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Sat-ND, 03.06.98
More international mailings lists:
http://www.sat-net.com/ Over the next few weeks Sat-ND will be published sporadically rather than daily
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BURP!
Here's a bit of what happened over the past few days. There may be another Sat-ND tomorrow but don't hold your breath. Anyway, after tomorrow there will be a break until at least June 11. Just thought I'd let you know :-)
It pointed out that the launch was the 52nd of the three-stage liquid-fuel Chang Zheng family, the tenth successful Chang Zheng launch since October 1996, and the third of a 3B.
The Chang Zheng 3B is the most powerful in the series and has a payload of 5,000 kg--but interestingly enough, Zhongwei I weighed in at just 2,984 kg. The satellite was manufactured by Lockheed Martin Company of the USA for the China Orient Telecom Satellite Company. The satellite has 24 transponders in the C- and Ku band, respectively. Its designed service life is 15 years.
Controlled by Lockheed Martin and China Orient, it will provide commercial telecommunication services for China and other Asian countries. Zhongwei I is China Orient's first satellite to get approval from the State Council for China's satellite telecommunications, the news agency said.
Xinhua claimed "Analysts say that three successful launches of a 3B show how China's rocket technology has evolved." [Oh yeah, it's about time those analysts should evolve instead--the usually don't get anything right anyway :-]
"Why not the Chinese, if we can find a pure common interest," Luton was quoted as saying. "We are ready to talk not only to the Chinese, but also the Japanese. Our interest is to have a good range of launchers which can be used by both."
Arianespace has already set up the Starsem joint venture with Russian partners, offering launches for small satellites (mainly replacement launches for LEO constellations.) Arianespace's problem so far has been that it cannot offer major constellation launches of, for instance, six satellites at a time or more.
It seems the move into Asia is to cover that gap. Luton: "There is room for a launcher that is not taken into account in the Russian venture we have."
All of the major design characteristics of the SkyBridge system have been maintained. The increase in the number of satellites from 48 to 80, resulting in more satellites in view from any given point on the earth, allows for an increase in capacity without modifying any of the system's original technical and service objectives. In particular, the expanded system will continue to avoid all harmful interference to satellite and terrestrial communications systems.
A large industrial team is now in place under the leadership of Alcatel to design and develop SkyBridge. More than 400 engineers currently work on the program. These large-scale engineering activities have enabled SkyBridge to finalise the design characteristics of the system, the company said.
SkyBridge LP, lead by Alcatel of France, also comprises Loral Space & Communications of the United States; Toshiba Corporation, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation and Sharp Corporation of Japan; SPAR Aerospace Limited of Canada; Aerospatiale and CNES of France; and SRIW, a Belgian investment entity.
Scientific Atlanta, Hughes/Ericsson and Gilat will provide the satellite equipment. Telstra's infrastructure investment will allow corporations and governments to offer their customers functions such as e-mail, EFTPOS, file transfer and telemetry. These capabilities will support interactive distance education, telemedicine and functions such as electronic inventory control for the mining and agriculture sectors and future e-commerce possibilities.
Gerry Moriarty, Telstra's Group Managing Director, Network Technology & Multimedia said the investment was "about 'putting the outback in front', boosting access to information, electronic commerce and key services like health and education."
Telstra: http://www.telstra.com.au/
Under terms of the agreement, Loral replaces Arianespace as CD Radio's launch service provider, delivering three Loral FS-1300 satellites in-orbit on a turnkey basis along with one ground spare. Launches are scheduled for November 1999, December 1999, and January 2000. CD Radio's incremental cost of the expanded system is approximately $290 million, of which Loral has provided assistance in arranging $145 million of financing primarily through Bank of America.
Last year, CD Radio was granted one of two U.S. satellite radio broadcast licenses. The company is building a satellite-to-car 100 channel radio system for the broadcast of music and other programming to motorists throughout the United States.
CD Radio: http://www.cdradio.com/
The parties were unable to agree and execute definitive agreements for the joint venture by the deadline set forth in the letter of intent, which called for the joint development and operation of a digital direct-to-home ("DTH") television service for the Polish market.
Said Bob Fowler, Chief Executive Officer of @Entertainment: "Even thought the letter of intent has been terminated, we have informed TKP that we remain available to discuss the remaining issues that separate us. We are resuming the launch process for Wizja TV and intend to launch the platform this week on our cable television systems and in September 1998 for the DTH market."
According to Sat-Poland, the first Wizja TV channels have appeared on two Astra transponders on June 1. The letter of intent had included a standstill agreement whereby @Entertainment had agreed, for a period ending May 31, 1998, not to launch its digital pay-television service in Poland.
Canal Plus said in a statement that an agreement with @Entertainment was still possible. "The new development doesn't prejudge the possibility of reaching an agreement between the two groups given that @Entertainment has reiterated its desire."
@Entertainment through its Poland Communications, Inc. subsidiary, owns and operates the largest cable television network in Poland with 847,634 subscribers at April 30, 1998.
Sat-Poland and other regional mailing lists can be found at http://www.sat-net.com/
People think in practical terms and don't get fooled easily, according to the representative Media Business Group poll. Home shopping? They're not interested. More football [soccer]? Good heavens. "Women would be extremely annoyed if there were more football channels, since they think that there is already too much on," the authors of the survey found.
Near-video-on-demand (NVOD)? Nonsense. Viewers would rather video Coronation Street than find it on all hours of the day.
The survey also once again proved that women generally are more practical and responsible human beings. While they said they wanted educational programmes for them and their children on digital TV, the majority of males demanded [guess what] pornography.
Arabsat broadcasting is scheduled to begin in late June 1998 transmitting as many as ten Arabic television channels aimed at reaching the Arab community of viewers in Europe.
Arabsat will receive broadcasts from Arab television networks, such as Saudi TV, at the DTRF in Tunis, Tunisia. Then, using the PowerVu system and Scientific-Atlanta's Television Radio Frequency (TVRF) antennas, these programmes will be transmitted across Europe via Eutelsat Hot Bird 4.
Scientific-Atlanta: http://www.sciatl.com/
Carnival Star Group will launch a direct-to-home (DTH) digital satellite platform by the end of 1999 with about 50 local and international television channels, radio channels and pay-per-view, as well as several interactive broadcasting and multimedia applications.
Using Ku-Band capacity [no, they did not say on which satellite] the DTH platform will have excellent coverage throughout the region. Canal+ has been appointed as system integrator to co-ordinate and manage the implementation of Carnival's digital platform. Canal+ will also provide complete operation start-up and will assist Carnival with staff training, system maintenance, operation-required software and management support.
Carnival has selected Canal+'s Mediaguard conditional access (CA) system. Carnival will also implement Mediahighway+, Canal+'s advanced interactive system, to provide numerous interactive and transactional applications such as pay-per-view, teleshopping, telebanking and Internet browser capabilities.
The Posts and Telecommunications Ministry said that it expected Japanese TV stations to start digital TV broadcasts in the Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya urban areas by 2003 and in other areas by 2006. "We acknowledge difficulties broadcasters face in investing one trillion yen," a ministry official said (the equivalent of more than US$7 billion.)
The delay in the ministry's digital schedule allows terrestrial broadcasters time to concentrate on their satellite-based digital TV plans that are less costly. The ministry however said that Japan should switch off existing analogue TV services by 2010.
The recommendation by the UK's Culture, Media and Sport select committee last week that an analogue terrestrial switch-off date should be set this year was branded "premature" by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA.)
The IPA said in a statement that "the new digital channels have not even been launched, digital programme plans are not clear and there is no way in which consumer reaction to the new channel offerings can be gauged in advance."
Yesterday,
All those backups
seemed a waste of pay.
Now my database has gone away.
Oh I
believe in yesterday.
Suddenly,
There's not half the files
there used to be,
And there's a milestone hanging over me
The
system crashed so suddenly.
I pushed something wrong
What it was
I could not say.
Now all my data's gone
and I long
for yesterday-ay-ay-ay.
Yesterday,
The need for back-ups
seemed so far away.
I knew my data was all here to stay,
Now
I believe in yesterday.
Er... no, I won't publish another adaptation of a Beatles song called "Write in C" which goes to the melody of "Let it be." I like Pascal better, actually. [That's a programming language, not a guy.]
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