KDD Launches Route 66, an Economical Compressed Digital International Television Transmission Service



1997-029November 17, 1997



KDD (Japan's Global Communications) and Globecast, a video service sales subsidiary of France Telecom, will offer Route 66, an economical international television transmission service that converts video signals into compressed digital signals. The two companies will begin the service between Japan and France on November 25.

Route 66 converts analog video signals into compressed digital signals of about 8 Mbps, or about one-third the size of conventional service, on the French side. The signals are then sent to KDD's Yamaguchi Earth Station via INTELSAT Indian Ocean Satellite at 66”. From there, the signals are transmitted to KDD Otemachi Building, where they are returned to analog signals and delivered to the customer such as TV station.

By compressing video signals before transmission, Route 66 greatly reduces satellite circuit cost. Furthermore, KDD and Globecast will work closely with each other to simplify reservation tasks. As a result, Route 66 is extremely economical, or about one-half the communication charge of conventional analog service. The two companies will offer one-stop billing, so customers may pay the end-to-end communication charges in either Japan or France.

The end-to-end charges for a 30-minute international television transmission from France to Tokyo, Japan would be approximately 230,000yen with conventional analog transmission service. With Route 66, the charges would be 101,000yen.

KDD and Globecast anticipate that Route 66 will be used by satellite digital multichannel broadcasting providers as well as many other broadcasting companies.

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[Reference 1] Charges for Route 66


Charges
First 15 mins.56,000yen
Additional 1 mins.3,000yen
Note: The charges above include the following charges.

- Uplink charge on the French side
- INTELSAT satellite usage fee
- Downlink charge on the Japanese side
- Yamaguchi-Tokyo (KDD Otemachi) domestic transmission charge

[Reference 2] Profile of Globecast

This France Telecom subsidiary was formerly a video service sales unit of the French carrier. Globecast is made up of Globecast North America (in charge of North America), Globecast North Europe (in charge of Northern Europe), TIBA (in charge of South America), Globecast Asia (in charge of Asia), and Globecast Paris (in charge of other regions). The company aims to provide video transmission services around the world.

[Reference 3] Network configuration