Sun Direct is an Indian

direct broadcast satellite Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna comm ...

service provider. Sun Direct was launched in December 2007. It transmits digital satellite television and audio to households in India. Sun Direct uses

MPEG-4 MPEG-4 is a group of international standards for the compression of digital audio and visual data, multimedia systems, and file storage formats. It was originally introduced in late 1998 as a group of audio and video coding formats and related tec ...

digital compression, transmitting HD Channels on

GSAT-15 GSAT-15 is an Indian communication satellite similar to GSAT-10 to augment the capacity of transponders to provide more bandwidth for Direct-to-Home television and VSAT services. It was successfully launched on 10 November 2015 at 21:34:07 ...

at 93.5°E and SD Channels on

MEASAT-3 MEASAT-3 was a Malaysian communications satellite which was successfully launched on 11 December 2006 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. In March 2003, MEASAT Satellite Systems Sdn. Bhd. of Malaysia ordered a Boeing 601HP satellite, givi ...

at 91.5°E. Sun Direct currently offers total 465 channels and services, along with many other active services. It is the first and No.1 service provider to launch HD Counterpart.

History

Sun Direct is a joint venture between the Astro Group of

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

and the Sun Group of India . Sun Group entered into an MoU with the Astro group on 27 January 1997, when

Aircel Aircel Ltd. was an Indian mobile network operator headquartered in Mumbai that offered voice and 2G and 3G data services. Maxis Communications held a 74% stake and Sindya Securities and Investments held the remaining 26%. Aircel was founde ...

was not in existence, but since the government of India did not allow the use of KU band

transponders In telecommunications, a transponder is a device that, upon receiving a signal, emits a different signal in response. The term is a blend of ''transmitter'' and ''responder''. In air navigation or radio frequency identification, a flight trans ...

for DTH services the project was put on hold, the firm said in a statement. After the DTH policy was announced by the government in December 2007, Astro picked up a 20% stake in Sun Direct TV, the stake was valued at approximately $115 million. Sun Direct TV was registered on 16 February 2005. However, the failed launch of Sun Direct INSAT 4C resulted in Sun Direct lack of transponders, delaying the launch. The service was finally launched on 18 Jan 2008 after availability of transponders from INSAT 4B. Sun Direct spread rapidly all over the country owing to lowest pricing of any DTH services in India. In December 2009, Sun Direct was launched in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

, country's financial capital and announced its pan India launch. By 2009 it became the leading DTH provider with 3 million subscribers.Business : Sun Direct launches sD services
The Hindu (9 April 2009). Retrieved on 17 January 2012. This makes it the second largest DTH service provider of India. In April 2010 Sun Direct became the No.1 DTH service provider of India with 5.8 million subscribers and soon launched its HD service in India.

INSAT-4B glitch and satellite change

On 7 July 2010 a power glitch in the INSAT 4B satellite turned down the DTH system partly and SUN Direct announced that the service will be free till whole services are restored. The partial service was restored on INSAT 4B Sun Direct with 193 channels and meantime SUN Direct is now transmitting 173 channels on

for uninterrupted transition of Sun Direct customers from INSAT 4B at 93.5 °E.Insat 4B at 93.5°E
LyngSat. Retrieved on 17 January 2012. to

at 91.5 °E.Sun Direct on Measat 3 at 91.5°E
LyngSat. Retrieved on 10 September 2017. Sun direct now uses 4 Measat-3 Transponders (TP's) and 3 INSAT-4B TP's to provide DTH services, and additionally through exclusive agreement with BIG TV, a DTH arm of Reliance ADAG group, Sun Direct Shares 2 TP's of BigTV (BIG TV holds 12 TP's in Measat-3), i.e. BIG TV allows Sun Direct to get signals of FTA channels to Sun Direct. Sun Direct stopped its Standard Definition Sun Direct TV services from INSAT-4B and moved its High Definition TV Services to INSAT-4B, Sun Direct now broadcasts its entire Standard Definition TV from Measat-3. As of 2017, Sun Direct uses eight transponders equally split between MEASAT-3 and GSAT-15 with three being added the year itself. HD channels are being beamed from the four transponders on GSAT-15.

2021 power glitch

On 21 June 2021, several

went off due to dead solar panels. This resulted in over 150 channels on Sun Direct going off air, which prompted the company to shift many of the important channels to other transponders. All the channels resumed within a day as alternative transponders were provided by

MEASAT MEASAT Satellite Systems Sdn. Bhd, formerly Binariang Satellite Systems Sdn. Bhd is a Malaysian communications satellite operator, which owns and operates the MEASAT (Malaysia East Asia Satellite) and AFRICASAT spacecraft. The company provides sat ...

Subscriber base and market share

As of September 2021, Sun Direct is the fourth largest satellite television provider in India with a subscriber base of approximately 12.34 million and a market share of 17.91%.

References

External links