satil.com - Israel's satellite news site summarizes the events in 2006, which new satellites were added, the successful and failed launches
By Ali Shavit, website editor satil.com
In the area of malfunctions, we will mention the malfunction that occurred in the Eurobird 10 satellite (previously: HotBird 4) which stopped operating for several hours shortly after it reached its new position at 10 degrees East and shortly after the Eutelsat company prominently announced the inauguration of a new "hot spot" in this position...
In the field of successful launches in our region, we can name the satellites HotBird 7A, HotBird 8 (both at 13 degrees East) and Astra 1Kr (at 19.2 degrees East) and as mentioned also the BADR-4 (the second) at 26 degrees East.
Older satellites were diverted to other positions and thus HotBird 4 moved from 13 degrees East to 10 degrees East and was renamed Eurobird 10. The Eutelsat company is trying to establish using the two satellites located in this position, and thanks to their proximity to the HotBird satellites, a new "hot" position especially for the Italian market.
Astra also continues to cultivate new satellite positions. For example, many channels were added at 23.5 degrees East (not received in Israel) and this position will soon become the company's German-Dutch position. In addition, it reached 2 degrees east of the satellite
Astra 2C and began with broadcasts also intended for Germany.
All 2006 releases15.2: EchoStar 10 using a Zenit 3 missile to 110 degrees West
28.2 : Badr One using Proton to 26 degrees East failed
11.3: Hot Bird 7A using an Ariane 5 rocket to 13 degrees East
11.3: SpainSat using the Ariane 5 rocket to 30 degrees west
12.4: JCSAT 9 using Zenit-3SL to 132 degrees East
20.4: Astra 1Kr using Atlas 5 to 19.2 degrees East
27.5 : Satmex 6 using Ariane 5 to 109.2 degrees West
27.5 : Thaicom 5 using Ariane 5 to 78.5 degrees east
18.6: Kazsat1 was launched using Proton to 103 degrees East
19.6 : Galaxy 16 via Zenit 3 to 99.0 degrees West
10.7: Insat 4C using GSLV to 74.0 degrees east - failed
4.8 : Hot Bird 8 via Proton to 13.0 degrees east
11.8: JCSAT 10 using Ariane 5 to 128.0 degrees east, together with Syracuse 3B (military satellite)
22.8 : Koreasat 5 using Zenit 3 to 113.0 degrees east
12.9 : Chinasat 22A using Long March 3A to 98.0 degrees east
13.10: DirecTV 9S via Ariane 5 to 101.0 degrees West
13.10 : Optus D1 via Ariane 5 to 160.0 degrees West
29.10 : Sinosat 2 using Long March 3B failed
31.10 : XM 4 using Zenit-3SL to 85.0 degrees West
8.11: The new Badr 4 using Proton to 26 degrees East
8.12: WildBlue 1 via Ariane 5 to 111.1 degrees West
8.12: AMC-18 via Ariane 5 to 105.0 degrees West
12.12: Measat 3 using Proton M / Breeze M to 91.5 degrees east
Note: Failed includes any malfunction that caused the satellite not to launch correctly, not to enter the planned orbit or not to operate due to faulty placement or manufacturing defects.
And what about Israel?
Halal Communications Company, which provides satellite communication services using AMOS satellites, completed a NIS 100 million fundraising in December through the issuance of bonds and warrants. The company also signed an agreement with the government according to which it will allocate capacity on the Amos 3 satellite and in return the government will pay approximately 60 million dollars. Through two moves, the company completes financing of about 85% of the total cost of the satellite (170 million dollars). In addition, the company reported that half of the capacity of the new satellite is already booked
According to the plans, the Amos 3 satellite should be delivered to the company in January 2008.
RRSAT
The Israeli teleport company RRSAT successfully issued its shares on the Nasdaq stock exchange. The company intends to issue 3.8 million shares worth 46 million dollars. RRSAT is currently jointly owned by Kardan (32.5%), Rafak (46.6%) and David Ribel (20%) who founded it in 1981.
Public channels FTAThe only positive thing that can be said about the activity of public Israeli satellite channels regarding the outgoing year is the welcome transition of Channel 2 to digital-only broadcasts through Amos. Unfortunately, such positive things cannot yet be said about the first channel of the Broadcasting Authority, and now it remains to be seen how much longer it will take for them to move from the analog era to the digital era and stop driving the tens of thousands of viewers of the satellite broadcasts crazy, who are forced to navigate between two converters and/or Antenna on the roof...
YES
Yes continued to surprise when she added to the selection of channels (in the name of religious pluralism) the wonderful Christian channel Daystar (when it is not really clear who even watches the channel. What loving Christians will do so that people in Israel will watch their channel...) and the new news channels such as Aljazeera English (in English) and France 24. These two news channels, by the way, received a "shower of chills" in the world media (the greater the expectations, the greater the disappointment). The BBC News channel, on the other hand, was relegated to such a remote place in the converter box that in order to remember its location you have to play a trivia game. What is even more interesting is that no one at all bothered to examine the channels before they were put on the list. Once upon a time they would run them in closed circuit in order to get an impression of channels before they would put them on the list....
By the way Yes: Does not one, not one, think that subscribers deserve better viewing quality on many channels?. Pay attention to those for the poor broadcast quality on channels in foreign languages that just look bad.
We still haven't seen / heard from the Israeli satellite package about its plans regarding adding high definition channels in the near future.
IPTV in Israel
Sorry, didn't we exaggerate a bit? IPTV in Israel in 2006? This is really excessive, gentlemen! . In Israel, as we know, they are always strong in technology, but only as long as they export it abroad and issue it on some exchange. But when it comes to domestic implementation, the doors slam shut and the "Jewish wars" begin (usually from existing operators with older technologies who fear for their future). All means are kosher and the government regulator has no solutions (or, actually, there is none, at least not yet).
DVB-T and DABAs we mentioned earlier, around the world the preparations for a complete transition from analog to digital terrestrial transmissions are continuing and a date has already been set for the complete shutdown of the analog transmissions. In Israel, on the other hand, the agreement continues regarding the lack of administrative agreement between the ministries of finance and communications regarding the manner of supervision (and control?!) of the conduct of digital radio broadcasts (note: the tender for the infrastructure operator was supposed to - emphasis on was - to be published on November 31) and television broadcasts Terrestrial digital (in accordance with a government decision from the end of 2005) we still haven't heard a single practical word.
In the Berber country, the committees only changeIn Israel they continue (as usual) to discuss and establish committees. And this time: "A public committee to formulate detailed recommendations regarding policy and competition rules in the field of communication in Israel". So now we have a Gronau committee that will sit down and study what those outside of Israel have understood, studied and written a long time ago.
We recommend to the members of the committee to first of all read the documents of the British regulator OFCOM on subjects to, because they have already done the work and everything is formulated there clearly and legibly. They just did most of the work for you. We can only hope that the document submitted by the committee will not be thrown into the depths of a remote contingency. Probably, until a new committee is established...
One response
I haven't seen such a lazy writer in a long time.
Linguistic editing and proofreading - urgent.