Vman, you have probably seen this already so I'll post it for everyone else.
Jeff Vayda
FAILURES, DELAYS HAVE TIGHTENED U.S. SATELLITE TRANSPONDER CAPACITY
Failures and delays have led to a tightening of transponder capacity in the U.S. market. In the U.S. market, full-time leases take up
about 85%-95% of total satellite capacity. This leaves little capacity for occasional-use services, especially when there is a breaking
news event and every news organization is vying for space. Capacity can become especially tight when a major event occurs, like
NATO troops moving into Kosovo. CNN leases quite a bit of occasional-use capacity for overseas transmission to affiliates. NBC
avoids the occasional-use capacity problem by leasing a lot of its own space on domestic birds- 18 Kuband transponders on GE
Americom GE-1 and PanAmSat's SBS 4, "We don't (buy occasional transponder capacity) that often." The U.S. market will
continue to be tight for about three to five years, but will gradually loosen up as operators launch new birds and digital compression
technology advances. Digital compression is already helping alleviate some of the capacity problems. Satellite operators, cable
networks and broadcasters have made major inroads into digital delivery, and most resellers have fully digital operations centers and
are able to provide end-to-end digital distribution services. In an industry where economics are a textbook model of supply and
demand, some say digital compression is the only reason occasional-use prices have been kept to a reasonable level. C-band
capacity costs about $650 to $800 per hour and Ku-band costs about $750 to $900 per hour. The cable industry has been
particularly aggressive in the development of digital networks, reducing the amount of transponder space needed to facilitate the
growing number of cable network start-ups. "There is a slight oversupply of cable transponders and a softening of prices in the
full-time market." Most news operations have begun instituting digital satellite newsgathering systems to better use their full-time
Ku-band capacity. "On a typical day there's never enough space," says CBS, "If the news weren't migrating to Ku digital it would be
more of a problem. Everybody wants to be live all the time." CNN adds, "We've been doing entirely digital feeds from the Balkans
since the (Kosovo) story started. I can't remember the last time we booked a transportable earth station that wasn't equipped with a
digital encoder. It's absolutely standard in Europe." While digital compression can help alleviate the capacity crunch and stabilize
prices recent satellite failures of the past year may have caused customer confidence in the industry to wane. "I believe satellite
disruptions and failure to complete launches has damaged the reputation for reliability which satellites have enjoyed for years.
Considering the tight capacity market and new concerns about satellite reliability it's not surprising that fiber networks are starting to
give satellites a run for their money in applications where only point to point transmissions are needed Fox and NBC were among
several broadcasters that used fiber to backhaul some feeds for coverage from Kosovo European satellites were used to move traffic
from war zones back to broadcast headquarters in London, and the signals were then routed to New York bureaus via Teleglobe's
transatlantic fiber, "There's actually much more fiber capacity in the Atlantic Ocean and soon the Pacific Ocean than the equivalent
number of satellite transponders by far. Any point-to-point service between major cities will migrate to fiber optics, primarily
ATM-based fiber optics for video. The quality is better and on point-to-point services. The economics are very strong to use fiber
optic-based services." Teleglobe's transatlantic fiber services are priced per 10-minute segments. It costs about $160 for the first ten
minutes with $12.50 for each additional 10 minute segment. Fiber can also complement satellite. "We combine the two for access
out of far-flung, remote regions." Combinations of fiber and satellite will become more popular as more fiber is put in the ground. "Not
everything can be facilitated on fiber and not everything can be facilitated by satellite. I think for the purposes of disseminating and
gathering information people are driving to a more symbiotic relationship where (satellite and fiber) will be mutually beneficial even
more so than they currently are." [Broadcasting & Cable June 21, 1999] |
