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Back in December of 2004 I wrote a column about the loss of the Intelsat Americas-7 satellite.

When this bird disappeared, it threw many services provided to the USA into chaos and confusion.

In the same column, I pondered what Sky TV would do if/when they lost the satellite they use to deliver pay-TV to so many NZ homes.

At the time I reminded existing or potential Sky TV investors that the loss of the Optus B1 satellite could deal a severe blow to the company's profits, especially if there was no effective contingency plan.

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Well once again my crystal ball seems to have been well tuned to future events because last night Optus B1 packed a wobbly and, without so much as a "goodbye and thanks for all the fish", Sky's digital service simply ceased to exist.

The company is playing down the outage -- suggesting that it's simply a case of reorienting the satellite to restore service but some have suggested that the orbiting transmitter may well have died for good -- citing that it's already reached its anticipated operational lifespan.

This leaves a lot of people wondering what will happen if Singtel (the satellite's owner) can't bring it back online.

A replacement bird isn't scheduled for launch until June which could mean at best that Sky subscribers are faced with a visit from the serviceman and a reduced level of service for three or four months. At worst, they could be back to just the VHF/UHF free to air channels for that time.

With over 550,000 subscribers to its digital service affected by this, there's simply no way that the company could find enough service people to re-orient dishes within any practical timeframe.

What a mess!

It's a shame we don't have "cheaper, faster" broadband in NZ or maybe Sky could offer to stream its channels to an eager audience :-)

One thing's for sure, this outage, if protracted, sure offers a huge opportunity for internet-based entertainment services to attract new customers.

What are all those rich couch potatoes going to do with no Sky TV to watch?

Well maybe they'll fire up their PC and do some surfing.

And all those rich investor types -- don't forget to add Aardvark to your bookmark list, you never know what useful bits of info you'll pick up here :-)

Tell us all and see what others have to say in The Aardvark Forums

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