A free-to-air or FTA Receiver is a satellite television receiver designed to receive unencrypted broadcasts. Modern decoders are typically compliant with the MPEG-4/DVB-S2 standard and formerly the MPEG-2/DVB-S standard, while older FTA receivers relied on analog satellite transmissions which have declined rapidly in recent years.
Uses Mainstream broadcast programming In some countries, it is common for mainstream broadcasters to broadcast their channels over satellite as FTA. Most notably, in the German-speaking countries, most of the main terrestrial broadcasters, such as ARD Das Erste and ZDF offer FTA satellite broadcasts, as do some of the more recent satellite rivals such as Sat.1 and RTL. The satellites on which these channels broadcast, at Astra's 19.2° ea position, are receivable throughout most of Europe.
In the UK, all the original five terrestrial broadcasters, BBC One, BBC Two, ITV, Channel 4, and Five broadcast FTA on digital satellite in some form.
Ethnic and religious programming FTA receivers are sold in the United States and Canada for the purpose of viewing unencrypted free-to-air satellite channels, the bulk of which are located on Galaxy 19 (97°W, Ku band).http://www.lyngsat.com/galaxy19.html – the largest source of free ethnic satellite TV in North America There is also a substantial amount of Christian-based programming available on several satellites over both North America and Europe, such as The God Channel, JCTV, EWTN, and 3ABN.
Educational programming The PBS Satellite Service offers educational programming on Ku band DVB from the AMC-21 satellite (125°W).http://www.lyngsat.com/amc21.html carries a wide range of PBS educational programming As there is no standard MPEG audio on many of these channels, the AC3-only feeds require a Dolby Digital-capable receiver. They are otherwise free. Channels include PBS-HD/PBS-X as well as various secondary programmes normally carried on digital subchannels of PBS terrestrial member stations.
The main PBS New York feed is absent from the free-to-air version of the PBS satellite service to afford local terrestrial member stations a chance to broadcast material before it becomes available on PBS-X or PBS-HD. Typically, PBS-X feeds carried programmes (except news) a day later than the main terrestrial PBS network.
US terrestrial broadcasters Many of these channels carried programming from major network television affiliates, although these are disappearing, particularly on K-band.Free TV from the United States, Lyngsat satellite TV directory, Christian Lyngemark
Equity Broadcasting used one Ku band (Galaxy 18, 123°W) and one C-band satellite feed as a key part of its Equity C.A.S.H. centralcasting operation; many small UHF local stations were fed from one central point in Little Rock, Arkansas via free-to-air satellite. Most were members of secondary terrestrial networks, including both US English- and Spanish-language broadcasters, and content from satellite broadcasts often fed over-the-air digital subchannels of terrestrial stations. Programming such as the Retro Television Network or Retro Jams had been provided at various times; music video broadcasters Mas Música and The Tube were formerly available at 123°W before being taken over (Mas Música is now MTV3) or ceasing operations.
Similarly, unencrypted Ku band satellite television was also used temporarily in the aftermath of 2005's Hurricane Katrina as a means to feed NBC programming into New Orleans from the studios of an out-of-state broadcaster; the feeds contained the content, branding and station identification of the damaged New Orleans station in a form suitable for direct feed to a transmitter (with no further studio processing) in the target market.
Paradoxically, many Equity-owned local UHF stations obtained solid national satellite coverage despite small terrestrial LPTV footprints that barely covered their nominal home communities. In many cases, this brought smaller networks and Spanish-language broadcasting to communities which otherwise would have no free access to this content.
As television market statistics for these stations from firms such as Nielsen Media Research are based on counting viewership within the footprint of the corresponding terrestrial signal, television ratings severely underestimated or failed to estimate the number of households receiving programming such as Univision from FTA satellite feeds. The liquidation of Equity Broadcasting's station group in mid-2009 greatly reduced the number of US terrestrial stations available from Ku band free-to-air satellite; while a very small handful of uplinked terrestrial stations remain free (mostly on C-band, which requires a much larger antenna) these are from other, independent sources.
Rural and hobby use
Over-the-air digital TV signals do not reach very far outside the city in which they are transmitted. FTA receivers can be used in rural locations as a fairly reliable source of television without subscribing to cable or a major satellite provider.
Terrestrial broadcasters use some of the nearly 30 North American satellites to transmit their feeds for internal purposes. These unencrypted feeds can then be received by anyone with the proper decoder. Satellite signals are normally receivable well beyond the terrestrial station's coverage area. Enthusiasts also use FTA receivers to watch the numerous wildfeeds that are present on many of those satellites.
In theory, a viewer in Glendive, Montana (the smallest North American TV market) could have received what little local CBS and NBC programming is available terrestrially, alongside a Ku band free-to-air dish for additional commercial networks (such as individual ABC and Fox TV affiliates from Equity Broadcasting, formerly at 123°W) and educational programming (PBS Satellite Service at 125°W). There is no assurance that any individual FTA broadcast will remain available or that those which do remain will continue broadcast in a compatible format – in this example, such a viewer would have lost ABC and Fox in mid-2009 due to Equity's bankruptcy.
Signal piracy
Free-To-Air receivers generally use the same technology standards (such as DVB-S, MPEG-2) as those used by pay-TV networks such as Echostar's Dish Network and BCE's Bell Satellite TV. FTA receivers, however, lack the smartcard readers or decryption modules designed for the reception of pay-TV programming, since the receivers are designed only for reception of unencrypted transmissions.
On occasion, where a pay-TV service's encryption system has been very seriously compromised, to the extent that it can be emulated in software and without the presence of a valid access card, hackers have been able to reverse-engineer an FTA receiver's software and add the necessary emulation to allow unauthorized reception of pay TV channels. Manufacturers, importers, and distributors of FTA receivers officially do not condone this practice and some will not sell to or support individuals who they believe will be using their products for this purpose, use of third-party software usually voiding any warranties.
Unlike traditional methods of pirate decryption that involve altered smart cards used with satellite receivers manufactured and distributed by the provider, piracy involving FTA receivers require only an update to the receiver's firmware. Electronic countermeasures that disable access cards may not have the same or any effect on FTA receivers because they are not capable of being updated remotely. The firmware in receivers themselves cannot be overwritten with malicious code via satellite as provider-issued receivers are.
FTA receivers also have the advantage of being able to receive programming from multiple providers plus legitimate free-to-air DVB broadcasts which are not part of any package, a valuable capability which is conspicuously absent from most "package receivers" sold by DBS providers. DVB-S is an international standard and thus the industry-imposed restriction that a Bell TV receiver is not interchangeable with a Dish Network receiver (the same box) and neither are interchangeable with a GlobeCast World TV receiver (also DVB) is an artificial one created by providers and not respected by either pirates or legitimate unencrypted FTA viewers.
Periodically, a provider will change the processes in which its encryption information is sent. When this happens, illegitimate viewing is disrupted. Third-party coders may release an updated altered version of the FTA receiver software on internet forums, sometimes hours to days after the countermeasure is implemented, although some countermeasures have allowed the encryption to remain secure for several months or longer. The receivers, meanwhile, remain able to receive unencrypted DVB-S broadcasts and (for some HDTV models) terrestrial ATSC programming. The same is not true of standard subscription TV receivers, whereby unsubscribing from a pay-TV package causes loss of all channels.
The use of renewable security allows providers to send new smart cards to all subscribers as existing compromised encryption schemes (such as Nagravision 1 and 2) are replaced with new schemes (currently Nagravision 3). This "card swap" process can provide pay-TV operators with more effective control over pirate decryption, but at the expense of replacing smart cards in all existing subscribed receivers. While this approach is used by most providers, deployments tend to be slowed due to cost.
While smart-card piracy often involves individuals who re-program access cards for others (usually for a price), piracy using FTA receivers involves third-party software that is relatively easy to upload to the receiver and can even be uploaded using a USB device, network, or serial link (a process called "flashing"). Most such firmware is distributed freely on the Internet. Websites that third-party coders use to share this software often have anywhere from 50,000 to over 200,000 registered users.
Another method of pirate decryption that has become popular recently is known as Internet Key Sharing (IKS). This is accomplished by an Ethernet cable hooked to the receiver that allows updated decryption keys to be fed to the unit directly from the internet. The DVB-S common scrambling system and the various conditional access systems are based on the use of a legitimately subscribed smart cards which generates a continuous stream of cryptographic keys usable to decrypt one channel on a receiver. A key-sharing scheme operates by redistributing these keys in real-time to multiple receivers in an unlimited number of locations so that one valid smartcard may serve almost 10000 viewers.
this was the only active pirate decryption system still in widespread use in North American satellite TV, due to the shutdown of the compromised Nagravision 2 system by providers such as Dish Network and Bell TV.
However, this is limited by the interval of the stream of keys or also called CW (Control Words). Usually, the interval for the renewal of the CWs is ±10 seconds, but other systems (i.e. NDS3) have CW intervals of 5 seconds or less. Each channel usually has a different set of CWs for decryption and thus each box currently watching a specific channel must periodically request the current CWs from the server/smart-card for that specific channel. So arguably, the sharing of the card might not be unlimited. There are some restrictions to this like the frequency of CW changes and also the latency of the network. If the CWs do not arrive in time, there could be a freeze or crackle in the picture.
There are of course other more costly possibilities like having several legitimately subscribed cards each handling a few channels and a CW caching server.