Apsattv.com Official Predictions for Year 2002

Please Note The following contains, rumours, gossip, half-truths, misleads, daydreams, exaggeration, wild guess's and good old B.S it also contains some real info, it's up to you the reader to work out the fact from the fiction.

January 2002

Foxtel Helicopter sweeps Darwin and the NT but gives up after finding every 2nd house has a 3M solid dish in the yard.

Mediasat receives many complaints from the Thai and Turkish communities due to TV5 and TRT leaving.

JCsat 8 launches

February 2002

A big raid on suspected Pay TV pirates in Australia. Shock Horror several big name sports stars are implicated in the scandal that follows.

Tarb's signs up another dozen channels

JCsat 8 test with several never before seen Japanese channels seen FTA including a channel screening nothing but crazy game shows.

Pas 2 BBC World encrypts

March 2002

The Launch of Insat 3 at 83E sees more Indian services available including a couple in English!

Meanwhile new services pop up on Asiasat 3, Including HBO which is soon hacked and spread around the Indian Cable tv networks.

Al Jazeera news channel starts up its English channel. Aaj Tak TV from India follows

A drop in the Value of the Aussie Dollar hits pay providers hard.

April 2002

1st of April sees Canal+ launch 2 new Adult services, XXXX for the Aussie market and XXL News a 24 hour news channel from the people that brought you Nakednews.com.

Foxtel tests "Cryptoworks" encryption format

In a unusual move several Russian satellites are relocated

Nokia DVB2000 project finishes only bug fixes added from now.

May 2002

The NZ government purchases and launches is own small KU satellite, this kickstarts the NZ FTA market and also supplies 2 way internet to %100 of the country. All the NZ channels move off B1 and onto "Silverfern Sat"

Sky Attempts to offer a Pay Tv service to the Pacific Islands via SilverFern Sats Pacific Island Spot beam

Various services on B3 move to B1 to take advantage of the extra space.

Major problems cause Palapa C2 to shutdown for several days

June 2002

"Silverfern Sat" is a great success in the NZ market, leading to the launch of long awaited PAY TV competition to Sky. Sky responds by broadcasting its Sky 1 service FTA. Sky then attempts to flood the market with FREE decoders to anyone who will sign up with them. Of course we know that these are the ancient slow old units that can't handle the Open tv software but Sky has to get rid of them somehow.

There is much interest in the new satellite TDRS I satellite that gets placed at 172E

Asiasat 4 Launches to 122E bringing more Indian and Chinese channels.

The Launch of the new satellite receiver from the makers of DVB2000 and its a HOT one. Who's for some Mpg 4:2:2 video?

July 2002

A mystery new FTA english channel starts up via Thaicom 3 global beam, the FTA Adults only late night entertainment awakens the now dead cband big dish market. Shocked at the loss of viewers, competing channel ABC Asia Pacific in a shock move brings back "Here's Humphrey" and reruns of "A Country Practice"

The NZ market is flooded with cheap low end Asian satellite equipment.

Sky Launches a new receiver on the NZ market that does NDS/Irdeto and Viaccess with dual card slots, Has built in 60 Gig HD. This one they actually sell to customers! Foxtel buys 50000 of them...

Silverfern Sat adds 4 new channels, Kids , Music, 24hour News, and SportsNZ

August 2002

The Chinese government bans ABC Asia Pacific, there is only so much "Here's Humphrey" one can stand.

Optus C1 Launches (Finally) but surprise! it has problems with one of its antennas and signals going into parts of Asia that it shouldn't cover. The Singapore Government says "No comment" over the new unofficial footprint.

Foxtel Helicopter mysteriously crashes somewhere off the coast of NZ.

Foxtel then releases statement regarding footprint testing of Optus C1

September 2002

CCTV premieres its new show "Humflee Blear" which look suspiciously like VHS taped copies of Here's Humphrey but with Mandarin and Cantonese subtitles.

A satellite launch goes horribly wrong with a bird crash landing someplace in central Australia

Several Asiasat 2 Chinese channels encrypt

October 2002

Craig finally gets council permission to put up his dish at his new place...but its to late he is already looking at new places out in the country.

Zee TV goes FTA for the month to try and attract viewers

Several Chinese channels start offering "all English" programming in primetime and yes it has annoying subtitles at the bottom.

Tarb's raises its prices

November 2002

Craigs dish goes up (Hey stop laughing what do you mean it takes longer than a month for me to put up a dish) ;-)

Tarbs launches its Asia Pacific regional service.

Mystery Sat 1 goes up

December 2002

Chinese Family across the road from my house complains about the ugly dish in the yard. Problem is resolved after promising them tapes of "Humflee Blear" for their kids.

Asian Hackers announce they have the Tarb's encryption system hacked.

Tarbs cancels its recently launched Asia Pacific service due to "lack of interest"

Mystery Asian Company starts an Ethnic satellite service