Posted on 03/15/2012 4:40:42 PM PDT by Las Vegas Dave
At the 2012 Satellite Convention which took place in Washington D.C. this week, Philip Goswitz of DirecTV (News - Alert) announced that, “4,000 and 8,000-line services are great for the satellite industry, and will ensure that satellite broadcasting continues to distinguish itself for image quality of service. We see this as a key strategic advantage for us.” Goswitz is disclosing how his company plans on providing its spectrum with advantages unique to satellite services.
Unlike new spectrum-seeking satellite companies that are now hoping to initiate Ku-band transmissions (like Qatar’s Es’hailSAT) Goswitz predicts that Ku-band will soon be obsolete and Ka-band is what consumers are turning towards for HDTV services. According to the press release, Japan plans to launch their Ultra-HDTC services using Ka-band in 2020. Goswitz says in addition to his company being fully aware of Ka-band transitions, DirecTV is also working on developing, “so-called Reverse Band for DBS.” The technological edge will include amongst other things, 3D viewing without glasses.
But what makes Ka-band superior to Ku-band? Goswitz says, “I am not even sure our own executives know! They don’t know the difference between Ka and Ku-band, and why should they?”
Whatever Ka-band means to anybody else may be unclear, but Goswitz recognizes it the means for one thing every business understands: money. He adds, “But Ka-band doesn’t just mean broadband. To us it means broadcasting. The truth is that as our Ku-band transmissions end, then increasingly every dollar in revenue is attributable to Ka-band. We’ll be entirely Ka-band in about five years. Currently, of our total $27 billion in annual revenues, about $20 billion comes from Ka-band,”
DirecTV has most recently made press appearances for their coveted spectrum. Companies like AT&T (News - Alert) have been denied the perusal of additional spectrum by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and have just recently been denied from acquiring T-Mobile for their spectrum. Other satellite companies have suffered from regulations imposed by the FCC (News - Alert), so DirecTV’s spectrum is all the more valuable.
These antennas are mostly parabolic sections with offset feeds (the focal point is not directly in front of the antenna so aperture blockage is nil - good thing). Typical circular reflectors and feed designs are nominally 10% bandwidth (10% of the nominal design frequency).
Hence, roughly, if you double the frequency, the operating bandwidth doubles. Additionally, if the aperture size stays the same, the gain increases when the frequency is increased...so - more bandwidth, more gain (there are other losses that counteract some of the gain increase). There will also be a narrower beamwidth which means more difficult to align. I find it curious that businessmen in charge of billion dollar plus enterprises don't even understand what makes them tick...if I owned the company, their buts would be in a class somewhere.
Good point. With a tall enough tower I could just plug a cable directly into the satellite ... ;-)
Actually the dish would probably have to be smaller. Keeping it the same size as the current dishes would raise the gain and make pointing the dish more difficult. But that’s a trade off. More gain is always better.
I am told that my electric supplier, TXU Luminate, has BOP on now, but only to read our rural meters and probably to “turn you off or brown” via the “Smart Meter” they and nobama are trying to sell us.
>> I am told that my electric supplier, TXU Luminate, has BOP on now, but only to read our rural meters and probably to “turn you off or brown” <<
If that’s all they’re doing, then I’d say it’s “narrowband” rather than broadband. And they’re probably down in the LW frequencies, which for many years the power companies have used for telemetry. In other words, nothing new.
(In fact, it’s probably been opposition from the power companies that has prevented LW broadcasting in the USA.)
BUMP
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