European FTA Roots So, just what is FTA? Well, sometimes it's extremely helpful to compare domestic U.S. practices and infrastructures to those in other parts of the world. Perspective, understanding and point of view are just a few of the resulting benefits. In the case of North American FTA TV, the comparison to tens of millions of European FTA set-top boxes and systems seems apropos. Free-To-Air in Europe today is a thoroughly legitimate infrastructure, supporting an estimated 30 mil.-40 mil. unscrambled subscribers, who buy their systems for several hundred Euros each, then watch advertising-supported free TV from their homes in Europe. This way, they get scores of channels--albeit almost all ad-supported--without having to pay a monthly subscription fee. Indeed, when one travels through continental Europe, the strong majority of the dishes mounted on houses in continental Europe are from the FTA ad-based business model. The United Kingdom is an exception to the FTA rule, because the Murdoch-controlled BSkyB satellite system is the dominant multichannel TV provider, and is instead a subscription-based service with more than eight mil. subscribers. France and Germany also have relatively smaller satellite subscription businesses, with a total of about five mil. subs each. Conversely, in North America, there are a fair number of FTA programming channels, but unlike the general fare in Europe, the North American versions offer mostly free ethnic and religious programs, which are of interest to only very limited audiences. Turning to piracy, industry pundits note that such limited programming sources are not capable of justifying the more than two mil. volume of FTA sales sold in North America to date.
How It Works The way piracy works in North America, consumers turn their FTA receivers into FTA units that steal DISH Network. Also, because DISH Network utilizes the universal DVB standard, and DirecTV does not, the former operator is more vulnerable. Conversely, pirates can't steal high definition signals from DISH, yet. Once the FTA manufacturers get their hardware into North America and into the hands of North American consumers, their success depends substantially on the support they provide customers. "FTA support," in this case, means providing the best scripts (or codes to open the boxes to "free" programming), the best picture quality, the fastest response after an operator's Electronic Counter Measure (***) has disabled all FTA units, and the best features and functions, including program guides, and doing so at the best price. That is the battle ground among the different FTA competitors. As it relates to providing the needed code to consumers, a one-time script writer, nicknamed Blacklist, is a good example of its importance to the manufacturers. Blacklist worked for a time with the then-leading FTA manufacturer, Blackbird. As a result, Blackbird retained the Number One spot for FTA sales for the time it was associated with the effective script writer, Blacklist. Blacklist was known to have done a most effective job of releasing pirate scripts for Blackbird's FTA units. Indeed, later, when Blacklist switched to a Blackbird rival, Pan Sat, the latter's sales shot up and PanSat then became the Number One North American FTA seller. The Carmel Group believes today that the FTA manufacturer, Oceanside, CA-based View Sat, is one of the top four FTA sellers, in large measure because of its superior customer service and support. Pan Sat and View Sat have become so popular through the years that clone -- or copy -- units, ironically, made in China, entered the U.S. market several years ago. Another provider, Cool Sat, with its card reader, has also become very popular and its FTA unit is very effective in stealing DISH Network signals. China Connection
As mentioned immediately above and as is true of most of today's FTA set-top boxes, they are made in and shipped to the U.S. from locales in mainland China. South Korea is the other center for FTA set-top box manufacturing. Indeed, there is substantial irony in this situation involving the Chinese. The Chinese government seeks to control content delivered to its citizens and to those abroad, yet, at the same time, the government seems unable to control the set-top boxes produced in their own country, which, in turn, are then used to steal content.
Bottom Line Where is this all going? Whichever manufacturer provides the best piracy support, best features and functions at a price below $200.00/FTA unit, is going to sell a lot of FTA units. This means companies like DISH Network in the U.S. and Bell Express Vu in Canada are losing a lot of subscriber revenues. Moreover, as noted above, the FTA manufacturers and others associated with the multichannel TV piracy business, are delivering a lot of ill-gotten gains.
I never knew that Europe had a system like this !!!...apparently this Tomhiro Nishkado is a veteran of FTA and is bored by info he (or she, if in that case I recommend ony one orifice) would like to share with the general community...stick it anyway and anywhere u like Tomhiro Nishkado but do not diss education in general
