As long Astro uses Ku band and consumer use 65cm dish to receive the signal, rain fade issue will not go away and forever be exist and you can't escape this. It can only be improve a little bit by increasing satellite transmission output power, which it depends on the satellite design and technology. No matter increase this power, that power, rain fade issue still won't go away.

Don't want to depend on satellite? Another solution is use IPTV, which is what Astro already offering now, Astro IPTV service via Maxis Fibre and TIME Fibre. It solves rain fade issue, but service coverage will be another problem. Not every Malaysians will able to enjoy this service.

Another solution is to use C band to provide DTH service to customers. But question is, which satellite Astro is going to use? It is unlikely they will use C band from Measat 3 or 3a because they use to lease transponders (to earn money and make business) to TV stations or networks interested to distribute their channels within Measat's C band coverage.

Opinion: Unless Measat launch new satellite belongs to Measat but currently unused, which is 148 E with C band coverage beam receivable in Malaysia. So Astro or any pay TV can choose to offer DTH service via C band if they are interested to do so. If the satellite's C band transmission output power is powerful enough, 90cm dish with Conical Scalar Ring (CSR) are able to receive the signal so that customer does not require big ugly parabolic dishes. This is proven to be possible as Transvision, one of Indonesia's pay TV uses this method to offer DTH service via C band using Telkom 1 satellite (located at 108 E), one of Indonesian satellite.

But then, do note that Indonesia has discontinue its C band DTH platform on 2015 and fully migrated to Ku band, using Measat 3b satellite.



The picture above is C band LNB with Conical Scalar Ring (CSR). CSR helps to improve and increase C band signal reception on smaller dishes.

Info: Astro B.yond dish (black colour dish) is 65cm, silver Astro dishes uses 60cm (some older ones are 55cm). 

Ideas are there, talking are easy. Doing so won't be as easy as you think, as they are many challenges and technical difficulties needs to go through, such as:
i) C band equipment tends to be more expensive than Ku band equipment, is the customer willing to spend more money in that, in terms of subscription fees or installation fees?
ii) Technically, available transponders for C band is much lesser than Ku band. Meaning that in one satellite orbit, Ku band has the capability to provide more channels compared to C band. So for sure HD channels will take up more bandwidth than SD channels. This will depend the DTH provider whether to rent more C band transponders or not. Perhaps Measat may allocate some C band transponders for other uses (provide more services to earn money) so Measat can't just provide all available C band transponders for TV only.
iii) If you stay in high rise buildings that uses centralised dish  like condo or apartment, it will be another new problem such as new equipment to be installed.
iv) New and bigger satellite dishes is required to install at customer premise.
v) For pay TV provider, they may have to bear higher maintenance cost. This could be the reason why using C band for DTH is rarely seen around the world because of its technical difficulties and higher maintenance costs compared to Ku band. So the chances of pay TV providers to use C band is low.

Currently, Astro DTH service is on 91.5 E and your satellite dish is facing west to get the signal. But as for 148 E, your dish needs to face to the east. If you're unlucky to have obstacle at the east position such as buildings, hills, trees, then you'll have difficulty to get the signal, or you can try install at rooftop to avoid the obstacles.

So, after reading this, do you still think Astro will provide DTH via C band as an alternative signal reception option to customers that do not want to have rain fade issue like customers used to experienced on Ku band?

As for JuneResources's case, it is completely different. Guys, please don't confuse with his encounter with C band satellite TV case as he uses universal satellite decoder to receive satellite TV channels, not a pay TV decoder. Okay since he mentioned this, I got to change subject into satellite TV topic.

Universal satellite decoder is where the decoder's job is pretty much "everything customize and manual" by yourself. (Take DVD player as an easy to understand example, where you put your own DVD disc to play your movie). What channels/satellites you want to watch/receive, it is all up to you to decide. Because it is customized by yourself, and if you messed up with the channels list, signal parameters and other satellite related settings, you may lose satellite signal, not because of faulty, it is because the user do not know to configure the settings correctly. If you want to scan for channels, you have to manually perform Auto Scan by yourself. Or, if you are so unfortunate that your satellite decoder (usually is older, cheap and low quality ones) doesn't support Auto Scan, then you will have to manually enter the signal parameters such as frequency, symbol rate, polarization, all by yourself, especially when the TV channel change frequency into another frequency or launch new channels. If you are not a tech savvy, and you are still using that decoder, I advice you to upgrade into newer ones that support HD and other new features. Universal satellite decoder is not a pay TV decoder like Astro, where the decoder software already "locked" that it only receive channels from the pay TV provider only and you can't receive channels from other satellites as you wish. Pay TV decoders will automatically update whatever settings, new channels and other stuff that you don't care about, unlike universal satellite decoder is the opposite and manual.

Plus, he is using satellite dish with motorize system, where there is a motor install at the satellite dish to be able to change satellite dish position whenever the user switches channels from different satellite than the current satellite position. With this, you can receive multiple satellite signals with different positions by using only 1 satellite dish, no need to install 2 separate satellite dishes that facing west and east respectively (for example). In his installation as what he described, he used to receive Asiasat 3S (located at 105 E, this satellite has retired, now replaced with Asiasat 7) and ST1 (located at 88 E, this satellite has retired, now replaced with ST2 satellite). Motorized satellite dish is completely optional (not compulsory) and it is up to you to use that equipment so that you can watch more TV channels from multiple satellites. And, Diseqc is also required to "combine" the signals from multiple satellites output from the LNB into one satellite input to the satellite decoder. As you described earlier, it seems that it is either the motor itself has been not moving for a long period of time, or the motor components inside is rusty or faulty or other problems. Because in general, motorize system do not require maintenance after you configure it correctly.

Parabolic satellite equipment indeed is more expensive in general compared to Ku band equipment. And whether do you need to fork out more money or do maintenance on your C band dish, all these depends on what equipment and it is up to your "creativity" on how you set up and install it. C band dish can be consumer-friendly like Astro Ku band dish, but at the same time it can be very challenging, complex, complicated, and requires time and skills for you to learn. If you use those universal satellite decoder, Diseqc, prime focus satellite dish (in simple words, the big ugly parabolic dishes that you saw the images above) and even motorized system like JuneResources did to receive signals from Asiasat 3S and ST1 during that time, of course it will be more challenging, unlike what I was referring my opinion my previous post about what if Astro uses C band for DTH service by using 90cm satellite dish with CSR just like what Transvision used to do. In addition to that, if you use cheap and low quality made in China equipment, then don't expect it will last for many years time, and no surprise that you may need regular maintenance to maintain the signal reception for that, or even equipment replacement. So choosing the right equipment with good quality is also important. Besides China, you can consider buying some parts of the equipment that is Thailand or Indonesia brand which is known to have better quality products than China ones.

Why C band channels are getting lesser nowadays compared to those days? Perhaps many viewers nowadays especially youngsters watches TV content via internet and watch less TV, this could be the reasons why channel provider are not so focused on C band to gain profit. However, C band TV will still be there for a long time as there are many other viewers still depends on TV as their main source of information and entertainment, and also many other technical advantages.

CONCLUSION (read this if above "essay" is too long for you to read):
Erm, is these stuff above is too complex for you to understand? That means installing C band for yourself to receive other satellite signals is not a DIY choice for you. Or, call an installer to install everything for you and you pay them the money and you will call installer when you got problem to settle for you. Otherwise, you better stick with pay TV service, either using Ku band (that has rain fade) or IPTV.

About my opinion that what if Astro interested to use C band to offer DTH service using other satellite, it will be different story compared to using universal satellite decoder as mentioned above. The possibility will be the upcoming Measat 2a satellite, located at 148 E and expected to be launch on end 2018. If Measat 2a satellite's C band beam is strong enough and can be receive by using 90cm offset dish with CSR exactly just like one of Indonesian pay TV, Transvision previously used to do, then it will be great as customers are not necessary to use big ugly parabolic dish to get the signal if the satellite power output is strong enough. Because of its smaller 90cm offset dish compared to parabolic dish, you don't need to bother about maintenance (unless the dish is not properly adjusted) just like Astro 65cm Ku band dish, and the cost will be way lesser compared to parabolic dish. If Astro use this method, customer may not need to fork out much money or perhaps just little higher than Ku band ones, for Astro C band DTH. And of course only Astro decoders can be used to receive the channels (not universal satellite decoder), so no need to think about manual channel updating, and whatsoever. Don't forget the main reason of using C band is you won't experience rain fade issue, as long you properly adjust the dish.

This one you can understand easily, right? Hope you can now understand and differentiate between the different uses of C band in satellite TV.

Because it is a universal satellite decoder, it is better that you do some research by yourself on the types of satellite decoder models available, instead of just accepting whatever decoder that the installer provide to you. And of course you can't compare with Astro decoders. May you share with us, what decoder brand and model you are using now? And why do you want a smart card slot for? What channels do you want to watch that uses smart card to decrypt the channels?

Well, there is other alternatives to watch channels from multiple satellites besides motorize system because motorize system itself is not cheap (I think it costs thousands of ringgit if not mistaken) and not everyone willing to spend money on that. The easiest one is to buy another satellite dish to receive signals from another satellite, which is easy and straightforward. If you don't want to spend money to buy another dish and other equipment, you can put multiple LNBs on your satellite dish, but this is quite challenging and time consuming to set it up but of course it saves cost, or you can ask an installer to help you. It looks something like this:



Yes, Astro exclusive DTH license expires on Feb 2017, while non-exclusive license expires on 2022. And yes it means companies can introduce new DTH pay TV after Feb 2017. But this is just DTH pay TV company, not TV content. Astro holds quite an amount of exclusive content/channels across several TV networks for several years, such as HBO, Fox Network Group, etc. The future DTH pay TV might struggle if they couldn't offer TV channels that aren't so attractive to customers because Astro still owns those exclusive rights to those "nice" channels. Pretty much almost every channels you saw on Astro that Hypp TV don't provide such as HBO, Discovery Channel, Nat Geo, others are exclusive by Astro. Unless the new DTH pay TV willing to bid over Astro for the content, and not to forget about sports content as well.

It depends whether Astro interested to provide C band DTH or not, since that is one of the easiest solution to solve rain fade issue and all Malaysian customers can enjoy the service, unlike Astro IPTV where it is limited to service coverage as the area must have fibre broadband service to enjoy the service. Yes I am very aware that Astro FB page are full of negative feedback and complaints. You say their sales drop? Nope. The number of subscribers kept increasing non-stop quarter by quarter, year by year and the graph never drop, plus Njoi also provided some support too. Currently there are 5 millions and growing subscribers, including 1 million Njoi customers. Thanks to Astro's monopoly, despite how much effort the customers tries to complain, cancel Astro service and even tells people to boycott Astro, Astro will still continue to stand as "No. 1 pay TV in Malaysia" and win some sort of awards (such as Putra Brand Awards) that we don't care. Because they know that there's no other pay TV in Malaysia provide the channels as good as Astro. Ask yourself, do you prefer the channels you see on Astro or Hypp TV, or both? If you cancel Astro, you can't watch those channels, as simple as that. Even there is those Internet TV, watch TV shows on Internet for free, Netflix, iflix, Hypp TV or whatsoever, Astro aren't afraid about this because as long the number of subscribers is growing and profit are there, it's fine for them. Remember, whatever they do, they will prioritize on money first, not customer first. It sounds like I'm giving hate speech towards Astro, but it is the truth. Like it or not, we Malaysians just have to accept it.

Exclusive DTH license means, no other satellite pay TV is allowed to be in Malaysian pay TV market until the exclusive license expires. If our "very good" government wants to renew and extend their exclusive license again, then literally Malaysia no hope already. Whether to use C band or not, it still have to depend on our "very good" government allow the usage of C band for the particular DTH pay TV or not. But that one is future thing la...