10 September 2018
Australia’s ABC has complained about the blocking of its website in China. Access to the website and mobile applications of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation have been cut off in China for ten days, said the ABC’s board on 3 September.
The Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission, which is directly controlled by Chinese President Xi Jinping, confirmed that it has classified ABC as a media “damaging [China’s] national pride” that should be banned.
ABC’s critical coverage of China, especially its publication of a 2017 report denouncing the growing influence of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Australia, appears to have triggered Beijing’s recent shutdown of the Australian broadcaster’s service.
According to the ABC, officials at two separate Chinese government departments have declined to specify how the ABC allegedly violated Chinese laws or cite any content as an example. Access to other Australian news websites inside China, including those of Fairfax, News Limited and SBS, appears not to have been affected.
In a statement, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) denounced China’s increasing censorship of foreign media. “Given the Chinese government’s stranglehold on the media, foreign websites such as ABC are the only platforms providing independent information to Chinese citizens,” said Cedric Alviani, director of the RSF East Asia bureau. “By adding ABC to its blacklist, which already counts more than 8,000 domain names, Beijing again demonstrates its commitment to keep Chinese citizens in ignorance.”
According to official sources, over two million people are involved in China’s censorship and internet surveillance effort. The “Great Firewall of China” keeps 800 million Chinese netizens away from a wide range of foreign news websites, including Wikipedia, Radio Free Asia, the New York Times, BBC and Bloomberg News.
China is towards the bottom of the 2018 RSF World Press Freedom Index, ranking at 176 out of 180 countries.
7 September 2018
IBC, the International Broadcasting Convention, held each September in Amsterdam, opens its doors on 13 September for its series of renowned conferences, with the exhibition opening the following day.
More than 57,000 visitors are expected to come to experience products and services offered by more than 1,700 exhibitors. IBC offers also a unique opportunity for broadcast professionals to network.
Many AIB members, among them broadcasters, content providers or leading technology companies will be present at IBC.
More than 400 speakers including business leaders, global game-changers and disruptors in the media, entertainment and technology industries will address some 1,700 delegates attending the conferences.
As in previous years, and in view of growing concern about so-called fake news and misinformation, news production and delivery will be the focus of several sessions.
One of these, Controlled chaos: Embracing change in the news media business, is dedicated to change in the news media business. It will be chaired by AIB CEO Simon Spanswick. Panellists will include the VP of CNN International, the director of operations of Al-Arabiya News Channel, the Chief Commercial Officer of Berlin-based Ruptly news agency and the editor-in-chief of WittyFeed, one of the fastest growing online content platforms in India. They will explain how they have embraced a constantly changing news media market, from content creation that appeals across diverse audiences, to platform and technical innovation, to scalable models and monetisation.
Reflecting technological advances, and as forecast last year, topics discussed in the conferences will include, among many others, the impact of AI, of voice-activated devices and services, of blockchain.
Changing the “face of content” to reach a younger generation on a multitude of devices, will also be debated.
No less important will be the impact of these technological advances on the production and delivery of services on new platforms for connected audiences, and the fast-growing of fairly recent services, such as e-sports and online gaming.
As usual, very advanced technologies, such as 8K, will be demonstrated by leading set manufacturers and broadcasters; the challenges they represent in terms of content production and delivery will be addressed in technical papers and presentations.
The AIB will be present at IBC and report during, and after, the convention on the conferences as well as on a wide range of issues and new products and services unveiled this year.
7 September 2018
Platform-as-a-service solution from SatADSL will empower operators to deliver competitive broadband services – including voucher-based schemes
London, UK, and Brussels, Belgium, September 06, 2018 – A new partnership between professional VSAT services provider SatADSL, iSAT Africa, and APT Satellite will see affordable broadband via satellite offered across Africa.
Under the agreement, SatADSL will provide its innovative Cloud-based Service Delivery Platform (C-SDP). This will enable iSAT to offer a suite of new services, including voucher services, VNOFlex and congestion-based services.
“We are very excited to be part of this partnership with SatADSL and iSAT to deliver cost-effective broadband services to customers in Africa,” said Thomas Antony, APT Satellite’s Director of Sales for the region. “The APSTAR-7 Ku Africa beam provides an excellent platform for Satcom services across Africa, providing extensive coverage and high performance.”
APT Satellite will provide capacity via its APSTAR-7 satellite located at 76.5 East, covering Asia, Australia, The Middle East, Europe and Africa with C-band transponders and China, the Middle East and Africa with Ku-band transponders.
SatADSL’s C-SDP is a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solution which enables operators to deliver a full range of satellite-based connectivity services without investing in physical infrastructure. SatADSL expects to have worldwide coverage by the end of the year, further expanding the reach of its C-SDP.
iSAT is the latest service provider to connect to the platform, which is now being used by 77 Africa-based partners.
“Our C-SDP was created in direct response to market demand so the rapid take-up of it among operators is not surprising,” said Caroline De Vos, Co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer at SatADSL. “As well as significantly reducing the amount of Capital expenditure normally involved in launching satellite services, it also allows operators to access new distribution channels and conversely provide their bandwidth to other service providers to monetize unused capacity.”
SatADSL will be available to discuss its C-SDP solution at IBC 2018 at booth 5.C31. For more information, please see: www.satadsl.net.
About SatADSL
SatADSL (www.satadsl.net) is a satellite Service Provider which designs and offers innovative satellite networking solutions to banks, microfinances, broadcasters, NGOs, Governments, ISPs, telecom operators and other companies in Africa and the Middle East in remote areas or where terrestrial infrastructure is not reliable.
Founded in 2011, SatADSL has already installed more than 3,000 VSAT networks in more than 45 countries. It specializes in providing tailor-made solutions based on customers’ specific requirements and flexible service plans that meet its clients’ budgets.
Through its carrier-grade Cloud-based Service Delivery Platform (C-SDP), which integrates the most advanced technologies, SatADSL provides custom-made networking solutions, tailor-made service plans and value-added services, including hierarchical service control and monitoring, traffic prioritization and online billing and payments, for any frequency band and any access technology.
About iSAT Africa
iSAT Africa is a UAE based company and a subsidiary of Wananchi Group Holdings, a fast growing fixed satellite solution service provider in Africa.
iSAT’s Satellite Solutions, backed by powerful Satellites, Teleport infrastructure and latest chosen technology solutions are unique in the industry, whether it’s for transmission of video, data or voice services.
Our customers include the leading media and network companies, multinationals, ISPs, Telcos and governmental agencies. We work closely with our partners and service providers to create the best solutions for Data, Voice and Video type requirements for our customers using our satellite and terrestrial infrastructure. Our mission is to transform the way Africa gets and stays connected with rest of the World through our carrier grade connectivity for voice, data and video applications increasing business opportunities in all kinds of diverse and challenging environments.
iSAT Africa, through its Satellite Teleport Services, is offering solutions that deliver efficient, reliable and affordable data, Internet, voice and video connectivity to enterprises, governments, carriers, media and broadcast, whilst providing value to its customers through comprehensive end-to-end solutions, turn-key projects, managed network services and network outsourcing. Through these services ISAT Africa is setting standards for transmission in rural and urban regions of East Africa.
About APT Satellite
Based in Hong Kong, APT Satellite COMPANY LIMITED (“APT Satellite”) is a satellite company operating a fleet of four satellites, namely APSTAR-5, APSTAR-6, APSTAR-6C, APSTAR-7, and APSTAR-9. APSTAR-5C is currently under construction, it will replace APSTAR-5 in Q3 2018. The footprints of the fleet cover Asia, Middle East, Oceania, and most part of Europe and Africa, extending services to over 75% of the world’s population. Currently distributing 600+ TV channels around the world including HBO, Disney, Sony Pictures, NBCU, EBU, GMA, TVBI, TVn, Celestial Tiger etc, APT Satellite is also supplying transponder capacity to a variety of DTH platforms, as well as to media networks for video contributions across the world.
7 September 2018
Serb entity president denies responsibility for recent incidents
Threats and assault
With general elections due to be held in Bosnia-Hercegovina (BiH), journalists in this Balkans country of some 3.6 million have come under increased pressure.
Recent data from the Bosnian Journalists Association (BHN) note 41 cases this year in which journalists reported having been victims of attacks – including five death threats and 14 assaults and other forms of pressures.
In the most recent serious case, which took place in Banja Luka, in Republika Srpska (RS), the Serb entity of BiH, Vladimir Kovačević, a TV reporter with private BN TV, was brutally beaten up with iron bars by two masked individuals in front of his house on 27 August.
Banja Luka District Prosecutor’s Office announced that the attack would be treated as attempted murder.
This assault follows a series of repeated verbal attacks on and insults to BN TV journalists by officials from the ruling coalition, not least by RS President Milorad Dodik, who had attacked BN TV as an “enemy” television station and a “factory of lies”. Dodik insisted that the RS authorities were not behind the event.
On 21 August Dodik accused Dino Jahić, editor-in-chief of Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia (CINS), of “destroying regional political structures with money from international organisations.” Following this accusation Jahić said that he received threats on social networks.
Bosnian journalists’ union, intergovernmental bodies’ condemnations
Milorad Dodik, RS President
In a statement following the assault on Kovačević the Association of BH Journalists (BHN) accused “President Milorad Dodik of often directing his public and political attacks on journalists and the media, humiliating them and insulting them in the most primitive ways; he declared them enemies, spies and foreign mercenaries, turning them into ‘live targets’ and opening up space for direct violence.”
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Representative on Freedom of the Media (RfoM), Harlem Desir, said in a statement that “the negative rhetoric being used against the media must end, in order to prevent further such attacks against journalists.”
For her part, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights (and 2010-2016 OSCE RfoM), Dunja Mijatović (of BiH), said that she was “profoundly shocked by the violent assault on Kovačević.”
6 September 2018
The Association for International Broadcasting is delighted to welcome three new Members to the organisation.
Public Television Service in Taiwan was established in 1998 as the country’s publicly-funded television service and is available nationwide on a free-to-air basis.
BlackRook Media is a UK-based media business covering broadcast, video production, training, strategy and events. It has developed TV shows in different territories and worked to establish networks operating internationally.
Schmitspartners is a newly-formed legal consulting firm based in Munich. It is led by Volker Schmits, an experienced media lawyer, and will work on licensing issues for channels and networks, including those associated with Brexit.
https://schmitspartners.com/
We look forward to working with all these new Members and supporting them with information, advocacy and contacts, and in helping it forge new relationships with other AIB Members.
4 September 2018
SatADSL defines itself as a business-oriented company. It is currently present in some forty countries and develops specific solutions for niche sectors, including hotels, microfinance institutions, schools, and rural radio broadcasting companies. Let’s discuss the strengths and strategies of the company with Thierry Eltges, CEO and co-founder of SatADSL.
What are the assets and specificities of SatADSL?
Thierry Eltges: One of our competitive strengths is that we have our own service platform: the Cloud-Services Delivery Platform (C-SDP). This platform allows us to provide an offer that is unique from our competition today: any operator or Internet Service Provider (ISP) can now start a satellite business anywhere in the world and without infrastructure investments. You should know that it takes a small fortune to start such a business and the financial risk is high. Operators or ISPs wanting to start selling their own services have to invest in a satellite hub and enter into a contract to lease satellite capacity for several years.
And the SatADSL C-SDP can offer advantages that other companies cannot match?
Thierry Eltges: First, there is no need to buy expensive equipment. Operators and ISPs who start their business using our services only need to buy satellite terminals that are relatively easy to install and use. You could say that SatADSL assumes the financial risk. Secondly, our C-SDP is connected to several teleport operators. This means that in case of an outage in one operator’s network, we can quickly switch to another operator.
How important is your network of local partner distributors?
Thierry Eltges: This is certainly another of our strengths that sets us apart from our competitors. We actually have two types of partners: on the one hand, we work with a network of distributors ‒ mostly African companies with local VSAT and Internet licenses offering satellite services. They must be able to carry out installations and provide after-sales service themselves. SatADSL invoices the connectivity services – subscriptions or vouchers – to these distributors, who in turn invoice their own services to their end users. On the other hand, we work directly with end-user customers, including European companies active in Africa. We rely on the same network of distributors to do the technical installations, provide the licenses, etc. These distributors invoice us for their services and SatADSL invoices the end-user customer.
What is your strategy for the future of SatADSL?
Thierry Eltges: We will continue to invest heavily in research and development. More than a third of our team is dedicated to innovation and we work extensively with the European Space Agency (ESA). We also want to expand geographically. We already have customers in Africa and the Middle East and we want to go to Asia and South America. This is, by the way, another reason why we invest so much in our C-SDP: we want to be able to provide both global connectivity and multi-technology capacity. It is part of our “horizontal” business model to encourage cooperation with teleport and satellite operators. This model challenges the “vertical” model endorsed by some large satellite operators to the benefit of the end customer, who can enjoy an optimal service at the lowest price.
Does this mean that the satellite capacity available on the market will increase significantly in the coming years?
Thierry Eltges: Absolutely! On all five continents, more and more companies and operators are investing in new satellite technologies. Our goal is to continue developing our C-SDP to make it a truly open platform, including all technologies, satellites, frequency bands and operators. This will allow us to continue providing the best solutions using the best available technologies at the best price. The satellite market is currently undergoing major changes and very large projects are under study. For example, Google wants to launch 800 satellites into low orbit. Facebook also wants to be present in the stratosphere. This involves many different technologies, sometimes even beyond satellite technology. And we need to be ready!
What else can be said about the technological developments?
Thierry Eltges: Until now, geostationary satellites are mostly used as communication satellites. They circle 36,000 km above the Earth’s equator at a fixed position and use spot beams to cover an entire continent. This technology requires very large receiving antennas and powerful antenna amplifiers, leading to very high costs. As a result, the main technological evolution today is to increase the frequency and to narrow the beams with high-throughput satellites (HTS) to 30 to 50 small spot beams, instead of one large spot beam. This technology makes it possible to concentrate power in a limited area and to have more capacity available at a lower price. But there is only room for a few hundred satellites on this specific orbit arc and the orbital positions are allocated to each country depending on its size. This is one of the reasons why several operators are preparing to launch mega-constellations of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites, to which our C-SDP will also be able to connect in the future.
