Thaicom 3: Satellite Woes Force Action

[george]

THAICOM 3: Satellite woes force action

BANGKOK: -- An irreparable glitch is still haunting Shin Satellite’s Thaicom 3, and the only remedy seems to be the upcoming launch into orbit of iPSTAR.

After twice shutting down Thaicom 3 early last week, ShinSat explained it was routine maintenance involving recharging batteries during an eclipse.

That explanation raised eyebrows among telecom industrialists, as did the shutdowns coming with absolutely no warning to major customers, including pay-television operator United Broadcasting Corp (UBC).

Industrialists also wondered why ShinSat did not switch off Thaicom 2, which is co-positioned with Thaicom 3 at 78.5 degrees east, for the same reason, that of the eclipse.

The shutdowns blacked out UBC’s satellite-television programming and left its 300,000 satellite-channel viewers in frustration.

Dumrong Kasemseth, executive chairman of ShinSat, told The Nation that a reoccurrence was unlikely, but if it were to happen again, ShinSat’s Thaicom 1 and 2 satellites would back up Thaicom 3. “We’ve already provided an explanation to all of our domestic and international customers,” said Dumrong.

But another source at ShinSat said the major cause of last week’s shutdown was really a side-effect of an unsolved solar-array glitch that occurred in nine of Thaicom 3’s transponders early last year. ShinSat had to shut down Thaicom 3 last week to reposition the satellite, which had become unbalanced from a work overload due to using its remaining transponders to broadcast all of the programmes, he said.

“The old problem with the satellite would not go away,” he added.

One telecom at a foreign brokerage estimated that Thaicom 3 has contributed approximately Bt1.15 billion in annual revenues to ShinSat. He forecast that in a worst-case scenario, such as Thaicom 3 no longer being able to be used at all, ShinSat would lose Bt100 million from pre-exceptional profits of Bt464 million.

And there is yet another plausible negative scenario. An engineering source estimated that the solar array glitch had shortened the lifespan of Thaicom 3 by several years. This might result in it being shut down before its planned expiry in 2011. UBC’s contract for the use of the satellite expires in 2008.

The only way out for ShinSat is iPSTAR, scheduled for launch early next year. If iPSTAR blasts off successfully, ShinSat can switch its Thaicom 3 customers over to it, the source added.

--The Nation 2004-09-20

[mouse]

Dumrong Kasemseth, executive chairman of ShinSat, told The Nation that a reoccurrence was unlikely

Just happened again this morning although for only 10 minutes. Both ipStar and UBC were out with a low signal value for both.

They may have to consider an early launch for ipStar and then they have visit each and every customer to reposition all the Sat dishes by an almost 90 degree difference.

[george]

IPstar customer service told me it was becuase of raining and unclear skies today. I told them i've been reading the Nation report that the IPStar have serious problems with the power and transponders.

I asked in Thai if this was the truth. Customer service hanged up my call

Be prepared for further outages, IPstar customers! The batteries on Thaicom 3 is the truth, I believe.

[Ice Treasure]

Having spent some time working with the engineers for the bird, this would not have been a surprise as they were never short of the odd bad word. However, we are as usual seeing the normal TiT... tell them nothing..they won't realise or they will accept it as normal "snafu" as the americans used to say. It would be nice to see Mr T and co telling at least some semblance of the truth in my opinion, but it is not likely to happen any time soon...

[siam]

I used to have a motorized sattelite dish here in theUK,The only problems i really had was when it was heavy rain,and we would get what was known as snowing on the picture but no total loss of picture,That is def down to the transponder

They are definitely trying to bull you guys there

[mouse]

  IPstar customer service told me it was becuase of raining and unclear skies today

Negative! I have excllent weather conditions and the system still failed. I just hate being lied to when I know better.

[brownsugar]

It seems Thaicom 3 also had some problems last year http://www.skyrocket.de/space/index_frame....t/thaicom-3.htm

[george]

Yes, Thaicom 3 is ######ed, but they don't admit it.

[RDN]

IPstar customer service told me it was becuase of raining and unclear skies today. I told them i've been reading the Nation report that the IPStar have serious problems with the power and transponders.

I asked in Thai if this was the truth. Customer service hanged up my call   ....

Excellent - you asked if they were lying and they didn't know what to do, because they were only briefed on giving one lie, not two. So they hung up the phone! Perhaps next time they will be ready with lie number 2.