Silicon Valley Computer SHUGART 706 User Manual download pdf (Page 79)

SATELLITE

The

international

connection

THE FAR -REACHING COVERAGE

OF GEO-

stationary

satellites has been

well

known, significantly documented,

and somewhat

troublesome to the

regulators of

the world since the

dawn of satellite

communications.

After more than a decade

of active

involvement

the business

presenting and

delivering

pro-

gramming via satellite,

the pro-

gramming

industry worldwide

finally beginning to come

to grips

with the effects

of such

wide

coverage.

its most

simplistic

terms, a

satellite transmission

has two

types of coverage;

intended recip-

ients and

non -intended

recip-

ients.

Under

most

national (and

international) regulations, a

satel-

lite signal is considered a

national

or sub -national service.

It is in-

tended to be

received by one or

more receiving locations, each

which is known to the

satellite pro-

grammer

/operator in advance of

the transmission being

sent.

Those are the

intended recipients.

Each country

in the world has

its

own

laws

rules regulating

re-

ception of those

transmissions, or

there are

no laws

at all.

(We'll get

that situation in a

moment.) The

content of those

laws varies widely

and

only the United

States, Great

Britain,

and

a handful of

other

countries

actually

recognize by

law

that at

least some of the trans-

missions on satellite are open

use by

non -intended

recipients.

International law

cases

where laws

making it

"legal" to

intercept transmissions

not intended

for you

not exist,

the attitude

of most

nations is that

it is not legal to do so. In other

FIG.

words, reception is illegal

unless

has

been made specifically legal

by legislation /law.

However,

remember

that satel-

lite signals

are

virtually

all national

nature;

U.S.

satellite

signals are

intended

for

U.S. users, Canadian

satellites are for

Canadian users,

Mexican

satellites

are

for Mexican

users,

and so on. In Europe, only

the French presently

have a na-

tional satellite service and most

the European

countries share one

or more common satellites

(Eu-

telsat).

There,

while the satellite

may

be owned,

operated, and

shared by multiple

countries, the

individual

channels or transpon-

ders

are

leased

by and operated by

individual

countries. Therefore,

under

various

national laws in Eu-

rope, it may

legal

to receive and

use

one

channel on Eutelsat (that

one that originates in

is intend-

for

use

within

the recipient's

country) but not other

channels

on the

same satellite

those chan-

nels

carry

programming

originat-

ing

in or intended for

other

countries in Europe.

All of that

is very confusing to

the layman

who

buys

or builds a

satellite- receiving system and

dis-

covers

not

only

his own country's

signals and programs but

those

BOB

COOPER,

JR.,

SATELLITE

-TV

EDITOR

from neighboring

(or

not so neigh-

boring) countries.

The

science of

satellite

transmissions

has

not ma-

tured yet

the point

where

it is

possible to

build a satellite

that

covers only

the United

States.

Nor is

possible,

or econom-

ical,

build a

satellite

for Europe

where one

channel covers

the UK,

another

France, a third

Denmark

and

so on.

The signals spill

outside

of the

intended coverage

area

rou-

tinely;

people

with the appropriate

equipment

can

receive

those

for-

eign

signals, often

with great

ease.

Figure

shows

the test

pattern

for

a Caribbean

superstation

that

transmitts

Westar 5, transpon-

der

23. Though

that station's

sig-

nals

are

intended

for reception

the Caribbean,

the photo

shown

was taken

in the U.S.

With rapidly developing

domes-

tic

markets for their

programs, that

unintended

spillover

was largely

ignored by programmers

for

near-

ly a decade.

example,

if a

U.S.

satellite programmer

pur-

chases

rental

or "showing

rights"

for a movie,

it pays a

negotiated

fee

based

upon

the size of

its do-

mestic market.

No payment

made

for viewers

located outside

the U.S., and

fact

the pro-

grammer

has no distribution

rights outside

of the U.S.

That

means that

can

not collect

user

fees from

Bermuda even

though

there

are unintended

users

there.

What's

more,

legally the program-

mer must prevent

the

movie

from

being

seen by

those who are

lo-

cated outside

the U.S.

Preventing

reception

One

method

protecting

themselves

from unintended

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