Exactly. Which is why I think they'll fail.

It's impossible to have nationwide takeoff if using fiber, unless you have one or two dozen contractors per district and willing to pump out ultra huge capital, and you keep constant pressure on the contractors to make sure they roll out fast and within days of signing up.

15 contractors only is a joke. No way 15 contractors can cover whole of Malaysia let alone Klang Valley.

This post has been edited by RAMChYLD: Apr 5 2012, 05:20 PM

15 contractors= 3 contractor for each 5 states. No wonder it wasn't enough.

Thats right.......the next issue is the loans,with so little coverage ,they are serious abt the dateline to take off ,I am afraid even after a year or two ABN may be another Unifi! Coming,coming still coming!!!

Before I answered in my earlier post to sniper69, I did ask my friend who is an authorised Astro installer about these group of settings. I will try to use simple explanations from what I am able to understand from this friend. I am NOT an expert in this.

"18 Measat 3A(VH)" is NOT necessarily the best setting for HD channels reception and I did not mention in my post that this is the best. Short answer, no... just keep your setting at No.1. My previous post was to answer Sniper69 post which you have mis-understood me.

I believe that you already knew that the satellites orbiting our earth's outer atmosphere have a life-span and does not last forever. I think that each satellite has about 15 to 20 years of "life" depending on how the on-board fuel is used to "push" the satellite back to proper orbit. The solar panel is used for supplying power to the satellite transponders and other equipment. There are a few thousand working satellites orbiting our earth presently. There are also many more thousands of debris and "rubbish" from unfallen dead satellites too.

Presently, we are using two satellites, named... MEASAT 3 and MESAT 3A. I don't know how long these two will last until its fuel is finished, go out-of-orbit and falls back to earth. New satellites will have to be launched when the time comes, maybe MEASAT 4.

Ok... setting to one from No. 1 to 12 (VL) used one of twelve transponders from MEASAT 3 which have stronger transmission beam so its more suitable for weaker signal reception locations such as condos.

Setting to one from No. 13 to 18 (VH) used one of six transponders from MEASAT 3A which have weaker transmission beam so its more suitable for stronger signal reception locations.

I found out that there are some people who thought wrongly that No.18 has the best signal reception for HD channels. It is not ! So some people with lower signal strength (such as in condo) was already set to use No.1 and some clever people changed the setting to No.18 which caused intermittent problems with their HD channels !

Sniper69 previously did not say his location so this was why I also asked in my previous post... "Are you staying in a condo with shared dish which caused other number setting to be used ?"

Now I know that Sniper69 is not staying in a condo. BUT at the time before I know this... IF the original setting used in condo is No.1 and if he changed it to No.18, then there will be problems. This is also why I did mention... "DON'T change any setting if you are not sure or don't know what you are doing !".

This is why if No.1 was already set, I mentioned that changing to No.18 may have intermittent reception problems with ALL the HD channels.

Yes... you are correct that No.1 has stronger signal reception. The difference between No.1 to 18 may or may not be great depending on each person's location. For strong reception locations, you can use any number. For me... No.1 gave me average 240 signal strength and No.18 gave me average 220. So if you feel No.1 is the best for you, then no problem to use it.

If the signal strength is average 180 with setting No.1 used, then changing to No.18 will cause more problems.

There are many factors or causes which determine whether the signal quality and reception is strong or weak in any location such as a home or condo.

For location like mine in a 3 storey shophouse with cables that are not too long, my signal quality and reception is strong so there is no problem and small difference to choose any one from 1 to 18. Whichever is chosen... I got a difference from average of 220 to 240 in signal strength.



I don't know how accurate it is and true or not, the following below are also more info that my friend told me...

He told me that the 12 transponders from MEASAT 3 used a stronger beam strength for people with weaker reception signal. If this is true, the weird thing is that I have read of unproven reports from some people who have better reception with No.13 to 18 and weaker reception with No.1 to 12 !! I stopped arguing with my kind friend for reports that could be false, hehe.

Each transponder can carry many TV channels and beamed to all the Astro subscribers. Of course has a limit but this also depends on what type of data is transmitted such as MPEG4 compression.

MEASAT 3 have a total of 64 transponders and MEASAT 3A also the same. That means a total of 128 transponders combined.

Presently, MEASAT company reserved 24 transponders to Astro for Satellite TV/Radio transmission (SD and HD). That means MEASAT 3 have fully used up the 12 reserved ones and MEASAT 3A (with 6 used) still have 6 "spare" ones which may already be partly used, such as for updates of decoder box software.

Lets do the maths... 128 - 24 = 104 transponders not for Astro Satellite TV subscribers. Aahh... the remaining 104 transponders are partly or maybe fully "rented / leased" to others for telecommunication use, to other Sat TV provider in other countries, and so forth.

I do have a BIG question here ! I believe MEASAT is making fat cat profits which include transponders leases, Astro Sat TV services and include other profitable joint ventures... then why is it necessary to still continue MONOPOLY protection for over-the-air Satellite TV transmission ? Why the excuse to block out other Sat TV providers with the excuse of protecting the huge billion ringgit investment ? Isn't over 15 years already enough ? Isn't leasing 104 transponders to others helping to make huge profits ? Is it because our government want "some top people" to continue becoming even more richer ?

I am not talking about Cable TV or IPTV which used cables so its in a different category. Absolutely NO ONE can make me believe that fiber cables for Cable TV will be launched nationwide soon. In fact, I will be very stubborn and think that Cable TV will only be fully nationwide after year 2020 or may even stretch to 2050 !! For goodness sake... nationwide Cable TV / IPTV soon... will never come to my small town in Pahang !

As I have said before... I do support more Cable TV competitors to come in to support more locations which can poke Astro with some competition. Since Cable TV won't become nationwide soon, the only serious competition to Astro is to have Satellite TV competitors come in for nationwide coverage now. I think there are 3 Satellite TV competitors in Indonesia. Please don't mix the Cable TV/IPTV together with the Satellite TV providers because Cable TV may never be nationwide !

This post has been edited by jamesleetech: Apr 5 2012, 09:49 PM

Thks a meg, Bro!! For yr clarification & final suggestion...
Will cont 2use Settings #1 as orig set by Installer. So far no probs...
Rain Fade still a prob, tho...

Re cable Vs Sat, yup, agree Msia needs another Sat provider 4a more level playing field!
Msians ATM being fed repeats after repeats...

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Added on April 5, 2012, 11:11 pmps. Mine is PVR. So signal values are on a diff scale...kenot compare with yrs.
Most of time getting 154(steady) for both inputs @Setting #1.
Setting #18 gives lower for Input 1 @148-150 and higher @158 for Input 2...both fluctuating!

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Added on April 5, 2012, 11:13 pmpps. Btw mine is Dbl-Storey Terrace hse.

This post has been edited by zeone: Apr 5 2012, 11:15 PM

You are welcome. Just wanted to make it clear that I didn't recommend No.18 as the "best" setting.

I didn't know that yours is PVR as you didn't mention it earlier.

Yes, you are correct as I already knew that PVR used a different signal scale.

I also took the opportunity to point out to some people who still believe that cable TV or IPTV will have nationwide coverage soon. I don't believe its possible and I truly and really wish that I can be proven wrong.

I did post a few times before about my very strong reasons that cable TV/IPTV will never be fully nationwide. It has never been fully nationwide in big countries such as US and Canada, and so will be the same situation for Malaysia. The only way to challenge the bad-a** Assteruk is by allowing Satellite TV competitors to come in, so the main issue is the monopoly of nationwide Satellite TV.

A clear example is... just refer to the Texas state in US. Many large areas of this state located outside of the cities do NOT have fiber cables for Cable TV so the people living in these areas used Satellite TV. An online forum guy whom I knew is staying there and told me that its not economically possible to lay the expensive fiber cables in his small township of only about 30 thousand population.

Its the same situation for our rakyat living in the thousands of kampungs and small towns spread out in Pahang or the East Coast states.

We only need to use common sense to know that nobody will be foolish enough to invest by laying underground fiber cables to any kampung with about 2000 population and each kampung and small town is about a few KM away from each other !

I should believe that its way much easier not to choose fiber cables for nationwide coverage... and much better to decide on having many repeating towers (such as for mobile phone network) or use satellite transmission which easily covers the required large area with low population density. Just not possible to invest in expensive fiber cables for low population areas.

Yes.. I sincerely and truly PRAY that my dream will come true so that IPTV or cable TV will finally be nationwide and then come to my small town soon. But my common sense and my low intelligence tells me that it will never come !

Its different for small countries such as Singapore so its makes more sense to use Cable TV/IPTV and this is why its not necessary for Singapore to spend billions on launching their own satellites.

Peace

This post has been edited by jamesleetech: Apr 6 2012, 01:08 AM

Stupid thng is, MEASAT 1 and 2 is still up there. Just that both has been apparently given, rented or sold off to South Africa and renamed Africasat 1 and 2

WTF gomen! That was suposed to be a national heritage! It even has a few groundbreaking features and world firsts!

If MEASAT had just kept both, we'd have more bandwidth! But no! they apparently wrote the two off so Assteruk can play the "not enough bandwidth" card!

* Sos cili that Measat 1 & 2 renamed and moved to Africa: http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/measat-1.htm

This post has been edited by RAMChYLD: Apr 6 2012, 01:27 AM

Measat 3B (yeah this is the name, they trying to avoid the "4" number lol) will be launched soon. Again... MEASAT and ASTRO are 2 different entities. ASTRO rent transponders from MEASAT....

Thanks to you, from the link you posted, I found out the exact number of transponders used in the 2 satellites.

MEASAT 3 : 24 C-band and 24 Ku-band transponders
MEASAT 3A : 12 C-band and 12 Ku-band transponders

The total is 72 transponders. The Byond box can select 12 available Ku-band transponders from MEASAT 3 and 6 available Ku-band transponders from MEASAT 3A.

So.. not total 64 transponders from MEASAT 3 & 3A as was told by my friend, hehe. I will give feedback to him and tease him, haha!

Anyway, after reading the info from the various links there... I understood the complicated position about who controls which satellite, who rents the transponders and which satellite was renamed. Thanks again.

Correct me if I am wrong... Africasat 1 & 2 is still operated by MEASAT so I assume that it was not sold, only rented all the transponders in the two satellites. What is funny for me is that MEASAT rented transponders to others and then MEASAT rented transponders from Shin Satellite of Thailand under the name MEASAT 5. First make profit from renting transponders to others and then spend on renting from Thailand. Maybe there are valid reasons that all of us don't know, hehe.

From a business standpoint of making more profits, selling off or renting transponders to others is understandable. In my own personal opinion, I would be more inclined to believe that the "not enough bandwidth" excuse (if used) by Assteruk is to hide and divert attention to the exclusive monopoly it enjoyed and will continue to enjoy until 2017 and which could be extended further.

Anyway, no matter how and in what way MEASAT launches satellites, rents out transponders and then rent transponders from others, and played the "shift here-shift there" game... I should think that MEASAT have a skilled management team that wants to generate more fat profits and should not be stupid enough to make losses for the different strategic changes. At the worst, such strategic changes should be to reduce or cut any losses.

I tend to believe that MEASAT is showing a continuous and healthy profit on investment returns when I see these...
1) Strategic positional changes in the satellite scenario
2) Various successful investments such as the controlling stake of Celestial Pictures
3) Various ventures and joint ventures with Sat TV provider in India and Indonesia
4) Guaranteed profits from ASTRO (All-Asian Satellite Television and Radio Operator) which is fully operated and controlled by MEASAT

... this only shows to me that "the exclusive license aka monopoly" to protect the billions of ringgit investment is only just bull-sh** !

In my opinion... culture is for the rakyat to continue practicing but national heritage is to make fat profits for "you-know-who".

Yes, for the common public, we refer to the two names as 2 different entities which most of us (including myself) understood.

We separated the entities of the two names to avoid confusion, hehe. MEASAT alone means "Malaysia East Asia Satellite" and ASTRO alone means "All Asia Satellite Television & Radio Operator".

Astro Malaysia Holdings Sdn Bhd > owns MEASAT Satellite Systems Sdn. Bhd.
Astro Malaysia Holdings Sdn Bhd > owns the subsidiary company MEASAT Broadcast Network Systems

MEASAT Broadcast Network Systems is the company that fully operates and controls ASTRO

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-Asia_Satellite_Television_and_Radio_Company

So we don't say Astro (Astro Malaysia Holdings Sdn Bhd) controls MEASAT (MEASAT Broadcast Network Systems) which controls ASTRO.

So we commonly shortened it and say MEASAT controls ASTRO ! Tada !! Surprised ? Or should I say in reverse ? Astro controls MEASAT ? Or MEASAT controls MEASAT !

So confusing... walauway... it seems I am the one who is causing more confusion... just forget my stupid nonsense here and continue to use your suggested two entity names in the correct way. Mmm... you sure that you are correct that "ASTRO" rents transponders from "MEASAT" ?

Dimanakan ku cari, apa yang ku kehendaki, selepas didapati, kesemuanya hancur sekali !

This post has been edited by jamesleetech: Apr 6 2012, 04:14 AM

Well we almost sold everything including tanjung pagar !!!

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Added on April 6, 2012, 6:28 amJames whats your opinion,they say they wont dig to put cables but use TNB poles instead,do u think this wl contribute to more fast coverage and access?

This post has been edited by smileguy: Apr 6 2012, 06:28 AM

Hi Bro...
Juz to clarify...I DID mention I was using a PVR:

Extract of my earlier post :
"Is 18 Measat 3A(VH) the BEST Settings for HD Channels??
My PVR is set to 1 Measat 3(VL) by Installer! The signal level is higher at 1 than at 18... "

Well, note that some of the transponders are designated as "spare", in case of breakdown. Maybe it will be used in the future tho. So maybe he meant oly 64 is in use...

Possibly, but if it's only rented out, why the rename?

Iirc already extended further to 2025 in 2009. Those SKMM b*****ds...

Agreed!

This post has been edited by RAMChYLD: Apr 6 2012, 10:18 AM

Hrm.. maybe I wasn't clear but usually peeps refer MBNS as Astro and MEASAT as Measat Satellite systems. They provide satellite transponders, renting out the transponder for regional broadcast or distribution depending on the client.

That is why MBNS (Astro) rents transponder from Measat Satellite systems. Whenever Astro broadcast exceeds bandwidth purchased from MEASAT, they will immediately get a strict notification from them that they have exceeded the bandwidth usage and required to reduce it.

So, this is the best reason why should Astro should switch to MPEG4/H264 for all channels.

they seem to be least interested in improving services but are more keen in finding ways to make more money,promoting uefa and astro first!

Maybe Astro should've buy more transponder from nearest satellite, like Asiasat.

They intended to but they can't just yet, because there are just too many other subscribers using the older version of mpeg-2 decoders only. They are slowly phasing off the old ones and replacing them with the mpeg-4 decoders (named DMT-4 onwards).

Also, their encoders are also mpeg-4 ready, and with a click of few buttons, it can be switched to mpeg-4. But again with the reasoning above, they can't do it just yet.

Btw, Astro is buying more transponder to allocate for UEFA/Olympics. Wait and chill =D

To be honest, Astro could reduce cost of operation and maybe perhaps subscription, if they make away the censorship department. It is a requirement set by the gov that every channel must be monitored for censorship (except local free channels). The amount of human resources and servers and technology involved in this unit is actually quite massive.

I hope I understood you correctly... using fiber cables on poles for Cable TV, right ?

I can only express what I believe but I don't actually know whether using TNB poles will contribute or not. Maybe for town areas where digging is not possible, using poles is one method of speeding up cable TV/IPTV access.

Mmm... IF it is to speed up nationwide access to cable TV using TNB poles ? Not optimistic that this can happen. I do recall that it took so many many years during the 19seventies to 19eighties for Telekoms to replace all the phone poles to underground cables along the KL-Karak Highway and all the towns in Pahang. It would be weird for TNB to return back to past dinosaur 19sixties method using overhead cables on poles for cable TV when Telekoms have already moved forward to underground phone cables.

I should think that electrical and phone lines used only a few twisted cables for overhead poles currently installed for short distances in many housing estates, town buildings, etc. If I am not mistaken, there are many fiber cables (maybe 10 to 20 cables) bundled together and laid inside conduit circular tubes of about 60 cm (2 feet) in diameter. If the bundled fiber cables are very very thick, will it be possible to hang them on vertical poles above the ground ? Also, using poles criss-crossing around the country do have problems which is why phone cables have gone underground. These problem may be lots of maintenance due to wear-and-tear caused by weather such as rain and heat, bird shit, etc. I may be wrong but I think that solar and electro-magnetic radiation can pose problems to the digital transmission used in the fiber cables so its not a good way to hang the fiber cables on poles.

It took Telekoms a few decades just to change to underground cables nationwide and that is not 100%. IF and I say if, fiber cables are also laid underground nationwide, then I would suspect 20 years or more to complete only about 70%. It may not even happen because of expensive costs and economics for low population density areas.

In my opinion, using poles for fiber cables for short distances (which may only happen in some housing areas) do not speed up nationwide coverage. I can understand it if its only for short distances to some areas where digging may not be possible. Its the very long distance fiber cables that we are talking about for nationwide coverage.

Mmm.... they told you that... TNB won't use underground cables and chosen to use overhead cables on poles outside the homes ? They are not worried about the interference caused by solar and electro-magnetic radiation, cable corrosion due to rain and other physical damage caused by accidents ? Shouldn't the bunch of fiber cables be very thick that makes it diffcult to hang on poles ? I am not an expert or an engineer so I don't know.

Fiber cables on overhead poles limited to some town areas, yes, I can somehow believe it. But for nationwide coverage, I will not believe it until they convinced me by actually doing it with poles for the whole country.


Ouch !! A good punch, hehe I need to make an appointment with my ophthalmologist to check both of my eyes again to see whats wrong with my optic nerves... or should I go to a psychiatrist to give my brain a full check ?

Sorry for my silly mistake.

Yes, you are right and my only excuse is that I failed to notice the 3 tiny little alphabets "P V R" due to a sudden attack of Carlsberg !

No problem. Joking only

This post has been edited by jamesleetech: Apr 6 2012, 08:33 PM

Yes, both of us knew that "reserve" and "spare" transponders mean the same thing. Its logical that not all the transponders will be used and a few are usually reserved and used only when necessary or when the satellite is near to end-of-life.

When my friend told me that there are a total of 128 transponders in both 2 satellites, he did tell me that a few transponders will still remain not used as reserve in case any transponders fail to work. So I would assume that he gave me the actual total including the "spare" ones.

As repeated in my earlier post... He told me that MEASAT reserved 24 transponders for Astro use so with 18 currently used as shown in Byond settings, there are still 6 more reserved for Astro. Maybe there are actually less than 6, as a few more may already be used for other purposes by Astro.

I did a recheck of my earlier post on this... so when you refer to it again, you will notice that my friend had told me a total of 64 for MEASAT 3 and another 64 for MEASAT 3A. The total of 128 transponders for both satellites is way above the actual 72 total for both satellites ! It does not make sense to reserve 56 transponders which is a waste of available costly facilities.

I will grab hold of my friend for clarification. That guy is always busy on field work. Even got many miscalls in the evening. Anyway, not that important as the actual total is already confirmed from the website link that you posted, and not likely the website gave wrong info. When I am able to contact my friend, I will inform him. I will only report here IF he has a different clarification.


When I read the info at ... http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/ipstar-1.htm
... the operator, Shin Satellite (Thailand), for iPStar 1 satellite will rent or rented transponder bandwidth to MEASAT operator using the name of MEASAT 5 !

Its confusing for me when all of these people mixed use names in such manner !

Therefore, I am not surprised when MEASAT could have rented all the transponders from MEASAT 1 and 2 and renamed to Africasat 1 and 2 after these were relocated to a different geographical region to serve the African continent. With no mention of transponder rentals and sale of satellites, I can logically assume that the name change is merely to reflect the proper identity for the 2 satellites serving the African continent. Maybe (right or wrong) there was no satellite sale at all and MEASAT merely sells bandwidth to service providers from the African continent.

Anyway, without further accurate info, I can only assume logically based on existing info.


After about 3 years, Assteruk still did not update their "About Us" webpage to show the license extension in 2009 !

Quote from link at http://www.astro.com.my/portal/about-astro (inside spoiler)...


May I request you to provide me the website link which shows detailed info on the license extension to 2025 by SKMM. Please don't misunderstand me as I am a curious person who likes to enquire a lot and find out more on anything that interest me. My apologies for my ignorance.

This post has been edited by jamesleetech: Apr 6 2012, 10:06 PM