You won’t be needing an AC connection in Kenya to get Satellite TV in Kenya. This is after Startimes Media introduced their new product, StarSat that runs on both AC and DC by default, no need for separate inverters. This means that users in far fetched places in Kenya can watch Satellite PayTV from wherever they are irrespective of whether they are connected to the power grid. Which is a huge number of homes. This new development means that Startimes is finally able to serve 100% of Kenya up from the 80% that was reachable via terrestrial TV.
Kenya makes it the 10th country in Africa that Startimes Media is launching the StarSat Direct to the Home (DTH) product after South Africa, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique, Rwanda, Guinea, Burundi and Congo over the last one year.
With the introduction of Satellite TV Startimes is now able to provide HD transmission of TV and they currently have two full HD channels, a Sports and a Bollywood channel. This means that the view that subscribers get on the Starsat is a stark difference from what they have been used to in terrestrial transmission. Startimes already has installations in several premium hotels in Nairobi like Crowne Plaza and Serena Hotels, and also has set-ups in 47 apartments in Nairobi.
How the apartments setup works is that the landlord can have all their units set up with StarSat and connect all the houses. They then get user cards for each of the houses with unique customer IDs that the tenants will then use when paying. This is after plugging their aerial cable to the wall where the StarStat outlet is. No need for a decoder as all the decoders will be centrally located. One decoder can host upto four houses, so a house with 20 units will require 5 decoders.
StarSat also means increased channels being transmitted and while at it there is extra channels that are not available for their terrestrial tv counterparts. These are 46 channels that are exclusive to StatSat DTH.
“Affordability both for the hardware as well as the monthly packages remains our key drivers as we seek to grow access to digital television service”, Public Relations Manager Alex Mwaura commented at the launch on Wednesday.
The setup will cost Kshs 5000 for a full installation and users will get a free Super Bouquet worth Kshs 2500 for a month. The bouquets are as follows:
- Special Bouquet at Ksh. 899 per month with access to over 48 channels
- Smart Bouquet at Ksh. 1,799 per month with access to over 70 channels
- Super Bouquet at Ksh. 2,499 per month with access to over 88 channels
- Chinese bouquet at Ksh. 1,499 per month with access to 12 channels
