[Satellite News 08-11-09] China DB Sat is in the middle of a transformation to leverage its position within China, embarking on an aggressive capital expenditure plan for new satellites, Huang Baozhong, executive vice president for China DB Sat told Satellite News.
    China DB, a fixed satellite service provider and joint venture of China Satellite Communications Corp. (CASC) and Sino Satellite Communications Corp. (SinoSat), operates the Chinasat, Chinastar and Sinosat satellites. According to Baozhong, China DB hopes to meet the digital needs of China’s population with plans to launch branded video-on-demand services.

Huang: It is difficult to forecast when China will see a national DTH player. This is very much dependent on the Chinese government, but the government is taking a very measured approach, bringing DTH services to rural areas first. They are providing regional and localized channels to these populations. These are high quality channels and his has been a big success.
    I think the Chinese government has realized the importance of satellite operations. It is unlike several years ago. There are so many uses for satellite. Even if you have terrestrial wireless and fiber, it cannot give you sometimes what you need, particularly in terms of handling emergency situations, for example. You have to use satellite. We are seeing a huge growth in demand for backhaul services via satellite and services for emergencies. I think you will also see push video on demand services starting very soon in China, and we hope to play a key role in this.

Huang: Push video on demand will have HD channels, HD movies and other SD content. There could also be interactive TV services. We would like to be in the position to offer these services ourselves. We have the Chinsat-9 satellite, which is ideal for the service. This would be a China DB Sat branded set-top box within the home.

Huang: We need more capacity to serve the broadcast markets. If you look at our satellites, we have three satellites that are for the broadcasting sector. We don’t have much available capacity on the Chinasat-6b and Sinosat-3 satellites. Chinasat-6b has a wide coverage of about 40 countries. This is very attractive to broadcasters, but the satellite is nearly full.

Huang: Right now, we have eight satellites. We are looking to launch at least one new satellite each year. We have plans to launch Ka-band, S-band and L-band satellites. Sinosat-6 will be launched next year. In 2014, we will launch our S-band satellite for mobile services. In 2015, we will launch potentially both a Ka-band satellite and an L-band satellite. We are doing feasibility studies right now into L-band and Ka-band satellites.

Huang: All the TVs being sold are now HD. We have around 20 million to 30 million HD TVs in the country already. It is also growing very fast. People understand that the overall quality of TV is better. There is a huge pent-up demand for HD content. Most of the content producers are moving to HD. If you look at the costs of producing HD content, it is almost the same of SD content three-to-four years ago. So we are seeing a lot of content being produced in HD.

Huang: I think the major challenge is the streamline of the company’s services. The company is facing a new round of restructuring, so that is a major challenge. We have a lot of people working for China DB Sat and CASC, so there is an integration process to take place here. Secondly, while we will continue to have a strong focus on the Chinese domestic market, we want to start to offer capacity and services in more overseas market. This will mainly be in Asia.