor goes back to the broadcaster to get the feedback about the system. Vendor must be aware of the system and should be able to support the broadcaster with valuable inputs and suggestions which further strengthens the relationship between the vendor and the broadcaster. We at Network18 have chosen Tandberg for compression system and CPI & Vertex for HPA system and antennane 
respectively.

Acute monitoring and periodic maintenance are other aspects of an earth station. Measurement tools such as spectrum analyzer, RF power meter, MPEG stream analyzer are widely used monitoring and measurement devices in broadcast industry. We use spectrum analyzers manufactured by Agilent and Dektec stream analyzers as our monitoring tools.

Currently, the transition from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 has already started with some of the broadcasters in the subcontinent already into MPEG-4. Network18 channels include both MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 platforms. IPTV and DVB-H are the latest entrants in terms of technology advancement in the subcontinent but are still constrained to limited streaming bandwidth. Introduction of 3G spectrum and proposals for Wimax spectrum are definitely good signs for rapid growth in 
technology.