The Channel | 2003 | September

23 / 48

the channel | 23
So the combination of small terminals,
capable of being deployed by non-
specialists, with large-scale storage and
repurposing facilities to make the content
available to mass-market networks in
consumer-friendly bites could start to
make the news industry much larger.
How far could this go? What about the
individual consumer - are we all news
gatherers now, with our digital cameras,
camcorders and new-found talent for
blogging? How much would you pay to
uplink your wedding to a satellite, beam it
to a content hub and have Auntie Mabel
receive it on her mobile phone inAustralia?
•50 an hour? •100 an hour? It might soon
be not only possible, but widespread.
Well perhaps we will not all want to keep
a portable uplink terminal along with all
the other junk in our garage just for those
few occasions when we are newsworthy.
But a professional wedding photographer
or small local video studio operator might
well find one to be part of his normal kit
in the next few years. And compared to
the small number of large broadcasters
and agencies that currently use SNG, this
could be a very large market indeed, and
could open up the use of satellites for use
by enterprises and conceivably consumers
worldwide.
While most of the small terminal
developments such as SatNet, or
Tandberg’s new DSNG unit are still
relatively expensive units aimed at the
battle-hardened professional
newshound, some are looking ahead to
this wider market. ND SatCom has its
eyes firmly on the enterprise market with
its SkyWAN platform which delivers
video and data over IP as a ‘broadband
media contribution solution’. But all this
can still seem like relatively small and
incremental technical improvement in a
small pond. Is anyone looking at the
really big picture?
Onemanwho should knowwhat he’s doing
is Misko Popovic, formerly of Intelsat and
New Skies and a highly experienced
engineering manager involved with
newsgathering and the ISOGestablishment
for many years. His start-up company in
the Netherlands, The People’s Network,
has a grand vision for using consumer
technology to uplink to satellites.
The two-way broadband technologyDVB-
RCS has been developed over the last few
years to enable interactive television and
direct broadband connectivity to places
beyond the reach of ADSL networks. It
works through an intelligent hub
controlling large numbers of subscribers
who each send a fairly small signal up to
the satellite and receive a fairly large one
back. This is the typical pattern for
broadband internet browsing and is also,
in a more extreme sense, the pattern for
interactive television where only a few
outbound bytes need to be sent from a
viewer to interact with a TV programme.
However, the DVB-RCS system allows
for up to 2 Mbps to be sent from a remote
terminal – plenty of bandwidth for a
decent signal in any of the MPEG
flavours. The actual uplink bit rate
depends upon the size of the antenna and
its ‘outdoor unit’ amplifier, but any
terminal operating to the ‘open-standard’
DVB-RCS protocol is likely to be more
in the price range of a very small
enterprise than any of the proprietary
systems on the market.
There are several companies offering
remote broadband internet services
using DVB-RCS in Europe now and
achieving price premiums over normal
broadband.. However, this is likely to
be a volatile and competitive market in
which the operators offer nothing except
remote accessibility to distinguish
themselves from terrestrial broadband.
Once demand is established in any
remote area, the telcos will find it cost-
effective to wire them. The satellite-
based operators need some further
added value.
“Using DVB-RCS for video
transmission solves a lot of problems at
once” says Misko. “It could give the
broadband operators a real added value
product that terrestrial networks can’t
easily compete with. It can make use of
spare bandwidth in the multiplex and can
work with the peaks and troughs of
Internet traffic for non-urgent
transmissions. The terminal can be
something the smallest of broadcasters
could afford and using this system could
bring a lot more fresh material to the
screens – local news and events that
wouldn’t normally justify a crew and a
satellite booking. You could even use a
DVB-RCS terminal to create an
additional fixed uplink site –say for a
very remote studio for a few hundred
Euros a year. One day they could even
be on street corners like phone booths
and you could plug in your camcorder
and broadcast across Europe.”
Misko’s vision is beginning to attract
backing. The People’s Network BV was
recently chosen as one of the successful
bidders in a call for new projects by the
European SpaceAgency and he is linking
up with other Dutch companies to refine
the concept and the terminal design.
One way or another, a lot more people
will be using satellites to broadcast in
the next few years. That must be good
news for an industry battered by
consolidation and recession.
Silver is the new black
Misko Popovich
Paul McGhee has worked in the satellite
television and satellite operating
industries for twenty years and runs a
creative and product development
consultancy in Cambridge, UK.
The Channel - supported by