06-03-2023, 05:45 PM
These things aren't as easy as you suggest.
Thing is you don't know what the contracts are on those transponders. Renting a transponder full time costs more than leasing it outright from SES. The current owners (possibly Globecast) might not want to sell and the length and terms of the contract might not be suitable for the BBCs use.
They (the BBC) have 6 transponders, soon to be 5 as they'll terminate 10803 next year. If they took over 12422 as you'd suggest to replace an HD transponder they'd need to terminate another of their existing transponders too.
As I say terminating a transponder lease early will likely invoke an early termination clause, if 10803 is the one they've chosen to close down then probably that's because it's coming to the end of its contract soon anyway so it's cheap/free to stop using. So getting rid of another early could be quite expensive.... more so than renting a few Mb/s space from Sky for a few years.
It's not as simple as the BBC just taking over the uplink for 12442. Firstly I would have thought that it's not a coincidence that all their transponders are grouped together in terms of frequency. It's easier to design an uplink site that is transmitting all similar frequencies. And it's not just the transmit side the off air monitoring for the station needs the ability to do high as well as low band
Looking at Lyngsat though the biggest problem they'd have taking over 12442 is that their existing transponders are on Astra 2E and 2G. 12442 is on Astra 2F. So that's not just a case of just retuning a modulator to a different frequency, it requires a seperate dish pointing at 2F.
(and no you can't just use a dish pointing at 2G to transmit to 2F, they move independently and the large uplink dishes need to be lined up perfectly with the satellite)
Thing is you don't know what the contracts are on those transponders. Renting a transponder full time costs more than leasing it outright from SES. The current owners (possibly Globecast) might not want to sell and the length and terms of the contract might not be suitable for the BBCs use.
They (the BBC) have 6 transponders, soon to be 5 as they'll terminate 10803 next year. If they took over 12422 as you'd suggest to replace an HD transponder they'd need to terminate another of their existing transponders too.
As I say terminating a transponder lease early will likely invoke an early termination clause, if 10803 is the one they've chosen to close down then probably that's because it's coming to the end of its contract soon anyway so it's cheap/free to stop using. So getting rid of another early could be quite expensive.... more so than renting a few Mb/s space from Sky for a few years.
It's not as simple as the BBC just taking over the uplink for 12442. Firstly I would have thought that it's not a coincidence that all their transponders are grouped together in terms of frequency. It's easier to design an uplink site that is transmitting all similar frequencies. And it's not just the transmit side the off air monitoring for the station needs the ability to do high as well as low band
Looking at Lyngsat though the biggest problem they'd have taking over 12442 is that their existing transponders are on Astra 2E and 2G. 12442 is on Astra 2F. So that's not just a case of just retuning a modulator to a different frequency, it requires a seperate dish pointing at 2F.
(and no you can't just use a dish pointing at 2G to transmit to 2F, they move independently and the large uplink dishes need to be lined up perfectly with the satellite)