Direct broadcast satellite
Direct broadcast satellite (DBS) is a term used to refer to
satellite television broadcasts intended for home reception, also referred to as
direct-to-home signals. It covers both analog and digital television and radio reception, and is often extended to other services provided by modern digital television systems, including
video-on-demand and
interactive features. A "DBS service" usually refers to either a commercial service, or a group of free channels available from one orbital position targeting one country.
For Example, DIRECTVIn certain regions of the world, especially in North America, DBS is used to refer to providers of subscription satellite packages, and has become applied to the entire equipment chain involved. With modern satellite providers in the
United States using high power
Ku-band tranmissions using
circular polarization, which result in small dishes, and digital compression (hence bringing in an alternative term,
Digital Satellite System, itself likely connected to the propreitary encoding system used by
DirecTV,
Digital Satellite Service), DBS is often mis-used to refer to these. DBS systems are often driven by
pay television providers, which drives further confusion. Additionally, in some areas it is used to refer to specific segments of the Ku-band, normally 12.2 to 12.7 GHz, as this bandwidth is often referred to as DBS or one of its synonyms. In comparison, European "Ku band" DBS systems can drop as low as 10.7 GHz, which is in fact in the
X band.
Adding to the naming complexity, the
ITU's original frequency allocation plan for
Europe and the
Soviet Union from 1977 introduced a concept of extremely high power spot-beam broadcasting which they termed DBS, although only a handful of the participating countries even went as far as to launch satellites under this plan, even fewer operated anything resembling a DBS service.
The first commercial DBS service,
Sky Television plc (now
BSkyB), was launched in
1989. Sky TV started as a four-
channel free-to-air analogue service on the
Astra 1A satellite, serving the
United Kingdom and
Republic of Ireland. By 1991, Sky had changed to a
conditional access pay model, and launched a digital service,
Sky Digital, in 1998, with analogue transmission ceasing in 2001. Since the DBS nomenclature is rarely used in the UK or Ireland, the popularity of Sky's service has caused the terms "
minidish" and "
digibox" to be applied to products other than Sky's hardware. BSkyB is controlled by
News Corporation.
PrimeStar began transmitting an analog service to North America in 1991, and was joined by
DirecTV Group's
DirecTV, in
1994. At the time, DirecTV's introduction was the most successful
consumer electronics debut in
American history. Although PrimeStar transitioned to a digital system in 1994, it was ultimately unable to compete with DirecTV, which required a smaller satellite dish and could deliver more programming. DirecTV eventually purchased PrimeStar in 1999 and migrated all PrimeStar subscribers to DirecTV equipment. In
2003,
News Corporation purchased a controlling interest in DirecTV's parent company,
Hughes Electronics, and renamed the company
DirecTV Group.
In
1996,
EchoStar's
Dish Network went online in the United States and, as DirecTV's primary competitor, achieved similar success.
Dominion Video Satellite Inc.'s
Sky Angel also went online in the United States in 1996 with its DBS service geared toward the faith and family market. It has since grown from six to 36 TV and radio channels of family entertainment, Christian-inspirational programming and 24-hour news. Dominion, under its former corporate name Video Satellite Systems Inc., was actually the second from among the first nine companies to apply to the FCC for a high-power DBS license in 1981 and is the sole surviving DBS pioneer from that first round of forward-thinking applicants. Sky Angel, although a separate and independent DBS service, uses the satellites, transmission facilities, & receiving equipment used for Dish Network through an agreement with Echostar. Because of this, Sky Angel subscribers also have the option of subscribing to Dish Network's channels as well.
In 2003, EchoStar attempted to purchase DirecTV, but the U.S. Department of Justice denied the purchase based on anti-competitive concerns.
Germany is likely the leader in
free-to-air DBS, with approximately 40 analogue and 100 digital channels broadcast from the
SES Astra 1 position at 19.2E. These are not marketed as a DBS service, but are received in approximately 12 million homes, as well as in any home using the German commercial DBS system, Premiere.
The
United Kingdom has approximately 90 free-to-air digital channels, for which a promotional and marketing plan is being devised by the
BBC and
ITV, to be sold as "
Freesat". It is intended to provide a multi-channel service for areas which cannot receive
Freeview, and eventually replace their network of UHF repeaters in these areas
India's national broadcaster,
Doordarshan, promotes a free-to-air DBS package as "DD Direct +", which is provided as in-fill for the country's terrestrial transmission network.
While originally launched as
backhaul for their
digital terrestrial television service, a large number of French channels are free-to-air on 5W, and have recently been announced as being official in-fill for the DTT network.
In
North America (USA, Canada and Mexico) there are over 80 FTA digital channels available on Intelsat Americas 5, the majority of them are ethnic or religious. Other popular FTA satellites include AMC-4, AMC-6, Galaxy 10R and SatMex 5. A company called
GloryStar promotes FTA religious broadcasters on IA-5 and AMC-4.
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List of Direct broadcast satellite providers
