Emerging players, new applications and next- generation services are providing the requisite impetus.

The world market for satellite transponders has been reinvigorated by the growing popularity of digital broadcast entertainment services. In addition to cable and TV broadcasting, consumer broadband internet services, wireless telephone, data services, and direct radio are also expected to help keep demand sufficiently kindled.

Sales of satellite transponders in the worldwide broadcasting application market are expected to rise by 442 units by 2012, despite being challenged by the rapid advancements in compression technology.

In the Asia-Pacific market, demand for satellite transponders for reserve purposes is projected to reach 358 units by the year 2012. The operators are replacing satellites that are reaching end-of-life and are ordering larger and more powerful satellites to keep up with demand for advanced services such as high-definition television.

Growth in satellite demand in the Asia-Pacific region is also driven by the economics of point-to-multipoint distribution as well as the need for services in areas where it is not practical to build terrestrial infrastructure.

There is a noticeable growth in the broadcasting sector in terms of the number of new channels introduced by local or foreign TV operators to the region, with India having touched the 500-channels mark, including 249 news channels. Combined with this is the growth of distribution platforms like including DTH, IPTV , HITS and mobile TV and HD channels.

By the end of 2009 three new DTH operators started their service, doubling the number of players in the market. This unprecedented jump has led to higher demand for satellite transponders. There are currently 400-500 channels in India with downlinking licenses, but most private DTH players can carry only 150-190 
channels. If DTH operators look to expand and carry 300+ channels, along with a few HD channels, then each operator needs to increase his capacity by 120-140 percent. Therefore, it is expected that by 2011, the DTH services will constitute around 59.5 percent of the total transponder leasing done in the Asian market.

Therefore, it is believed that the growth in demand will basically depend on the growth of video programming and the bandwidth requirement for high-definition programming, as HD content needs six to eight times more capacity, when compared to an average standard definition channel.

The demand for C-band transponders seem to persist. However, as new applications and next generation services offered by operators increase there is already evidence of a shift in demand to the Ku-band because of its higher capacity and power, plus the smaller size of the antennae. The need for capacity building in the Indian TV transmission infrastructure may well see a shift to the more powerful Ka-band, however, that is only in the future.

Frequency spectrum is a limited resource and the satellite operators will have to restrict the tendency to launch large-capacity satellites. Indeed, the trend towards limiting new-capacity is also being observed among some operators and it is reflected in their decision to purchase only medium-sized satellites over the next few years.

Increased efficiencies can be achieved by migrating video broadcasting from analog to digital signals, allowing more content to be broadcast per transponder. While the digitization and compression of video signals continue to restrain transponder demand growth the ever increasing volume of players and the increasing focus on value-added applications will offset this enough and more.

On your services

There are four types of services provided by Doordarshan:

• Regional and National services
• External services
• Digital News Gathering
• Exchange of programs

Regional services are transmitted over Insat4B and Insat3A and National services over Insat3C and Insat4B. G13 on C-band for DD India at 5Mbps bandwidth is used for our external services. For digital news gathering Doordarshan uses one Ku-band transponder from IS906 from Intelsat.

On transponder usage

We are using maximum number of transponders both in C and Ku band from Insat system. We have two C-band transponders and one Ku- band transponder from Intelsat. We are using 18 transponders of Insat i.e. five C-band transponders from Insat3A of 36 Mhz, one Insat3C transponder of 9Mhz and twelve transponders from Insat4B of 36 Mhz on both C & Ku- band. Five Ku-band transponders on Insat4B are used for DTH channel called DD Direct Plus and seven C-band transponders from Insat4B are used for 10 DTH channels exclusively for viewers in Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Some transmission is also done on Asiasat3 for Asia Vision News.

On your plans for 2010

We currently have 59 channels and want to launch 100 channels in Ist phase of expansion and 200 channels in IInd phase. We need 1 Ku band on Insat4B for the Ist phase of expansion which is already in shortage because it is being used by Sun Direct and other DD channels. Currently DD is using Harmonic video compression equipment for cost-effective distribution of DTH services.

DD is also planning to launch an HDTV channel before the Commonwealth Games.