Archive for the ‘Free to Air’ Category
Who Benefits Most from FTA?
Before we can determine who benefits most from FTA, we should perhaps discuss a bit about what FTA is all about. Free to Air (FTA) is a type of satellite TV programming that enables anyone with an FTA satellite system to receive TV signals for free. FTA satellite systems are quite like pay-to-view satellite systems and just as affordable. The only difference is in the type of signals they are designed to receive.
The technology that enables FTA is really very simple. There are radio and TV stations all over the globe that transmit signals that are not encrypted or encoded. Out in space there are satellites that pick up these unencrypted signals and rebroadcast them over the world. The absolute best feature of these signals is that since they are not encoded, they are free to receive; therefore, these signals provide free viewing of programming from all over the planet.
Considering the fact that FTA programming is available from all over the world, it only makes sense that much of the programming on FTA is non-English language programming. FTA signals are received in whatever language they were originally broadcast. At this point, there are over 1,000 FTA channels available in over 40 languages from a huge assortment of countries.
For anyone not native to North America, FTA is a wonderful source of programming from home. If you are a non-native, you will likely find FTA can provide you with news, sports and entertainment from your native country in your native language. What better way to teach your children their heritage? If you simply miss the sounds of home, FTA offers radio as well as TV.
Overall, everyone benefits from FTA. Native English language speaking persons can more easily learn foreign languages by watching and listening to programming from the country whose language they are studying. School children can learn about other countries by watching FTA satellite TV and business people can prepare for conducting business in foreign countries by researching how business is traditionally done in various countries using FTA.
One of the finest features of FTA is that you can easily find channel listings complete with satellite coordinates online; there is no guesswork. After looking at the channel listing, it becomes obvious very quickly that there is something for everyone with FTA programming. There are around 100 English speaking channels (mostly news, special interest, educational and public TV programming) and over a thousand foreign language channels. FTA channel lists are growing continuously as demand for free TV programming increases and people become more aware of its existence.
Anyone with an FTA system benefits from FTA. They benefit not only with free programming, but they benefit with wider exposure to the world and its affairs. By viewing news as it happens in a foreign country, perhaps a truer portrait of the event is painted than if some international news organization were reviewing the event. Whether it is by simply saving money or by broadening our horizons, we all can benefit from FTA.