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STN: World-Class Teleport Services

Photo courtesy of STN

STN was established in 2004 with the goal of helpingbroadcasters expand their reach and build their businessesthrough reaching more viewers and new territories. From itsentrepreneurial roots as a privately-run operation, thecompany has grown dramatically in both customer base aswell as service capability. In 2009, to accommodate STN’ssuccess and enhanced offerings, the company moved to anew purpose-built facility, which was further expanded in 2011and again in 2015.

STN offers a broad portfolio of media services includinguplink, satellite capacity, playout, encryption, multicast andchannel localisation services, enabling a wide range ofcustomers, from start-up channels to blue-chip global medialeaders, to rapidly and efficiently deploy quality services. Thecompany helps its customers attract and engage newaudiences and expand into new markets by leveraging high-quality capacity on a wide and continuously expanding rangeof service solutions. Established partnerships with allcommercial satellites covering multiple regions, equipped withover 85 antennas, PoPs in a growing number of key broadcast

centres around the globe, links to major European datacentres, and connectivity with worldwide fibre networks, STNprovides clients with a truly global reach.

Alongside supporting DTH broadcasting, in both highlydeveloped as well as in emerging markets, STN helpscustomers deploy world-class OTT services. With STN’sextensive facilities, broadcasters can launch OTT servicesfaster, enabling them to attract audiences and grow revenuesearlier in the product lifecycle, with optimum networkefficiency.

A leader in broadcastWhile some teleports active in the data market facechallenges from the expanding reach of fibre throughout theworld, STN’s business is growing consistently.

“We’re actually seeing more and more small channelsexpand into new regions. This is due to the more affordablecapacity prices, which were previously prohibitive, as wellas due to the new technologies which enable STN and itscustomers a more efficient use of bits per megahertz,” said

World-class teleport servicesSTN provides world-class broadcasting and transmission services to TV companies, videoentertainment platforms and content providers located across the globe. The company owns andoperates a state-of-the-art satellite teleport in Dob, Slovenia which was named IndependentTeleport Operator of the Year 2016 by the World Teleport Association (WTA). Amy Saundersvisited STN to meet the executive team and find out more about the company’s operations,market presence and industry outlook.

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STN: World-Class Teleport Services

Mitja Lovsin, General Manager at STN. Such customers canmake a reasonable business case now to expand to newcountries, increasing the business they bring to broadcastteleports like STN.

STN differentiates itself from its competitors with itspreparation work and project turnaround time, and byperforming market research that helps it to keep potentialcustomers informed. One of its key focus points is expatcommunities, since any area with a significant expatcommunity has demand for content from home.

STN is committed to ongoing investment in the very latesttechnological infrastructure in order to provide the bestservice quality and reliability to its customers and theiraudiences. State-of-the-art headend equipment, includingnew leading-edge software-defined video transmissioncapability, enables STN to powerfully support multiplecompression options and adaptive bitrate formats within aunified broadcast and OTT/IPTV headend.

Meanwhile, the commercial and technologicalprofessionals at STN retain their fundamental commitmentto developing real-world broadcast solutions which closelyalign with the business and operational objectives ofcustomers, creating great bespoke solutions which are bothaffordable and sustainable. Striving to achieve the highestquality of service infuses STN’s business every day.

“There is always room for growth and improvement, andwe have already modelled an expanded site with additionalantennas, and have already prepared room for additionalequipment in the networks operations centre (NOC) andoffices for new staff. So, I think it clear to say that STN is in agrowth and expansion mode, explor ing emergingopportunities on the horizon,” said Mitja.

While the teleport has a system that monitors all theprocesses that take place, STN is currently installing a new,upgraded system to provide greater control over everythingthey have on air, providing additional security for its clients’content.

STN’s commitment to providing the best quality servicesextends to ensuring the teleport is protected through anyenvironmental challenges. “As Slovenia is home to a

Photo courtesy of STN

Mitja Lovsin, General Manager at STN

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STN: World-Class Teleport Services

challenging climate, STN has several systems in place toensure weather related conditions do not cause signalinterruption,” said Andrej Lovsin, CEO of STN. “In 2015, STNinstalled Walton De-Ice equipment on all of its antennas. Othernoteworthy pieces of equipment on site is a lighteningdeflection system, which is based around an electrostaticfield that surrounds the facility, teamed with a rain deviationsystem which prevents the rain from gathering and causingattenuation problems, gives clients added security.”

According to STN, it’s important to cooperate with otherteleports on a regular basis. While the company specialisesin the broadcast sector, from time to time it will receiverequests for data handling. In these cases, it will work withanother partner teleport as a virtual network operator (VNO).

Alternative content deliverySTN mainly operates in the traditional DTH delivery market,but alternative content delivery methods are becoming agrowing part of its business. More and more, companies arerequesting that content be moved over the Internet, which isoften more cost-effective for the customer. In these cases,STN installs specialist equipment at one or both ends toprovide a greater level of security for the transmission.

OTT networks are very much at the forefront of STN’sattention. The company started to consider OTT servicesmore than a year ago, and today has several OTT customers

and more in the pipeline. It’s not just large companies thatare looking at OTT; STN is also in talks with smaller customersthat plan to adopt a similar service.

Mitja Lovsin explained that the OTT market comes withits own challenges: “It’s not just a case of getting a signaland distributing it via the CDN, it’s about providing particularcontent with particular profiles and at the same time reachingthe widest range of devices.” As a result, STN is workingvery closely with Elemental, which is able to perform all ofthe required profiling.

Services are becoming more important in the broadcastindustry today, and it’s important that teleports like STN canprovide the best options for their customers. This isparticularly important when it comes to new companies, whichoften have less understanding of the market. The goal is toget a customer’s content to as many people as possible, sothat the customer can gain new possible funding in the formof sponsorships or advertising. To help these start-ups, STN’scommercial, technical and operations teams work togetherto give each customer optimum results with quality and cost-effective solutions.

A changing marketThe market has changed immensely since STN first startedoperations in 2004. The transition from analogue to digitalwas one of the biggest in the company’s history, changing

Photo courtesy of STN

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STN: World-Class Teleport Services

the whole marketplace. With these technology advancements,the bandwidth requirements have fallen and transmissionshave become more affordable, which meant a big increaseof TV stations and a huge rise in demand for satellite capacityand teleport services.

The result was that new, lower-cost channels wereintroduced to use better quality, and eventually, the industrydecided to move to high definition (HD). When HD was firstlaunched, it required 45MHz per TV channel. However, asmodulation and encoding technologies became furtheradvanced, the bandwidth required per channel fell again,increasing the amount of unused satellite capacity. Theanswer was 4K and high dynamic range (HDR), which againincreased bandwidth requirements. According to STN,however, the bandwidth required for 4K channels is alreadyshrinking.

STN believes that the 4K movement will continue to growin the coming years as more and more communities gainreception capabilities. Past broadcast industry transitionswere much slower than the present move to 4K, as today,people upgrade their TVs much more frequently than theyused to.

The aim to get more megabits in fewer megahertz is amajor focus for the industry right now, and while it’s great forcontent providers, it’s a big challenge for satellite operators.In response, some operators are adding traditional teleport

services and solutions to their portfolios. “We’re alreadyseeing a number of satellite operators move down the valuechain to provide managed services,” said Lovsin. “They’reproviding the types of services that STN and other companieslike us were set up to do.” This of course provides a newadditional challenge for service providers like STN.

Meanwhile, typical customer deals have also changedsignificantly since STN’s inception. Where once a customerwould sign 10-year satellite transponder deals, today thosesame customers demand single channel one-year dealsfollowed by a rolling contract. “That’s the new market dynamic.They’re looking for smaller bandwidth, with higher quality andshorter contract period,” said Lovsin. In such an environment,customer care becomes ever more important.

“We’re actually seeing more and more smallchannels expand into new regions. This isdue to the more affordable capacity prices,which were previously prohibitive, as well

as due to the new technologies whichenable STN and its customers a more

efficient use of bits per megahertz.”

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