Page 19 - IB July 2020

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Tuvalu Broadcasting Corporation launched digital TV to Tuvalu in December 2019. MMG designed and built the new
platform and trained their radio staff on both production and Pay TV.

them on long term. elsewhere.”
Click TV via satellite lasted almost six years. But it’s not only regional and remote areas of the Pacific
“It is fortunate though we had applied for an ISP licence Islands where providers like Kacific can provide cheap fast
in PNG while we were operating the TV platform. We had to satellite internet.
educate ourselves not only how to configure the internet but “And surprisingly, NZ has quite a big requirement in rural
retail it.” areas, where is no fibre. So we launched our retail brand here
Click’s owners then established a communications company, in NZ called WOI earlier this month.”
Melanesian Media Group, to run projects in the Pacific, the C-band is still in wide usage and MMG has used this band to
first of which was to build Kiribati’s first digital tv platform – build a telemedicine project in project in Tuvalu.
called Wave TV. Its success last year led to a contract with the “We’re installing four C-band antennas for the Ministry of
government of Tuvalu to build theirs. Health and we’ve activated two already. So a nursing station
“We launched Tuvalu’s first TV station, 12 terrestrial chan- on an outer island is able to communicate with doctors in
nels, in December 2019.” India.”
MMG also set up a studio in Tuvalu and trained locals in how This US$300,000 project includes infrastructure costs like
to make local content. For the first time, last December, the VSAT system cost and medical equipment on every clinic on
parliament of Tuvalu was seen not only locally, but globally. outer islands, and it will save a significant amount of money in
“I still help manage the Facebook page for the streaming the long term, a spokesman for Tuvalu’s Health Minister told
and I see all the comments coming through from Tuvaluans Islands Business.
globally and now if you go to the TV government website MMG now has a team of 30-40, mostly engineers, based in
there’s not one thing that they don’t do live. Everything they PNG, India and New Zealand and it bids on projects in the
do they do live. Pacific, specialising in emerging markets or remote areas.
“It’s quite a transformation.” Earlier this year, MMG was engaged by Vanuatu Broadcast-
In PNG, MMG has moved from being an all-round content ing to provide equipment and resources so they could do live
provider to a content provider using only the internet. It election coverage through GSM units—using simcards in the
is now the biggest provider to all the major hotels in Port back of the cameras— to feed pictures live into the station.
Moresby through an IPTV Platform and it supplies content to “We also transformed them from standard definition to
a number of networks in Pacific Islands through its Internet HD, for that election and we improved the quality of their
Protocol TV (IPTV) platform. FB page.” This project was achieved on the back of MMG’s
It provides fixed wireless in Port Moresby, reselling access successful coverage of the 2019 Pacific Games in Samoa. The
through the Australian-funded Coral Sea cable, but cable has firm was selected ahead of two other companies to provide
limitations throughout the Pacific. Host Broadcasting services to the local organising committee.
“In PNG the new fibre is only going to coastal areas so any- Broadbridge foresees further satellite development ahead.
thing outside that, there’s nothing. He says a new constellation of satellites from Musk’s Space-
“So you have to go satellite. In a country where 70 per cent X in two years should hopefully bring the cost of terminals
of the population has no access to electricity let along fibre, down to sub $US50.
satellite is the way to go. In many of our Pacific countries, And there’ll be further changes if UK-based Oneweb plans
the main fibre gateway comes into the capital, and many of to increase the number of satellites in its constellation to up
these countries don’t have the funds to invest to lay cable to 48,000 LEO satellites are launched in the next few years.

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