[Satellite News – 04-10-08] Households in Cambodia now have access to satellite-TV services following the launch of the country’s first direct-to-home (DTH) service April 3.
    Techno-DTV is being operated by Cambodia DTV Network Ltd. (CDN), a subsidiary of Shin Satellite, and Nuthapong Temsiripong, general manager of CDN, told Satellite News that the operator expects to reach “at least 100,000 subscribers” within a year.
    Nuthapong believes the economics mean it is now possible to offer DTH services in Cambodia. “From our perspective, the market has a lot of potential if there are services available,” he said. “We think it is a very cost-effective television offer for them to be able to watch our channels. It would be a great option. We have recently developed and achieved a low-cost model for receivers, which makes us more confident to deploy the service in Cambodia.”
    The initial free service includes all local and some foreign channels, and CDN also hopes to launch a pay-TV service by the middle of 2008.
    “Within the second year, we could reach 300,000 subscribers,” he said. “There are 3 million households in Cambodia. According to our studies, one-third of them can afford a low-cost pay-TV service, which is $3 to $5 a month. That will be the starting point we have.” Nuthapong said the service needs 500,000 subscribers in order to be profitable, or about 3.5 percent of Cambodia’s 14 million people.
    With a lack of terrestrial infrastructure, satellite will play a key role in bringing a new range of TV services to households. “From our point of view, we think satellite is the best option for this country,” said Nuthapong. “For a country like Cambodia, the geographic conditions and the availability of electricity makes it difficult for other distribution networks such as [digital terrestrial TV] and cable TV. Satellite will be the best option here. There is a very low penetration of the terrestrial network also here.”
    The service is critical as Cambodia moves slowly to become a more digital society. Prime Minister Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen, who is commonly known as Techo and after whom the service was named, is supporting the launch of the new platform.
    “The prime minister is very confident that Techo-DTV will greatly benefit to the whole country,” Nuthapong said. “This will be the one of the catalysts to promote this to the whole country. This is a key contribution to society. We are planning on launching an education channel where we will cooperate with the education ministry and some private entities to jointly develop a program for about 20,000 schools across the country. There will be some other channels such as a tourism or cultural channel to promote Cambodia. This is something we will push forward in the near future.”
    While the service is in its early stages, CDN already is looking down the road. “We do have a product roadmap for the next couple of years,” Nuthapong said. “The next thing we would look to deploy is a DC input power version. This model will be very useful for where electricity is occasionally available and in non-electricity household areas.” CDN also has plans for high-definition offerings and personal video recorders as well as mobile content.
    But the early performance of the service will influence how quickly CDN moves forward with those plans. “I believe over the next 12 months more people will be aware that there is a digital-television-over-satellite service available across the country [due to] the content [and] our marketing activities,” Nuthapong said. “We plan to do all the roadshows over the next six months. There are elections in Cambodia in July, so this will be key as the prime minister promotes this. We plan to help the country to develop the national information infrastructure, and this will greatly benefit the media and broadcasting industry as well as content production. We hope that Cambodian people will benefit from this advanced technology, and this will help the platform to grow as well.”