ISRO's DTH slots fully booked

Direct-to-home (DTH) TV transponder space on Indian satellites are completely booked even before their launch, while India emerges as a hot-spot for encryption-based DTH players, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) officials said.

"All the 34 DTH transponders on Insat satellites are fully booked," Antrix Corporation executive director K R Sridhara Murthi said here.

Antrix, the commercial arm of ISRO, markets the space agency's satellite building and launch capabilities, besides space images, to global customers. State-run Doordarshan and private Zee group's Dish TV have booked slot for the ku-band transponders, used for DTH service on Insat-4 series of satellites, scheduled to begin launch from this year.

ISRO plans to launch DTH capable Insat-4A with 12 ku transponders by June this year. DTH covers a table fan sized satellite dish, a digital encoder and a smart card. The dish connects to the decoder, which is linked to the TV.

ISRO officials said besides the slots for Dish TV and DD's DTH service, Space TV, the Tata-Murdoch joint venture has also sought transponders for DTH service on Insat satellites.

ISRO's next-generation satellites, Insat-4B, will have 12 ku band transponders. The space agency plans to build DTH-dedicated satellites Insat-4C with 18 ku band transponders and Insat-4G with 18 ku band transponders in the next few years to keep up with the demand from DTH players.

"There is a huge demand for DTH services and the players will evolve a unique business model through cable TV operators to tap the Indian consumer," Murthi said.

Ahead of the launch of it's own satellites, ISRO last June tied up with Netherlands-based new skies satellites to lease its transponders for Doordarshan's DTH launch in India, to be the world's largest free-to-air DTH service.

The multi-year lease of the transponders on the NSS-6 satellite with six high-performance ku band beams enabled DD to provide an initial bouquet of 30 free channels, 15 from DD and 15 from private channels as well as 20 radio channels across India.

"There are many players who are eyeing the Indian DTH market and they may unveil their plans soon," he said.