5. WETV (Pronounced: Wee-TV)
Canada's Global Satellite Television Initiative
A Progress Report, by Anton Ljutic


WETV is an initiative of Canada's International Development and Research Center and stems from the demands made at the Rio Summit Conference by the newly industrialized countries for a voice on the international scene. WETV is to become a global satellite network with a difference. Each affiliate of the network will produce a fraction of total programming and, in return, receive access to other affiliates' programs. Thus, WETV will act as a cooperative. The group's international satellite network will be comprised of an inbound circuit to collect program contributions from national broadcasters around the world, and an outbound network to deliver a daily program schedule to as many broadcasters as possible around the world.

In the beginning, affiliated broadcasters are selected from among those who are already transmitting their signals to a domestic satellite that serves their own country or region. Their contribution to WETV programming will be received at satellite receive facilities located at strategically located teleports around the world and then will be relayed to the inbound network. The inbound signals will be full analogue to ensure the contributed program is as close to the original quality as possible.

Unlike the inbound signal, the outbound network will send a digitized signal and be able to accommodate data and audio as well as television programming. These other signals can be received independently of WETV's television signal which means that a data signal can be received on a fairly small antenna anywhere within the region served by the international satellite.

For example, a signal appearing on the Intelsat satellite, located at one degree West of Greenwich and destined for India, can also be received throughout Africa. This feature offers a very inexpensive route for delivering distance learning programming to educational institutions in remote areas.

WETV's control centre will be in Ottawa, Canada, and its outbound signal will be transmitted to Canada's Anik satellite. It will be relayed via international satellites to affiliated broadcasters who will be provided with decoders, and they will either tape the signal or relay it directly to their own satellite channel.

Domestic satellites typically transmit beyond national borders. A signal on Anik can be seen in the Caribbean; the Indian satellite can be seen from Beijing to the Middle East. If WETV's signal is transmitted to India's domestic satellite, then it can be seen in China, Thailand, Indonesia, and so on. Broadcasters in these other countries can receive the signal from the Indian satellite, and then rebroadcast it to their own satellites. The same is true around the world: the signal on Anik can be seen in the United States and can be relayed to US domestic satellites. This type of transmission cuts down of the need for costly international circuits.

WETV is expected to begin broadcasting to its global audience by October 1995. The launch of the network is to coincide with the Beijing UN Conference on the Status of Women.


For additional information please contact the author/publisher at wcsanton@ccs.carleton.ca. Your message will be relayed to the executive director of WETV, Dr. David Nostbakken.


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URL: http://library.fortlewis.edu/~instruct/glosas/wetv52.htm

August, 1995


GLOSAS NEWS was orinally posted to the WWW at URL: http://library.fortlewis.edu/~instruct/glosas/cont.htm by Tina Evans Greenwood, Library Instruction Coordinator, Fort Lewis College, Durango, Colorado 81301, e-mail: greenwood_t@fortlewis.edu, and last updated May 7, 1999. By her permission the whole Website has been archived here at the University of Tennessee server directory of GLOSAS Chair Dr. Takeshi Utsumi from July 10, 2000 by Steve McCarty in Japan.