GATINEAU – Citing a significant lack of satellite capacity resulting from a few failures in the past two years, FreeHD Canada Inc. will have to delay service launch by one year. The news came to light at the CRTC’s Direct-to-Home (DTH) satellite TV policy hearings.
“After extensive discussions with the world’s leading satellite operators, insufficient satellite capacity is available for FreeHD Canada to launch in time for the August 31, 2011 digital transition,” said David Lewis, founder and CEO of FreeHD. “Accordingly, FreeHD Canada must delay its planned summer 2011 service launch to an anticipated launch date in the first quarter of 2012, when we expect additional satellite capacity will be available to FreeHD Canada to serve the Canadian market.”
There have a number of satellite failures in the past couple of years, putting increasing pressure on scare satellite capacity in the US. And FreeHD Canada was affected when a satellite it had gained capacity on encountered a problem.
“We had an agreement to launch on a satellite that had a combination of national beams and spot beams and unfortunately that particular satellite had a solar string failure so it lost roughly one-sixth of its overall capacity,” Lewis said in response to a question from CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein.
As a result, satellite operators had to choose who to give the capacity to, and FreeHD Canada was left out in the cold.
“The contention became do you serve an existing customer or do you serve a new customer that’s coming on. So the capacity on that particular satellite went to serve current customers rather than new customers coming on stream,” explained Lewis.
In an interview with Cartt.ca, Lewis said that many satellite operators are undergoing satellite replacement programs, meaning that capacity will become available on older satellites. He added that the company is also exploring the option of flying a satellite in from outside the North American arc to use as an interim bird until it can commission and build its own.
Despite the satellite capacity problems, FreeHD Canada is committed to following through on its promise of providing a local-into-local service.
“The current lack of satellite delivery for all the location television markets in Canada has had a significant negative impact on the viability of those local stations not carried on satellite – an untenable economic situation that will only be exacerbated by the looming digital transition,” he said in his opening remarks.
“To meet this need, FreeHD Canada has adopted a proven delivery approach for Canada that mirrors that in the United states and provides comprehensive and economic satellite delivery into each local market using spot-beam antennas on the satellite.”
