Free to Air Satellite TV
With free to air (FTA) satellite tv
you can open up a whole new world. If you want to buy a satellite
dish, LNB, receivers, accessories and more then you can do it all
online when you order
here.
If you are fed up with high monthly
bills from your cable operator or DBS satellite tv provider or even
if you are simply looking for more TV entertainment options, then
it might be time for you to give Free-To-Air (FTA) TV systems a try.
With FTA products you can have international TV and Radio programs
in in a variety of languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Turkish,
Spanish, Russian, Iranian and many others. You'll be able to get news
and entertainment 24 hours a day from all over the world without having
to pay monthly programming fees. The prices have recently been dramitically
lowered for Free-To-Air
complete systems as well as stand-alone receivers.
History and Basic
Information - Free to Air Satellite TV
Free-to-air reception was first used
on a large scale in Asia. Before the mid 90's, you needed very large
antennas just so that you could get about 30 channels. When the MPEG-2
technology was introduced, it made per-channel transmission costs
much cheaper. MPEG-2 is a worldwide satellite transmission standard
for digital broadcasting. Echostar's DISH Network is a good example
of a satellite tv company that uses the MPEG-2 technology.
The wholesale cost of the first free
to air receivers in the US was about $700. These days, the costs have
come down by quite a bit. This is mostly due to free trade and the
laws of supply and demand. It is a direct result of the number of
people who have flocked to Dish Network and Directv® programming
services.
A great number of channels have become
available in North American territories. Many of them continue to
transmit in a free mode. A lot of the available channels are from
other countries. In all cases, somebody must foot the bill. It costs
money for satellite transmissions across the ocean and then it costs
some more money to rebroadcast those signals to the North American
market.
In many cases the North American
signal is available on Directv® or Dish Network for the price
of a monthly fee. However, the incoming feed from overseas is still
left in the clear. This is done for economic reasons. Hardly anyone
would go to the trouble of installing a big dish antenna just to view
one free channel. Especially when they can get it from Dish Network
or Directv® for a reasonable fee.
