Satellite dishes and cable systems at SOAS
Here is a photograph of our three satellite receiving dishes at SOAS.
Our dishes point to Astra, Hotbird, Badr and Turksat satellites.
We carry around 60 channels on our IPTV system at both campuses of SOAS -- Russell Square and Vernon Square. Channels can be viewed in our Language Centre Resources Rooms using TV receivers and on PCs using our IPTV web interface. The same channels are available in our teachers' preparation rooms, and in fact anywhere in SOAS where there is a network port and a PC.
In addition to the signals captured by our satellite dishes we also receive by leased landlines the radio programmes of the BBC World Service in over twenty languages of Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Signals arrive by cable from Bush House, about three miles to the south of SOAS, in our head-end room where they are encoded as MPEG-2 multicasts, as sound only of course. This system enables our teachers and students to hear and make recordings of programmes in languages such as Pashto, Indonesian and Nepali. BBC World Service also transmits regional programmes in English such as "Focus on Africa" and these too are carried on our cable system. The audio quality and breadth of programmes available from our direct feed exceeds those of BBCWS' streamed audio available via the internet.
Rob Kennedy, Resources Manager, SOAS Language Centre
