In the field

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Mobile satellite broadcasting hardware is shrinking while delivering higher quality pictures. Digital Broadcast spoke to Inmarsat commercial solutions director James Collett about the impact of BGAN services.

Which news organisations in the region are using the BGAN services?

Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya and the local bureaus of the big international networks including CNN and the BBC. The media has embraced the technology faster than some of our clients working in other sectors.

Why do you think your media clients have embraced the technology so quickly?

Media organisations are always looking to give themselves a level of competitive edge and BGAN has been a tool for doing that particularly for on the spot reporting and backpack journalism. The international broadcasters might once have had one BGAN system per bureau. Now what we are seeing is multiple numbers of units in each and every bureau.

So is the broadcast industry a significant growth sector for your business?

Yes certainly. Broadcast has always been one of our core markets and as I say clients in the sector are early adopters. They like to have the latest technology and stay ahead of their competitors. BGAN has proved to be a growth tool in this industry.

Is it difficult to keep up with the demands placed on you by your media clients?

We can never seem to serve them up enough bandwidth for the broadcast and military sectors! They both want the mobility at the same time so it is a challenge to continue improving the service. I think there will be more optimised services as we go through time and there are a number of initiatives we are working on. We have a new satellite called Alphasat in the works. When that comes online it will offer a step change in terms of capability.

Is there any pressure from the broadcasters to develop a mobile solution that can deliver HD signals from the field?

We will struggle even with the future satellite capabilities to deliver that quality in the L-band, which is what the service is working in at the moment. The L-band is really about offering mobility.

For the satellite industry in general, HD is a huge driver. We have seen that with the Volvo yacht race. All the TV contracts attached to that were dependant on us enabling them to deliver HD feeds. For this instalment of the race they are delivering HD - not live but in a ‘store and forward' manner.

Why have you chosen Dubai to set up the product demo lab for the region?

We have always had a presence in Dubai and we have used the city as our centre for developing our business in the Middle East. In terms of media client representation, Dubai is clearly the location of choice. We have more channels represented here than anywhere else in the region so it was a logical place to base our Middle East operations.

The media clients can look at this capability and experiment at their leisure. The permanent demo centre and the range of codecs that are on show means we can bring in the engineering teams and discuss how to optimise the system for them and have a detailed technical discussion.

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