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.
3 September 2018
Arqiva, the international satellite and media services provider, has today announced an upgrade of its five-year contract with France 24 to incorporate the launch of a new high definition (HD) channel in the UK.
France 24, an international rolling news channel broadcast in French, English, Arabic and Spanish to 355 million households around the world, has been available to UK audiences in standard definition (SD) in the UK since 2012. The announcement means that UK customers of Sky and Freesat can access its breaking news coverage in HD with immediate effect.
Arqiva will provide its satellite services to deliver the France 24 service to Sky and Freesat through its media facility in Paris. Using state-of-the-art encoding, Arqiva is also helping France 24 optimise the use of satellite capacity for HD delivery.
Alex Pannell, Managing Director, Satellite & Media at Arqiva, said: “The most satisfying wins are undoubtedly those that result from a long-standing, successful relationship with a partner – we are delighted that we can help France 24 with the next phase of its growth.
“Arqiva prides itself on delivering high quality services that are flexible to the specific needs of our customers, and as France 24 reaches more and more audiences in the coming years, we look forward to evolving our proposition with them.”
David Couret, Director of Technical Distributions at France 24 added:“The launch of France 24 HD represents an important step in our journey to bring instant, high quality news and events coverage to UK viewers, and it is crucial to have a trusted partner like Arqiva working alongside us on this project.
“Arqiva helped us launch our first UK SD channel back in 2012, and its reliable service and technical expertise has been critical in helping us to grow in this essential market.”
3 September 2018
Journalists jailed for seven years for reporting on Rohingya mass killing
The Association for International Broadcasting is deeply troubled by the jailing of two Myanmar journalists for allegedly contravening the country’s Official Secrets Act.
Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were found guilty by a district judge in Yangon and sentenced to seven years in jail. The reporters were arrested on 12 December 2017 while investigating the killings of ten Rohingya men and boys, and other abuses involving soldiers and police, in the Rakhine State village of Inn Din.
The reporters were found guilty of receiving classified documents in what a police witness at their trial admitted was a sting operation designed to block or punish them for reporting on a mass killing of Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine, a clear case of entrapment. This follows the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar report published on 27 August that said Myanmar’s top military generals, including Commander-in-Chief Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing, must be investigated and prosecuted for genocide in the north of Rakhine State, as well as for crimes against humanity and war crimes in Rakhine, Kachin and Shan States,
“The Association for International Broadcasting deplores the jailing of the two Reuters reporters in Myanmar,” said Simon Spanswick, AIB Chief Executive. “Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were working for a major international news agency carrying out a legitimate investigation into killings in the country. This is a clear case of responsible journalism being silenced by the authorities who fear the uncovering of truths that could harm their legitimacy. This Association joins with other organisations and the diplomatic community in Myanmar in condemning these verdicts and their negative impact on journalism and freedom of expression in the country. We call on the authorities to overturn these sentences at the earliest opportunity and demonstrate to the world community that the country respects journalistic freedom.”
According to Reuters, US ambassador to Myanmar Scot Marciel said the “deeply troubling” verdict could undermine the confidence the Myanmar people had in the justice system.
The UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Myanmar Knut Ostby said he was “disappointed”.
“Unbelievable! More and more, responsible journalism is found to be a crime in Myanmar!” Yanghee Lee, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, said on Twitter.
British ambassador Dan Chugg, speaking on behalf of EU members, said the verdict had “dealt a hammer blow for the rule of law”.
The AIB is lodging complaints with the Myanmar Ambassador in London and in Washington DC.
Picture credit | Reuters journalist Wa Lone departs Insein court after his verdict announcement in Yangon, Myanmar, September 3, 2018. (REUTERS)
Download the AIB press release here.
30 August 2018
The International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) will be held in Amsterdam from Thursday 13 to Monday 17 September 2018. SatADSL will be present at the major event of the year for the broadcast and video technology industry. 1,700 exhibitors and 57,000 attendees are expected.
Amsterdam hosts IBC each September, attracting attendees and exhibitors from 170 countries. Just like the NAB Show in Las Vegas, IBC brings industry leaders in broadcasting, telecommunications, media, and entertainment together in fifteen halls.
This year’s event focuses on how companies are preparing for the future, with particular attention to speed and agility – the two key elements in every forward-thinking strategy. A prestigious line-up of some 400 speakers has been assembled to explore the theme of “Shaping The Future Together”.
SatADSL will take part in this event for the second time. If you are a satellite operator or an Internet service provider, we will be happy to meet you at stand “5.C31” in Hall 5. Michel Dothey, our Chief Commercial Officer, Fulvio Sansone, our Chief Technology Officer, and Caroline De Vos, our Chief Operations Officer, will showcase the SatADSL services: satellite IP connectivity, business solutions and specific business-oriented solutions. They will also show you what makes SatADSL different from the competition: the unique Cloud-Services Delivery Platform (C-SDP). Finally, they will present the new PaaS offer (Platform as a Service), opening the SatADSL C-SDP to every satellite, hub or IP service operator and bringing an additional level of added value to our current services.
To welcome you in the best conditions, we invite you to contact us today at caroline.devos@satadsl.net or +32 2 351 33 74 to arrange a meeting at our stand. You can also contact Michel Dothey at +32 495 53 06 12.
For more information about IBC: https://show.ibc.org.
