Located on the southern bank of Yarlung Tsangpo River and to the northern foot of the Hymalas, Sakya County in southwest Shigatse Prefecture of Tibet is the cradle of Sakya sect, one of the four major sects in Tibetan Buddhism. The residents in this region are living a more and more modernized life.

Dorje, head of the Sakya County Cultural Broadcasting and Television Service Station [Photo/China Tibet Online]

The present machine room where the screen-wall are playing different TV channels was the result of the Sakya cable TV network reforming and upgrading project accomplished in June this year. The project was invested by Qingpu District of Shanghai city with 630,000 yuan (101,052$) to adjust and upgrade the fore-end cable TV machine room to a standardized level.

Over 8,000 m newly-set wires was installed to improve the networks in the surrounding village of the county. The project added 25 light panel points and upgraded and increased over 1,300 users to have access to 48 TV channels instead of the previous 38 all free to the civilians in the county and the surrounding villages. Besides, the service station also has established convenient service agencies to offer people free networks upgrading and the related services.

Sakya broadcasting and television convenient service agency [Photo/China Tibet Online]

The Sakya County has established its own news channel with both Chinese announcer and Tibetan announcer to for a bilingual broadcasting mode.

"We used to broadcast only one hour due to the limitation of our conditions. But, now we can broadcast 21 hours. The former analog signal transmitted by cables is replaced by digital signals delivered by optical fibers. All these owe to secretary Xu!" said Dorje. That "secretary Xu" is Xu Feng, the current deputy secretary of Sakya County and also an aid-Tibet cadre from Shanghai's Qingpu District. It was under his leadership that the TV networks upgrading project was undertaken and completed.

The service station will also send five staffs to Shanghai for a two-month training course on retransmitting techniques and management.

The screen wall in the machine room [Photo/China Tibet Online]

The background wall of the Sakya news channel [Photo/China Tibet Online]