Panamsat‘s QuickSpot service, a bandwidth on demand service that was developed to meet the growing need for flexibility in provisioning satellite services requiring a mobile “pay-as-you-go” model, has expanded. Initially, QuickSpot was intended for first responder clients. Now, news broadcasters are using it to fill in a very specific coverage gap.

Specifically, a Columbus, Ohio-based television station is using the service on the fringes of its microwave network footprint where it may not make sense to roll out a satellite truck. The service, which eliminates the need for prior reservation of satellite time, is ideally suited to address this coverage gap.

“Microwave is a line of sight technology and has limited range,” Ken Eyerman, chief engineer at WBNS-TV told Satellite News. “When you go to the edge of your range, it is iffy whether you are going to get a shot or not. Normally you don’t find out until it’s too late to hit the lead story for the news. Our thought is that with QuickSpot, [our field reporters can] basically deploy the dish and still get the spot off for the news.”

Eyerman said the service will give WBNS-TV an advantage over its competition because the station will “never lose a shot where our competitors might. It will give us an edge to be first.”

But the service will be used for more than just spot coverage on the fringe of the microwave network.

“When you get into rural areas, you don’t have cell phone coverage,” Eyerman said. “We also are going to run an IP phone over the QuickSpot connection so [our field reporters] will have phone service in those areas as well.”

Lastly, the service will provide data connectivity to field reporters and editors, Eyerman said.

“It will allow them to have an online connection to newsroom software systems back here at the station, connectivity they did not have up until this point in any live truck,” he said.

–Gregory Twachtman