The FINANCIAL — The first-ever domestic digital satellite pay-TV in Georgia will be launched on January 1, 2012.
According to the long-term agreement of SES, one of the world’s largest satellite operators and Magtiom, the Georgian mobile and telecommunication company, up to 90 channels will be available in digital format in Georgia. It will be an ordinary digital TV like Silk-TV or Global-TV, but the difference is that the signal will be transferred via satellite and not via cable.
“We are making investments of several million,” Irakli Lobzhanidze, Marketing Director of Magticom exclusively told The FINANCIAL.
According to Magticom it will be one very important step toward TV digitalization in Georgia. The company supposes this will significantly increase competition between digital TVs after the new service is launched.
“Together with SES we will accelerate digitalization in Georgia. With the excellent satellite fleet and technical know-how of our partner, we will provide Georgian TV-viewers with the highest quality of digital television services,” said David Lee, General Director of Magticom.
“The launch of Magitcom’s DTH platform once again demonstrates the ability of SES to help new market entrants to succeed. SES stands for excellent knowledge of the television market. Its fleet of 47 satellites today carries 43 direct-to-home platforms worldwide,” stated Ferdinand Kayser, Chief Commercial Officer at SES.
“Georgia has been one of the markets we have been looking into for a long time. The coverage of our satellite at 31.5 E position is also perfect for Georgia. Magticom is the leading telecom company in Georgia with a well-developed network and customer base. We believe they are a professional operator that matches the quality of services that SES also stands for,” Anna-Karin Modigh, Senior Manager Marketing and Communications at SES told The FINANCIAL.
SES operates worldwide and helps broadcasters deliver almost 6,000 TV channels to over 245 million homes. Beside assignment with Magticom, the latest news of the company is that they had signed a long-term agreement with Canal+ Overseas.
According to the agreement, Magticom will get a signal from several transponders at 31.5 degrees East orbital position. It gives the company the capacity to launch Georgia’s first domestic direct-to-home (DTH) television platform. The operator will broadcast in DVB-S2 standard and MPEG 4 encoding.
The satellite covers the whole of Georgia and the service will be available all around the country. Company representatives say that the price of the service will be competitive compared to the current market prices.
“Magticom will offer several packages for different prices. Some packages will include HD format channels as well,” Lobzhanidze said.
“People can make a statement for switching to Pay-TV by hotline or the internet and installers will install a receiver plate and decoder in a short while,” he added.
Silk-TV, the first digital TV was launched one year ago in Georgia. The service currently has up to 25,000 users.
“First of all, we wish good luck to Magticom,” said Giorgi Ghughunishvili, General Director of Silk-net, “But I don’t consider pay-TV our direct competitor as we offer various services and aren’t only oriented at TV.”
“The coverage areas of Satellite TVs are wider and the quality is also better. It gives more possibilities to develop to the company as well as to customers. Considering our possibilities we try to offer the best service and improve it all the time,” Ghughunishvili added.
Silk TV offers 129 channels in total. They have 6 different packages. The prices of packages vary from 15 GEL up to 40 GEL. The company has covered all the big cities of the country. Their video library consists of 300 movies. Another 300 movies are already bought and will be offered in stages. Gambling amateurs have the possibility to bet by silk-TV in Adchara Bet.
Georgia will move to digital TV broadcasting by the year 2015 according to the Georgian National Communications Commission. It means that the transmission of TV signals will be switched off completely.
In the United States all full-power analogue broadcasts switched over to digital in 2009. However, low power television stations still have the chance to switch to the new system by 2012, before the US television market becomes wholly digital.
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