The following probably what happened at MCMC and ASTRO discussion. (cerita berikut hanya rekaan semata-mata kecuali berita dari thestar  )

ASTRO : Dei boss, takde orang nak beli package tv satellite aku sekarang.
MCMC  : Apasal pula
ASTRO : Channel satellite dari negara lain lebih bagus dari channel aku yang offer pada si bodoh yang beli. Diorang punya siaran satellite percuma tu, HD and 4K lagi.
MCMC  : Tak jadi ni, macam mana kita orang nak cuci otak rakyat kita nanti? Nanti boss kita marah. Pasal tak dapat charge rakyat mahal dan rompak gst dari mereka.
ASTRO : Betul betul. nanti keuntungan aku kurang dan aku terpaksa bayar cukai syarikat yang sikit.
MCMC  : Lagi tak jadi, dah dah...aku akan uruskan.......

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2017...tellite-dishes/
MCMC issues warning over illegal satellite dishes
PETALING JAYA: The Malaysian Communi­cations and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has warned the public not to use or possess illegal satellite dishes.

It said the use of illegal satellite dishes has a direct financial impact on the country’s broadcasting industry as the broadcast content is received directly from another source.

“Any usage of uncertified equipment such as illegal satellite dish and non-standard products has implications such as safety to consumers and disruption to the quality of telecommunication services.

“Consumers can also easily be exposed to inappropriate content such as pornography and retrograde ideologies that can be detrimental to the moral fabric of society.

“MCMC will continue working with law enforcement agencies to monitor the situation,” it said in a statement.

On Oct 4, two fishermen in Taiping, Perak, were fined RM4,000 in default two months’ jail for owning and using illegal satellite television equipment at home.

“Although the issue is not widespread, it is still a violation of the law,” it said.

MCMC urges members of the public who have any information regarding illegal ownership or use of illegal satellite dishes to alert it so that action can be taken.

Offenders will be prosecuted under the Communications and Multimedia (Technical Standards) Regulations 2000 and under Section 239 of the Communications and Multimedia Act.

Ownership and use of illegal satellite dishes is an offence under Section 239 of the Communications and Multimedia Act, which carries a maximum RM100,000 fine, up to two years’ jail, or both upon conviction.

Under the Customs Act, offenders face a fine not less than 10 times the value of the seized items and not more than 20 times the value of the seized items or can be jailed up to three years, if convicted.

You're right. But the thing I can relate is, Astro can decide which channels they want the viewers to watch; viewers who uses Astro satellite service in buildings who still uses older, legacy centralised dish systems that only support VL frequencies, which is 10700MHz to 11700MHz (all SD and selected HD channels), but VH frequency range will not able to detect any signal, which is 11700MHz to 12700MHz (the rest of HD channels). This is due to the technical limitations of the old, legacy centralised dish system used in high rise buildings such as condominium.
So next time, if you see on Lyngsat that the channel is on frequency 11700MHz onwards, that means those old centralised dish systems will not able to receive the signal.

So let say, if they want to make sure every Astro customers are able to tune to Astro Maya HD channel due to whatever reasons (maybe because to benefit them such as viewership), regardless of those staying in landed property or high rise, so they put the channel in VL frequency (either Measat 3 or 3b) instead of VH frequency (Measat 3a) to allow viewers who uses the building's old centralised dish systems to be able to watch Astro Maya HD.

VL= Vertical Low (Measat 3 and 3b only)
VH = Vertical High (Measat 3a)

And yes, Astro do standby on Measat 3b once Measat 3 has reached its end of life, then the rest of the channels will move from Measat 3 to 3b.

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The technical limitations involved in something called 22KHz, where the old systems cannot support, which explains why many high rise buildings can't watch all HD channels that is on VH frequency (Measat 3a satellite). You can Google about it, if you're interested to know the deep, deep technical stuff.

"Vertical" refers to the polarity of the signal being transmitted from satellite to your dish. This one too technical la. All you need to know is, Astro is currently uses Vertical polarisation signals only to provide its services to customers.

Centralised dish systems is a very complicated thing, and not every building management wants the building to have many Astro dishes installed at the balcony, which will affect the building's outlook. So when centralised antenna systems is involved, this will result in high costs and lots of technical complexities.

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Currently (as of October 2017), satellite frequencies used by Astro are:
Measat 3 = 10982 MHz till 11182 MHz, and then 11482MHz till 11682MHz
Measat 3a = 12276 MHz till 12476 MHz
Measat 3b = 10732 MHz till 10932 MHz

TP = Transponder

If Astro use Horizontal, this will cause signal conflict on centralise dish systems that only supports Vertical. And, almost every single high rise buildings in Malaysia that uses centralise dish systems will have to upgrade those wiring from the centralised dish, as well as almost equipments, sort of "signal splitters" that wires to every units of the condo (for example), and etc, where that make it super duper complicated, and that will be a disaster. Once again, this is all for the sake of centralise dish system. To prevent this, Astro use Vertical only, simple. This is also why you see other pay TVs that uses Measat satellite at 91.5 E, all of them uses either High Vertical or High Horizontal frequencies, where those frequencies Astro don't keen to use because to prevent more channels not able to be received by old centralised dish systems as well as not making things complicated for installers, building management, and the customers themselves.

But for those who use own individual Astro dish, especially in landed property, they have no such signal issues like those Vertical lah, Horizontal lah, Low or High all that. No need to headache all those crap like centralise dish systems. All can receive, no problem (as long the LNB is compatible, which all LNBs that Astro uses are compatible).

And if you think Astro's HD channel quality is bad, think again. Why you see other pay TV has more than 6-8 HD channels in one TP (with the symbol rate of 30000, also known as 36MHz TP)? Because their video bitrate for HD channels is lower, to accommodate more HD channels in one TP. Since Astro has 6 HD for each TP in Measat 3a, and 8 HD for each TP on Measat 3 and 3b, the bitrate is about 5-6Mbps per HD channel. But for other pay TVs that has about 10 HD channels in one transponder, the average bitrate will be about 3Mbps or 3.5Mbps, which is lower than Astro HD channels quality.

Astro is quite generous enough to provide about 5-6Mbps per HD channel cuz not every other countries pay TV around the world can afford to do that. Leasing satellite transponder is not cheap... Just ONE transponder like 10982 MHz Vertical with symbol rate 30000, just that one alone can costs millions of ringgit per year. Currently Astro has 18 transponders for Measat 3, 3a and 3b, you sendiri tahu la, how much they pay for transponder leasing fees per year to Measat. But Astro and Measat are not just a "normal customer" and they're like abang adik one... So, you know la...... That's why other country's pay TV don't own as much transponders as Astro, cuz that will cost them a bomb. But for those other countries pay TV companies that are very rich, they can own almost as much transponders as Astro to provide more channels. Money only mah.

I agree with this point. Since many Malaysians are internet savvy users, this might be their reason why they made this channel exclusively to Astro Go.

Terbalik already..
C band transponder fees is higher than Ku band's.
Because the reliability, coverage and other technical advantages, plus the scarcity of frequency range of C band, this makes C band fees more expensive. And yeah, this is also one of the reason why you don't see majority of pay TVs around the world use Ku band instead of C band.

Overall operating costs for Ku band is lower than C band, plus with other technical advantages, that's why Ku band fees is lower.

Because Singapore don't have DTH pay TV... Singtel TV uses IPTV (fibre broadband), while Starhub uses either cable or IPTV (fibre broadband). So they can provide such Video On Demand services to customers without worry much.

Because Singtel TV is an IPTV operator.

Satellite TV are subject to expensive, limited transponder bandwidth capacity, so DTH pay TV operator have to carefully handpick channels that they want to offer it in HD.

IPTV however, are subject to network bandwidth capacity instead. As long you got a lot of bandwidth, you can offer as many HD channels as you like.
So this somewhat explains why the video bitrate for Hypp TV's HD channels are slightly higher than Astro's.

Talking about our previous discussion about Astro's HD channel quality, well of course, Astro can offer as better HD quality like Hypp TV by increasing video bitrate a little from 5Mbps to around 8Mbps, but that will result in lesser HD channels in each transponder.

So, if you would choose, you want a better HD quality channel than now but lesser HD channels in return, or you want more HD channels, or you want something in between?
Sorry to say la, majority of the consumers are somewhat materialistic where they want more more more channels, and that will attract customers to subscribe it, and Astro can earn more. Only the minority of viewers like us, would bother the slightly lower video bitrate and complain that Astro HD channels doesn't look like "true HD".

Really, try to think, customers request more HD channels vs customers complain for poor HD quality, which complaint or feedback you heard often on anywhere?

I can see that, Astro can choose to be stingy by save more money in utilising lesser satellite transponders while offer even more HD channels, and customers pay more for those HD channels in return. But Astro themselves, they also need to jaga their reputation of the quality of service also, cuz that will result in poorer HD quality especially in fast moving scenes. So it is good to see that Astro balances between the two by maximising the amount of HD channels possible in each transponder while providing good HD quality channels. Not to say excellent quality, but "overall good enough/above average" quality.

So what happen when we customers want more HD channels? Still remember back in 2014 when Astro one shot introduced 8 new HD channels?
http://www.malaysiandigest.com/technology/...d-channels.html
Well, that's involving the long-term costs in new Measat 3b transponders leased by Astro. At the same time of course, Astro want to earn profit also, where got 100% money for the RM5 increment of HD service for transponders one. You know la, Astro punya pattern.

So, Astro's HD channels is consider good enough already. If you cannot tahan the Astro's HD quality cuz you see lots of image artifacts, adjust your TV's sharpness setting all the way to 0. Because I did this, I am satisfied with Astro's HD quality.
https://www.cnet.com/how-to/turn-down-your-...rpness-control/
If you can't get used to it cuz picture doesn't look sharp, try look closer to the screen, you will realise that don't see much image artifacts anymore. By doing so, it also means you are somewhat watching original quality from source (Astro), and your TV don't sharpen the image to "enhance" the quality, but actually it's not. And another tip, if your TV has MPEG Noise Reduction or just Noise Reduction setting, set it to Low or Off. Set as High will make the picture look like water colour painting.

If you cannot tahan the Astro's HD quality cuz you see lots of image artifacts, adjust your TV's sharpness setting all the way to 0. Because I did this, I am satisfied with Astro's HD quality. And same goes to some of you guys, I cannot tahan at Astro's HD quality provided if my TV's sharpness setting is set to 8/10 or any setting that my TV tend to sharpen the image from source. I mean by Sharpness setting of 0, it means no added sharpness by your TV. Some TVs suppose to set as 50/100 then only consider as "no added sharpness", if that kind of TV you set as 0/100, you will see "added artificial blurness" instead, so do take note.
https://www.cnet.com/how-to/turn-down-your-...rpness-control/
If you can't get used to it cuz picture doesn't look sharp, try look closer to the screen, you will realise that don't see much image artifacts anymore. By doing so, it also means you are somewhat watching original quality from source (Astro), and your TV don't sharpen the image to "enhance" the quality, but actually it's not. And another tip, if your TV has MPEG Noise Reduction or just Noise Reduction setting, set it to Low or Off. Set as High will make the picture look like water colour painting when you look closely to your TV screen.