High-end, expensive satellite news gathering (SNG) trucks are facing stiff low-cost competition these days, as satellite service providers and equipment manufacturers market faster, better, and cheaper solutions. In doing so, these cut-rate competitors are opening up the SNG market to smaller stations, and attracting news users from the military and emergency services communities.

A case in point is the Quickspot/Onspot solution being jointly marketed by Panamsat Corp. and On Call Communications. It combines Panamsat’s Quickspot on demand satellite service – allowing users to access whatever amount of Ku-bandwidth they want on demand, without signing up for fixed time periods – with On Call’s Onspot auto-deploying broadband satellite terminal.

Available in flyaway, airline transportable, or vehicle-mounted configurations using foldable dishes ranging from 0.75 to 1.2 meters in diameter, Onspot comes “fully preconfigured, integrated, and preprogrammed,” said Brian Symonds, Panamsat’s senior director of network services. “You just push one button, and the antenna automatically unfolds and locks onto the right Ku-band satellite. Then the satellite modem kicks in, and the system logs itself onto our network, requests the amount of bandwidth needed to support MPEG-4 video, and you’re ready to go for as long as you need to.”

Both the on-demand bookings and the actual satellite bandwidth is controlled by Panamsat’s hybrid Vipersat controlled hub in Ellenwood, Ga. “We can provide anything from 64 kbps to almost 5 Mbps, depending on what is requested by the customer’s terminal,” Symonds told Satellite News.

In terms of cost, setting up a Quickspot/OnSpot SNG mobile and studio downlink can cost a broadcaster anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000; depending on the equipment selected. In pure physical costs, this is more than what they’d pay for a bottom-of-the-line traditional Ku-band SNG package, said Erin Ludden; On Call’s director of marketing. “However, with Quickspot/Onspot, there’s no need to have an engineer on staff to operate the equipment,” Ludden said. “This means that the station saves by using existing non-technical staff to operate the field equipment in addition to the savings realized by using bandwidth on-demand.”

Reducing staff costs is just one reason why Los Angeles PBS affiliate KOCE chose Quickspot/Onspot. Another reason is availability. “In L.A., all of the microwave licenses were long gone when we decided to start doing live hits,” said KOCE News Director Michael Taylor. “Meanwhile, the cost of a full-sized SNG was too cost-prohibitive to consider.”

What really sold KOCE on Quickspot/Onspot was its policy of charging only for the bandwidth a broadcaster actually uses. In contrast, a traditional bandwidth package would commit the broadcaster to specific time block purchases set on a specific schedule. “With this package, we pay $10 a minute for satellite airtime as we use it,” said Taylor. “Better yet, we can use the satellite any time we need to, and not get charged for time we don’t use; as was the case with the old model. What this means is that whenever we fire up the satellite, we’re ready to go. When we’re done, we turn it off. We don’t have to worry about being cut off by exceeding a contracted time window, and we only pay for what we use.”

BT Satnet is another provider of automated SNG solutions. Like Quickspot/Onspot, BT Satnet provides its customers with easy-to-install vehicle-mounted SNG packages. “The SNG operator can effectively be replaced by a vehicle driver, as BT Satnet remote terminals are easy to operate and deploy, automatically locking on a predefined satellite with manual pointing,” said a BT Satnet sales brochure. When it’s time to go on air, the operator simply pushes a button and the BT Satnet system unfolds the dish, activates the satellite modem, and locks and logs onto BT’s satellite network.

CNBC Europe‘s senior SNG operator Gert Woltjes drives a Satnet-equipped van. It replaces a four-man SNG tractor-trailer that used to cover the European beat. Today, Woltjes is by himself on the road, driving from country, to country, to country. There are times he spends 16 hours on the road, driving from one end of Europe to another, Woltjes said. “It can get pretty tough.” But the system itself only takes “three mouse clicks” on his laptop to find the Atlantic Bird 2 at 8.0 degrees West; point the antenna, and transmit a data carrier. Since CBNC London handles the actual satellite bookings, the rest of the linkup process is automatic.

Is this a SNG simplifier? Yes, said Woltjes. It has reduced his SNG transmission workload so much, that now he has time to shoot camera as well.

Meanwhile, GMPCS Personal Communications took SNG portability one step further, by making an 8 lb. equipment package that can be carried in a backpack. The secret to this unit’s small size is its use of Inmarsat’s BGAN satellite service. Even when using one of Inmarsat’s small antennas, it’s possible to achieve “data rates up to 492 kbps full duplex,” said GMPCS President Craig van Wagner. For SNG applications, GMPCS can guarantee 256 kbps from ground to satellite. That isn’t standard broadcast quality, but it does provide excellent video streaming. In those instances where getting to the scene fast is more important than picture quality, this capability is a real asset for journalists.

Van Wagner’s point about GMPCs’s limited video quality makes a point that applies to all low-end SNG. There are limits to using this technology. For instance, the complexities of HDTV SNG will likely motivate networks to stick to engineer-manned SNG trucks; to ensure that their expensive widescreen signals make it to space and back again in one piece.

In addition, those broadcasters who have already invested in expensive SNG tractor-trailers are unlikely to park them in favor of Quickspot/Onspot or BT Satnet-equipped SUVs. For these service providers to penetrate this market, they must be patient and wait.

This said, providers of automated SNG services are bullish about their future. “The potential SNG market looks huge,” said a source within BT Satnet. “We’re about to increase the availability of BT Satnet to keep up with it, and to supply it to military, police and government customers too.”

“This form of SNG has applications for mobile command centers run by police, fire, and the military,” adds On Call’s Ludden. “We’re also seeing possibilities in the disaster recovery sector, for providing on-site communications in the wake of catastrophes such as Hurricane Katrina.”

Overall, the prospects for low-cost automated SNG applications look promising. Clearly, this is one faster-better-cheaper approach that actually works.

–James Careless

How Quickspot/Onspot Works

The satellite bandwidth/access side of Quickspot/Onspot is provided by Panamsat, using its Quickspot On-Demand North American Ku-band service. Offered through a combination of the Galaxy 10R and Horizons 1 satellites, Quickspot is a fully automated system that allows for instant access without reserving time beforehand; covers viable bandwidth demands, and can be billed by the minute, hour, day, week or month. Quickspot can support voice, video, FTP, SNG, disaster recovery and emergency first responder traffic, and is backed by 24/7/365 technical support.

The equipment side of the Quickspot/Onspot package is provided by On Call Communications. For the customer’s vehicle, it consists of a fold-down, roof-mounted 0.96m auto-deploy antenna, an antenna controller, a satellite modem, DVB switcher, LAN switch, MPEG 4 video encoder, and a two-line VOIP telephone gateway. The components inside the vehicle are integrated into a rugged, shock-mounted case.

At the studio-receiving end, a 1.2m fixed antenna system is installed. A fixed antenna can be used because the SNG feed first goes up to a Ku-band satellite, bounces down to Panamsat’s Ellenwood teleport, than goes up once more to another Panamsat bird for downlink to the customer’s TV studio. Also included is a DVB receiver, a LAN switch, an MPEG 4 decoder, and two line VOIP gateway for receiving voice calls via satellite.

“This is a standard package,” adds Erin Ludden, On Call’s director of marketing. “We are happy to outfit customers with other configurations according to their needs.”

Together, Quickspot/Onspot create a seamless, easy-to-use, fast-deployable, and economically attractive for people who have a need for satellite communications, but not the budget nor the staff for traditional SNG. This is why this service, and others like it, should help expand the SNG service market to small market TV affiliates and independent TV stations.

Portable Non-SNG Markets

Besides the SNG markets, there are a number of sectors which can benefit from access to portable, fully-automated, time-charged satellite service. They include:

• network restoration and disaster recovery service for government and business
• ad hoc distance learning and telemedicine
• fast infrastructure replacement in areas of natural or manmade disaster
• large file transfer from headquarters to many sites; for both business and government
• remote command centers for military and public safety users
• immediate networks for oil, gas, and mining operations in remote areas
• full multimedia links for ships at sea (maritime)
• temporary hubs for local telephone, data, and Internet access via satellite
• ad hoc business television networks, to link multiple locations for interactive special announcements, business meetings, and social events
• transnational concert hookups via satellite for international fundraising events