Commenting on the recent interference problems in Libya, Egypt and other parts of the Arab world, Mohamed Al Shahi, senior director, broadcasting, du, commends the performance of his teleport team at Samacom. On transmission during the Arab spring We had to face interference during the crises in Libya, Egypt and other parts of the Arab […]
Commenting on the recent interference problems in Libya, Egypt and other parts of the Arab world, Mohamed Al Shahi, senior director, broadcasting, du, commends the performance of his teleport team at Samacom.
On transmission during the Arab spring We had to face interference during the crises in Libya, Egypt and other parts of the Arab world, but we worked closely with Eutelsat, Nilesat and other satellite operators to combat the problem. We kept shifting frequencies. If one channel was down, we would shift the channel to a new frequency. We had a great working experience with MBC and Al Arabiya. When the interference was on Al Arabiya, we were broadcasting on three different frequencies. Fortunately, there is no interference now and I give full credit to my technical and commercial teams at Samacom that worked on it 24/7.
Overall no services were interrupted. We could do that because we have capacity in reserve and we plan ahead. It was hectic – we had no idea where the next interference would come from – but it was important to us and our broadcasting partners, that no channel was down for more than a day. We hope to put together a disaster management plan. There is talk among satellite operators to dedicate a transponder in case there is a disaster. Nothing has been decided as yet. On why customers would approach du Broadcast Services
I would say the answer is in three parts. Firstly it is quality of services. With a dedicated technical team in our NOC, and specific account managers on call, we ensure a high quality of service. Secondly, we have variety of platforms to operate from ranging from Arabsat, Nilesat, Intelsat, Eutelsat and now we hope to work with Yahsat. And thirdly, we offer competitive prices. This is important considering the competition we face from similar companies in Jordan, Bahrain, Egypt and so on. On Samacom’s recent achievements
We uplink more than 220 TV channels out of our teleport. Samacom is considered among the top teleports in the Middle East and ranked among the top 15 worldwide. We were ranked 11 by the World Teleport Association in 2010 in terms of revenue generated, customer base and capacity usage, among other criteria. We have almost 85 per cent of the marketshare in the UAE. That includes customers in Dubai Media City, Abu DhabiÂ’s 2Four54 and so on. We also offer VSAT services for companies such as Bloomberg by way of redundancy service for their fibre links to the UK.
With 30 different antennae at our Jebel Ali-based teleport, we have state-of-the-art facilities. On the relationship with satellite operators and future plans They are our partners. We work closely with satellite operators to provide uplink facilities to our broadcasting partners. From a capacity perspective, there was a shortage till a year ago. But now we have Yahsat with its 28 transponders dedicated to broadcast. In addition, Eutelsat has just activated services on the Atlantic Bird 7 boosting NilesatÂ’s coverage. There are other satellites in the pipeline. Earlier, more than 90% of our customers were based in the UAE, but over the past two years we have successfully diversified our customer base. Now almost 50% of my customers are based outside the UAE. And with satellite TV growing, we are working closely with Yahsat, which has great plans for the future.
