Ubc Does It Again

[mouse]

UBC went off the air again at 2128 hours this evening. Looks like they might be gone for the night.

[chuchok]

yep, their mothers were not married!

[jackr]

Thinking about getting UBC. I know it can be pretty unreliable when raining but does it often go out on a clear day? What's the overrall cost? any special deals at the moment?

[Ajarn]

Except for during rainstorms, the outage last night and today is the first time I can remember such a long outage...

[RDN]

Except for during rainstorms, the outage last night and today is the first time I can remember such a long outage...

Yep, the satellite is well and truly f***ed. The problem's with the third transponder on the left.

Still, channel 76 is a real winner...

So tune to Radio Bangkok! Hmm, I wonder ..... Radio Bangkok just starting up, UBC having a problem...? Hmm? George !!!

Edited September 14, 2004 by george

[stroll]

It is time they employed a qualified electician to insulate their exposed outdoor wiring. At least they stopped switching in the middle of the saturday night movie to some regional English football matches, and the pauses halfway through movies, displaying failure messages adressed to their administrator: 'switch cd/insert card' have become shorter.

[Heng]

If you have the option between cable and satellite, choose cable. Much more reliable and doesn't stop working when it rains. Plus you can use those green Panda boxes to hook it up to more rooms in your house without paying x5 x6 for each hookup.

[astral]

Except for during rainstorms, the outage last night and today is the first time I can remember such a long outage...

The last time the people in shared networks were off for several days,

at least this one was only 12 hours.

[astral]

It is time they employed a qualified electician to insulate their exposed outdoor wiring. At least they stopped switching in the middle of the saturday night movie to some regional English football matches, and the pauses halfway through movies, displaying failure messages adressed to their administrator: 'switch cd/insert card' have become shorter.

It sound as though you have a service from a local cable network

not UBC!!

[Ajarn]

Except for during rainstorms, the outage last night and today is the first time I can remember such a long outage...

The last time the people in shared networks were off for several days,

at least this one was only 12 hours.

UBC out for several days? When was that? What do you mean by 'shared networks'?

[sua yai]

Don't know if cable is programmed the same way all over the country, but where I'm from, UBC would be a godsend.

Cable here has excelled itself, bringing in the folowing cultural improvements over the past year or so.

1. My favorite Sat/Sun morning hangover cartoon channel started speaking Thai.

2. BBC World Service/CNN has degenerated into Rupert Murdoch's Fox News.

3. I can't watch live English soccer any more.

4. National Geographic was replaced by an army of cliff climbers and canoeists - Adventure channel. Incidentally, even this disappeared last night and is now another Thai soap.

5. The movie channel went a couple of weeks ago and in return we got Star World. More American soaps than you can shake a remote at.

Bring on UBC, despite some breakdowns. At least the missus is happy that I spend more time on the computer so she can watch the Thai soaps.

[DJ Pat]

I'm not paying my UBC bill this month in protest, they can cut me off as it's all crap. I can watch the football down the pub.

[RDN]

The last time the people in shared networks were off for several days, at least this one was only 12 hours.

Yes, but it was two nights - Sunday night/Monday morning and Monday night/Tuesday morning.

What are the odds it'll happen again tonight too?

[george]

The Nation:

Satellite snafus snuff out UBC

BANGKOK: -- Sunday night was a real nightmare for the 75 per cent of United Broadcasting Corp’s customers who tuned in on the TV provider’s satellite dishes.

That was the night when the final round of the US Open, the last tennis Grand Slam of the year, was set to take place.

It was a big night as Swiss Roger Federer was to serve and volley with Australian Leighton Hewitt. A win by Federer would have made him the third person to ever snatch three Grand Slams in the same year.

But as the satellite went dead, viewers were left disappointed.

Tennis fans grumbled but they were happy for Federer when learning about his victory – through other channels, like the Internet and good old-fashioned radio. And at least, they figured, they could catch a repeat of the game on Monday night.

But as right as rain, the satellite went kaput again Monday night, a few hours before the rerun was about to air. There might be a chance to catch the game later, but as time passes, it won’t be as enjoyable.

With the problem repeating itself two days in a row, a bad feeling washed over many a UBC subscriber. Some fretted that it would happen again and most likely during their favourite programmes.

On Monday night, a subscriber cried foul when the satellite was dead in the middle of “Will and Grace”. Others were upset about having the start of American football season interrupted both on Sunday night and the rerun game at 8pm on Monday.

UBC might not truly understand the extent of the discontent until it imagines this could have happened when its highly popular reality show “Academy Fantasia” was still running.

With UBC’s service coming at a substantial price on a par with what many western nations charge for cable, subscribers do not want explanations but confirmations that the problem won’t recur.

If the ShinSat satellite UBC uses can’t be fixed, it may be time that the cable operator thinks about other options.

It may have to consider expanding its fibre-optic network, to replace all the satellite dishes. Indeed, the dish is something no subscriber wants . Aside from the monthly rent, they have to cope with so many related problems – such as delayed transmission signals or total signal disruptions under heavy clouds or rains.

Or, what about a discount during rainy season?

--The Nation 2004-09-14

[george]

UBC subscribers demand refund

BANGKOK: -- Scores of frustrated satellite-TV customers of United Broadcasting Corp Plc (UBC) have called for a refund after programmes were blacked out for hours on Sunday and Monday following a glitch on the Thaicom 3 satellite.

Many affected subscribers said UBC had to show responsibility for the night-time blackouts.

“I subscribed to its Bt1,500 monthly package, meaning I pay UBC Bt50 per day. So UBC has to refund me around Bt100,” one disgruntled customer said.

She said she was left feeling even more frustrated when she called UBC on Monday morning and only got an answering machine, which told her that the blackout was due to a technical problem on Thaicom 3.

Another UBC satellite-TV viewer said that if the problem occurred again, he would switch to an illegal satellite dish.

A UBC executive source said the company would today meet with Shin Satellite, which owns the Thaicom 3 satellite that broadcasts UBC programmes, to discuss ways of ensuring no future glitches.

The source added that the two companies had not yet talked about refunding subscribers.

“We’ll talk about the satellite’s reliability and how to ensure such glitches never happen again,” the source said.

Thaicom 3 experienced a technical error on Sunday night, blacking out all UBC programmes.

ShinSat took 13 hours to fix the glitch.

In a filing to the Stock Exchange of Thailand on Monday, ShinSat said the disruption on Monday night occurred when the company “decided to temporarily turn off the transponders on its Thaicom 3 satellite in order to recharge the batteries while performing maintenance during the eclipse”.

But UBC satellite-TV programmes were blacked out again on Monday night and it took 10 hours for the problem to be fixed.

ShinSat’s share price dipped to Bt14.80 yesterday from Bt15 a day earlier, while UBC’s share price fell to Bt23 yesterday from Bt23.10 the previous day.

UBC subscribers who receive the programme signal via cable lines were not affected by the glitches.

UBC has more than 400,000 subscribers, of which around 300,000 receive programming through satellite signals. The rest get their service via cable lines.

The Thaicom 3 satellite experienced a glitch in February following a power-supply error, blacking out some UBC shows.

--The Nation 2004-09-15

[Darth Bangkok]

I am not sure where there numbers come from. My cable went out late Sunday night and came back on somewhere between 2AM and 10AM this morning (Tuesday).

[Whiplash]

Its odd how often UBC craps out.. whats the deal here ??

When I had satellite dish in Sweden it NEVER stopped working, not even with half the dish full of snow and ice in the winter, the picture only got a bit grainy..

Here its 'looking for data' when the sky has a few clouds.. not to mention when its raining..

[DaveYo]

you people seem to not understand. UBC Satellite also serves the cable industry here. If the Satellite goes out, so does the cable since they also lose out the signal.

I have cable here, pay only 400 Baht a month for 41 channels. Problem is I cannot choose my channels since it is offered as a certain package that is provided by UBC.

Also UBC has monopoly going on since they are the only suckers controlling all of Thailand right now. No competition, nothing. Cable companies are at their mercy.

How is that for the real scoop of information. So the choice is yours, either pay 1,500 baht a month or 400 baht. Depends on your tastes and requirements of what you want to watch. Wish I can simply choose my own programs as my package and leave the other junk that they broadcast to the birds to feed on etc.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Daveyo

[danone]

well UBC is one of the most expensive cable providers in the world!

but expecting something?

give it up. UBC really forces you to go to the black market.

look at their Olympia coverage. they had big announcements for channel 28, the Olympia Channel! was all blue screen during the whole olympics ...

UBC is a joke, but an expensive one.

[RDN]

Its odd how often UBC craps out.. whats the deal here ??

When I had satellite dish in Sweden it NEVER stopped working, not even with half the dish full of snow and ice in the winter, the picture only got a bit grainy..

Here its 'looking for data' when the sky has a few clouds.. not to mention when its raining..

I posted on another thread why I thought the UBC signal disappears so quickly:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?sh...45entry100599

Some people say it is the size of the dish that is wrong - given the heavy rain that occurs here - and it is quite likely true. But I also think the system does not allow the installer to accurately line up the dish with the satellite.

[sriracha john]

One of Toxin's many companies partnered with a monopolistic satellite dish company... Now THERE'S a recipe for complete dissatisfaction.

[Orion76]

Also UBC has monopoly going on since they are the only suckers controlling all of Thailand right now. No competition, nothing. Cable companies are at their mercy.

There is some competition...

I receive Astro from Malaysia which has better programming, no red text screen during commercial breaks on CNN and much cheaper!

[Highwayman]

look at their Olympia coverage. they had big announcements for channel 28, the Olympia Channel! was all blue screen during the whole olympics ...

You must have had your tv set up wrongly then, as UBC Channel 28 certainly did show the Olympics (in English). The coverage even got a mention on Thai Visa.

[LivinLOS]

I am glad Phuket is far enough south I can pick up the pony Astra...

How about very little down and nothing over a long long time

Plus the package is better even if it wasn't free...

[Bonkers]

I've been a subscriber to UBC cable for 4 years. Without doubt, their engineering and technical support department is an oxymoron.

I have successfully had credits made to my statements when I've had service disruption, but they out-did themselves last year when after 4 visits to determine why I had loss of sound quaity on a variety of channels on certain days, they blamed my television. So I went and spent Bht60k on a new one. Lo and behld, same problem

A bitch to management saw a digital thingy-ma-jig relacing my old analgue(I guess) set-top box and it's been hassle-free ever since. I thought about charging them for the new TV, but realised I might as well have been farting into the wind.

Go digital cable.

BTW - what's this Panda thing that allows me to connect my bedrooms up to the main box? Would be a godsend!

[dtoodnut]

UBC?

Why bother when you can get Ministry of Sound for free.

BTW, anybody know what happened to the BKK Ministry of Sound Nightclub.

Did some wealthy limies get dogged by their Thai 51% partners?

[Bangkok Barry]

You must have had your tv set up wrongly then, as UBC Channel 28 certainly did show the Olympics (in English). The coverage even got a mention on Thai Visa.

I read somewhere, maybe in the UBC magazine - that has stopped publishing movie reviews in English and BBC World schedules at all - that the Olympics on channel 28 was only for satellite viewers. Cable viewers were ignored, as there's only 100,000 of us.

You can do that when you're a monopoly.

[thaigene2]

First to Dave Yo,

UBC dish subscribers DON 'T have a choice Dave. The dish doesn't move. It just stares blankly at ShinSat transponder 3 or whatever number it is. We only get a set number of channels - although maybe not same as you. It's called UBC gold. the only other option is Silver pak which is all Thai. At 1500 baht/month UBC Gold is a major rip.

Question for all: What to stop me from getting one of those big black moveable dishes (maybe chip in with a neighbour) and point the bloody thing where we want? I know some channels are scrambled, but is it true BBC World is not blocked? Don't care about CNN (I want to puke up every time Walter Rodgers starts his American troop cheerleading).

As someone else said, I too can watch the football down the pub, and since Star stopped carrying the ice hockey finals, I have no reason to ever watch it (except football) so it's a waste of a channel. I mean there's only so much motocross and ice fishing a guy can take.

Anybody registered the domain name: UBCsucks.com yet?

[sriracha john]

Anybody registered the domain name: UBCsucks.com yet?

Yes, I believe it is linked through:

www.ThaksinOwnsEverythingInThailand.com

[yeti]

I've got cable, and usually it's quite Ok (reception, not quality of programing).

And as I get it for free, I won't complain too much...