What, you don't think they can do it in six months?
Why, does their ABs contract end in six months?
It is ridiculous how much their decoders must cost. I brought a Chinese clone for $200. Mine has 2 tuners (DVB-S2x2) and I had to buy the internal HD myself. Their ones have 4 tuners, much for features, an internal HD and it's not a sh@tty Chinese clone. I know Sky buys their decoders in bulk and must get a huge discount, but it still must cost a lot. If I bought their decoder on the market at full price, I'd pay $1000+. If you just have a one year contract with them, then how does Sky make anything? And that's just the decoder.
Yes it should of been done and dusted 2 to 3 Years ago..!
I wonder if they delayed in knowing that the Optus 10 satellite was being shifted with slightly improved power levels. The DVB-S2 format is much more fussy with the required signal levels to have stable reception.
an overnight transfer of all sky t.p to dvb -s2 is going to be fun, when previously working setups suddenly have signal issues.
It does sound like Optus 10 is being (or should that be "has been"?) positioned to replace D1, which reportedly could fail anytime from 2021. Makes sense..2006 launch, 15+ year lifespan for D1 - getting close to the end of it's reliable life.
The article I've read says that Sky will negotiate a new satellite deal next year - seems a bit too early to move it for a potential Sky deal now - even if Optus are confident that Sky will jump at it.
Anyone know what Optus 10 is doing now (beams, feeds etc), if anything?
(Edit) From what I gather from the Optus website, Optus 10 has as much capacity as D1 - 24 Transponders - but it looks like it may have more flexibilty in what's pointed at NZ. D1 is listed as having 8 pointed at NZ only. Would be nice to have a couple more at least, and DVB-S2 to get the mostout of them!
"Could fail anytime" is a bit of an exaggeration complete satellite failures are pretty rare.
What usually happens with Optus satellite is near listed end of life, the push them to another orbital slot, where they continue to be used for many years in a slightly inclined orbit which uses less fuel but requires tracking at the dish end.
Optus 10 Has the 11700 -12250 band (BSS band) (unlike D1) and the FSS Band 12250-12750 (same as Sky is using now)
You can read the info here with all the footprints etc
There is a carrier on 12135 H Optus 10 seen in Australia currently, other than that no other activity has been seen
Sky doesnt need more capacity, if anything they need to have a cleanup, a good cost saving measure would be renegotiating with Optus to drop a couple of t.p.
Removing all the channel dupes, getting over to DVBS2 on all t.p and removing all those extra sd copys of various channels, the savings could be passed on by then providing sky in HD by default.
Any new channels could be streamed to the stb rather than using satellite capacity
Are you subscribed to our RSS feed? You can download the latest headlines and summaries from our stories directly
to your computer or smartphone by using a feed reader.
