Dream Satellite TV was the first all-digital Direct-To-Home (DTH)

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

broadcasting service via

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

in the Philippines. Broadcasting from the Dream Broadcast Center located at the

Clark Special Economic Zone Clark, officially the Clark Freeport and Special Economic Zone (CFEZ), is a freeport and special economic zone in Central Luzon, Philippines, managed by the Clark Development Corporation (CDC), a government-owned and controlled corporation (GO ...

Pampanga Pampanga, officially the Province of Pampanga (; ; ), is a province in Central Luzon in the Philippines. Lying on the northern shore of Manila Bay, Pampanga is bordered by Tarlac to the north, Nueva Ecija to the northeast, Bulacan to the east, ...

. Content is received from program providers, compressed and broadcast via Koreasat 5 (Mugunghwa 5) in

DVB-S Digital Video Broadcasting – Satellite (DVB-S) is the original DVB standard for satellite television and dates from 1995, in its first release, while development lasted from 1993 to 1997. The first commercial applications were by Canal+ in ...

and

NTSC NTSC (from National Television System Committee) is the first American standard for analog television, published and adopted in 1941. In 1961, it was assigned the designation System M. It is also known as EIA standard 170. In 1953, a second ...

color format exclusively to its subscribers using the Integrated Receiver-Decoder and the Conax/Nagravision 3 Encryption System. To receive Dream's broadcasting signals, subscribers must acquire a

satellite dish A satellite dish is a dish-shaped type of parabolic antenna designed to receive or transmit information by radio waves to or from a communication satellite. The term most commonly means a dish which receives direct-broadcast satellite televisio ...

antenna that is in diameter, an Integrated Receiver-Decoder (IRD) and a Dream Conditional Access Card (

Smart Card A smart card (SC), chip card, or integrated circuit card (ICC or IC card), is a card used to control access to a resource. It is typically a plastic credit card-sized card with an Embedded system, embedded integrated circuit (IC) chip. Many smart ...

). To provide security and protection, the satellite signals of Dream shall be encrypted using a Conditional Access System. Thus, exclusive use of Dream programs and services will only be available to Dream subscribers.

History

1996-2001: Incorporation and launch

In April 1996, Dream was incorporated to the Philippine Multi-Media System, Inc. (PMSI). On February 6, 1998, the Philippine Congress passed into law Republic Act No. 8630 which granted PMSI a franchise to construct, install, maintain and operate for commercial purposes and in the public interest, television and radio broadcasting in the Philippines. The franchise term is 25 years. On February 1, 2000, The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) granted a provisional authority to engage in Direct-To-Home (DTH) satellite services. On February 7, 2001, the PMSI inaugurates its Dream Broadcasting Center at Clark Development Center, and on April 22, 2001, the commercial launch of Dream Broadcasting System, the first DTH system in the Philippines, took place. In 2003, Dream Broadcasting System was renamed as "Dream Satellite TV".

2006-2011: Koreasat 5 secondary broadcast and Agila II closedown

In 2006, Dream began to use Koreasat 5 as an additional main broadcast to the existing Agila II satellite transponder. Starting 2010 until 2011, Dream closed all of the transponders of Agila II (ABS-5/ABS-3) for its main broadcast, due to the fact that it was only 2 years left in the orbit. When all of the Dream Satellite channels were transferred to Koreasat 5, Dream announced customers to migrate their receivers (which uses Nagravision 3/Conax CAS7) to Koreasat 5 as the replacement for ABS-5/ABS-3 satellite. In 2011, Antonio "Tonyboy" O. Cojuangco, Jr., owner of PMSI, has plans to sell the company. In August 2013, it was revealed that

SkyCable Sky Cable (stylized as SKYcable) is a cable television service of Sky Cable Corporation in the Philippines. It covers areas across the country with both digital and analog cable services, and it has 700,000 subscribers, controlling 45% of th ...

was in the advanced stages of negotiations of acquisition of PMSI.

2017: Koreasat 7 third broadcast

In 2017, Dream stated that it is planning to sign a multi-year, multi-transponder capacity agreement with Korea-based

KT Corporation KT Corporation (Hangul: 주식회사 케이티), formerly Korea Telecom, is a South Korean telecommunications company, mobile network operator (MNO) and List of mobile virtual network operators in South Korea, mobile virtual network operator (M ...

to broadcast DTH television channels via Koreasat 7 satellite at 116.0 degrees East & upgrade to

DVB-S2 Digital Video Broadcasting - Satellite - Second Generation (DVB-S2) is a digital television broadcast standard that has been designed as a successor for the popular DVB-S system. It was developed in 2003 by the Digital Video Broadcasting Proj ...

. Koreasat 7 is expected to be operational by middle of 2017, to complete among 3 DTH operators in the Philippines.

The end of Dream Satellite TV

On December 31, 2017, Dream Satellite TV ceased their operations after 16 years due to bankruptcy, and stiff competition from Direct-to-Home Satellite TV providers such as Cignal and

G Sat G-Sat (''Global Satellite'') is a subscription-based direct-to-home (DTH) satellite television service commercially available in the Philippines. G-Sat is owned by Global Satellite Technology Services (GSTS), registered in the Philippines wi ...

. Meanwhile, the Koreasat 7 satellite is currently handled by SatLite, a digital prepaid pay TV service owned by Cignal.

Hardware

Receivers

Early receivers were made by Nokia (Nokia MediaMaster 8830S/8630S), Digital AllWorld (DAW951 and DAW-SNA4400), ViStar and Crystal. Those receivers were already phased out by Dream (except for DAW-SNA4400 and Crystal), due to the lack of Nagravision 3/Conax support. The later receivers, such as Homecast eM-152USNA, KAON K-270 and the Arion AF-5102S (both of them were still offered by Dream). Both of these receivers are only capable of receiving standard definition broadcasts.

Smart cards

At the time, when the first DVB-version of Nagravision is not yet introduced, Dream Satellite used Conax CAS3 for the main broadcast until they switch to Nagravision 2 and Conax CAS7 encryption on 2006. In 2009, following the Dish Network anti-piracy upgrade, a conditional access swap to the smart card has been completed. This also made the smart card system transitioned to Nagravision Merlin and Conax CAS7.5.

Status of competition and controversy

Dream Satellite TV filed a complaint with the

National Telecommunications Commission The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC; ) is the telecommunications regulator of the Philippines. It is an attached agency of the Department of Information and Communications Technology responsible for the supervision, adjudication ...

(NTC) against Global Broadcasting and Multimedia, Inc. (

) for offering a DTH service in the Philippines without a franchise and a license from Philippine authorities, namely the Philippine Congress for a broadcast franchise and the NTC for a Certificate of Public Convenience. Aside from Dream, the Lopez-owned

Sky Cable Corporation Sky Cable Corporation, doing business as Sky, is a Telecommunications in the Philippines, Filipino telecommunications company based in Diliman, Quezon City. A subsidiary of the media conglomerate ABS-CBN Corporation, the company offers broadba ...

also filed a similar complaint against GBMI. It argued that GBMI's illegal entry into the industry will result in the unnecessary duplication of an existing service that existing cable TV and DTH-TV service providers already adequately provide.

References

External links

Official website
(archived) {{DEFAULTSORT:Dream Satellite TV Direct broadcast satellite services Companies based in Pampanga Television in the Philippines Mass media companies established in 2001 Mass media companies disestablished in 2017 2017 disestablishments in the Philippines Philippine companies established in 2001 Philippine companies disestablished in 2017