Thread: US or Canadian Satellite in India?

Hi! My parents are going to be building a house in India within the next few years to spend the winter months. Naturally, I will be spending some time in India with them as well once everything has been completed.

A major concern for our entire family, however, is entertainment. Unfortunately, there are some essential channels and services which aren't offered by any of the Indian satellite or cable companies. Is it possible to install an American or Canadian satellite system and receive signals from those satellite services, or even European services?

I don't think that it is technically possible

As these DTH services uses geo stationary satellites and these satellites are over USA for transmitting USA based programs so to get the signal to India it has to travel to another 2 satellites as they communicate over line of sight and you know earth is round so we need total 3 satellites to get the signal to India which will be very expensive for any service provider

and that is the reason no service provider give those channels

Gardencityboy has said it all.

But what channels are you interested in? The top American entertainment programs are transmitted by various channels such as Star World, Zee Cafe, etc. Also Indian TV does not permit nudity - so any content of that nature has to be edited out.

Originally Posted by FakeName83

Hi! My parents are going to be building a house in India within the next few years to spend the winter months. Naturally, I will be spending some time in India with them as well once everything has been completed.

A major concern for our entire family, however, is entertainment. Unfortunately, there are some essential channels and services which aren't offered by any of the Indian satellite or cable companies. Is it possible to install an American or Canadian satellite system and receive signals from those satellite services, or even European services?

None of them will work in India.. However if you specify what exactly you are looking for we may be able find a way out for you.

By the way all major shows ( I am talking about UK) like eastenders, holyoaks, friends, neighbours etc are all available on the internet for downloading the moment they are telecasted on television and I assume its the same for American programmes as well.
If you are worried about stock market news and stuff like that .. you need not worry about it as we get live news from all the major stock markets around the world on dedicated business channels.

By the way India has its own breed of entertainment channels and I can bet you any money that you wont feel like going back to states.. depending on where exactly you gonna live here and the kind of people you hang out with here in India

gardencityboy, I figured that it wouldn't be possible due to the geostationary orbit of the satellites, but thanks for the confirmation.

There's no one main channel that we'd need, It's more so about being able to watch NHL hockey games. Another alternative is to subscribe to NHL Centre Ice Online, but I was hoping we'd be able to watch the games on TV.

i agree with you that you will not be able to watch many of the sport channels

you will not be able to watch NBA, baseball, American football etc as in India this is all not shown.

I too had the same problem when i was in US for a short period. could not see the serials which where telecasted here in India

There were channels like zee and sony but they where showing completely different programs. Most of them where age old

so i guess this problem will always be there

part and parcel of re location

NBA is very much shown on ESPN-Star Sports - maybe not live but just a day later. The problem is that many of the sports that Americans are crazy about are not popular very much outside and vice versa, and I am not even talking about cricket, e.g., America idolizes American Football, Baseball, Ice Hockey and Indy Car Racing. The rest of the world swears by Soccer, Rugby, Tennis, Formula 1, etc. Golf is common but I suspect because Tiger Woods is dominating.

But I do find (though I do not watch) many of the day-time and night-time soap operas and serials on Indian TV. Maybe a little episodes later but they are there.

The TV channels in India try to get the "most watchable" and "sellable" programs in India and that includes TV programs from UK as well.

So yes, there will be some "withdrawal effects".

Thanks to everyone for the replies. I figured it was all a long shot anyway. All the specific programs we all like can be downloaded from the internet, so that's not a problem. As far as sports go (hockey specifically), I can just subscribe to NHL Centre Ice Online so that way I can still watch all the games live, and perhaps just connect a PC to a TV. I would imagine that the other North American sports leagues will be rolling out their own online sports packages soon enough anyway too.