Search:

Satellite Television - How does it work?

Have you ever wondered why we have satellite television? Well I have, particularly when we already have terrestrial or land based television available. They both seem very much the same; the only difference is that with satellite you get a lot more choice of channels. Of course there is cable television as well, a big competitor for both services, but I'm going to stick to satellite television in this article.

The local terrain and the curvature of the earth limit terrestrial TV signals in the area that they can server. Both terrestrial and Satellite TV use essentially the same kind of signals but by beaming the signal from above, one satellite is able to serve a wider area. This is why satellite television has become popular in remote areas where it isn't practical to serve people with a land based antenna and certainly not economic to provide cables to those areas.

Using satellites to transmit the signals solves the problem. Stationed more than 22,000 miles above Earth they revolve around this planet once every 24hrs, which is the same time as it takes the Earth to make one full rotation. Therefore the satellite always stays above the same spot on the ground and is said to be in geostationary orbit. Because the satellite is high in the sky the transmission of the waves 'hits' large numbers of customers and people that are in normally inaccessible places are able to receive television. The satellites not only transmit direct to Earth, but they are also linked to each other, making a network to distribute to the largest possible numbers. It also means that once you have set your TV satellite dish in the best position to receive a signal, you shouldn't ever have to move it again.

When satellite television was first introduced the dishes required to receive the signal were very expensive and people were able to set them up to receive programmes that were not really intended for everybody to see. Nowadays people tend to subscribe to a 'Direct Broadcast Satellite' (DBS) provider such as DirecTV or Dish Network in the US and Sky in the UK. These providers are able to select programs and broadcast them to people as set packages, for example the 'Family', 'Sports' or 'Movie' packages. Cost will depend on which one you choose to buy.

To enable the whole system to make money for the organisations involved in the provision of satellite television, three techniques are commonly employed:

Advertising

Advertisers pay to have their promotional material shown during the transmission. They generally pay more to have their adverts shown at peak times. I don't know anyone who likes to have the advertisements distract their entertainment but it does pay for part of it.

Regular Subscriptions

Users pay a monthly fee to receive a channel or group of channels. In actual fact you pay for the means to decrypt the signal that you receive. There is no way to stop anyone from receiving a signal transmitted from a satellite so they encrypt the signal to make it impossible to view without the special equipment and secret codes needed to unscramble the signal.

Licence Fee

If you live in the UK and you possess equipment capable of receiving TV signals then by law you have to pay a licence fee. Note that you don't have to ever use the equipment to receive and view TV; you just have to possess it. The revenue from the licence fee pays for the British Broadcasting Company or BBC and in return we don't expect to see advertising or encryption on any BBC channels. This was a good idea in the early days of broadcasting and helped to produce high standards all over the world. My personal opinion however is that now the licence fee serves no purpose other than yet another tax we have to pay and I feel that the BBC should now stand on it's own two feet. I doubt if that's going to happen anytime soon though.

If a broadcaster only uses advertising to support their service then you may receive and view the signals without further payment or subscription. If you are in the UK though you still have to pay for a licence.

Five main components are required to make this system work. In order to get the programmes from the producers to the customer they all must be in place and they all must be working correctly. It is in fact surprising that it works at all.
Distribution

Programmes are distributed by the DBS provider but not created by them. They stand in the middle between the consumer and the programme makers.

Satellite Television Provider

Signals from the broadcast sources are received by the provider and then transmitted to the network of orbiting satellites.

Satellites

The satellite network receives the signals, which are then retransmitted back to Earth.

Receiving equipment

Usually a DBS provider will provide you with the equipment to receive the signal. This will include a dish to be fixed to your house by professional installers to receive the signal.

Decoding and viewing

A box close to your TV will take the received signal and decode your chosen channels so that you can watch them.

So, there is a lot more to satellite TV than meets the eye but it provides us with high quality television, which is available almost everywhere on the earth. We have come a long way in a very short time with television.