Sea Launch has successful launch...

[ralfyguy]

Perhaps should be phrased as not growing customers as fast as they could be growing.

Standstill equals falling behind.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

I think a few of the Dish launches are being launched by Borat.

Ouch. God save us.

 

[John Kotches]

Perhaps should be phrased as not growing customers as fast as they could be growing.

How fast should they be growing? They're in the top 3 providers nationally.

It's not very easy to grow at the same pace when you get to be a larger corporation.

 

[ahope577]

I think a few of the Dish launches are being launched by Borat.

Niiiicccccceeeeeee..... :up Hopefully Dish have Great Success with starship launch :up

 

[nlk10010]

OK. I know there have been posts listing the satellites scheduled to launch and their destination slots. That's fine.

However, I still am not quite sure how these new sats are supposed to help E* give us more national HD. When D* went on their campaign of sat launching/HD acquiring they ADDED satellites at two NEW locations which required subscribers to upgrade their dishes. AFAIK E* is not planning to do this; e.g. I'm in the NYC area and have two dishes to catch 110/119/61.5. I take it that, even AFTER all the new sats launch, I'm STILL going to be looking at the same 110/119/61.5. So HOW do these new sats give E* the capability they claim? I'm not doubting they do, just curious. For example, do they have MORE transponders, or are the transponders somehow "super-duper", do the new satellites enable more/better compression or do they allow E* to offload channels to other sats?

Any info to expand my knowledge is appreciated.

 

[mdonnelly]

OK. I know there have been posts listing the satellites scheduled to launch and their destination slots. That's fine.

However, I still am not quite sure how these new sats are supposed to help E* give us more national HD. When D* went on their campaign of sat launching/HD acquiring they ADDED satellites at two NEW locations which required subscribers to upgrade their dishes. AFAIK E* is not planning to do this; e.g. I'm in the NYC area and have two dishes to catch 110/119/61.5. I take it that, even AFTER all the new sats launch, I'm STILL going to be looking at the same 110/119/61.5. So HOW do these new sats give E* the capability they claim? I'm not doubting they do, just curious. For example, do they have MORE transponders, or are the transponders somehow "super-duper", do the new satellites enable more/better compression or do they allow E* to offload channels to other sats?

Any info to expand my knowledge is appreciated.

By moving HD LiL from CONUS beams to spotbeams (multiple cities per beam). That frees up some CONUS transponders for national HD.

 

[nlk10010]

By moving HD LiL from CONUS beams to spotbeams (multiple cities per beam). That frees up some CONUS transponders for national HD.

OK. Thanks. But how do the new satellites enable them to do that? Why can't E* do that now? Are some people going to have to be pointed at new locations? Or do the new satellites have the spotbeams whereas the existing ones don't?

 

[RandallA]

"Why can't E* do that now?"

Because the satellites have not been launched yet. They can have multiple satellites at one orbital location. For example, at 61.5W there are two Dish Network satellites and the same at 110W.

 

[nlk10010]

"Why can't E* do that now?"

Because the satellites have not been launched yet. They can have multiple satellites at one orbital location. For example, at 61.5W there are two Dish Network satellites and the same at 110W.

I think "they can have multiple satellites at one location" answers things. I actually had that question initially in my post but edited it out. Wasn't aware you could do that. Makes one wonder why D* didn't do the same instead of requiring people to mount that humongous piece of hardware.

Thanks.

 

[RandallA]

You can go to Lyngsat.com and see what's currently up there. Look at 61.5, 100 and 148, there are 2 Echostar satellites at those locations.

North & South America - LyngSat

 

[mike123abc]

The other theory is that Dish has licenses for 2 more DBS slots, 77 and 86.5. By putting E11 at 110 to take over for E8, E8 and E6 (which is turned off) could move to one of the new satellite locations. Perhaps E8/E6 move to 86.5, and E3 moves to 77. Then Dish could start a new Dish2 system all MPEG-4 that they talked about last year. But, who really knows since Dish seems to change its mind so much and now 77 and 86.5 belong to Echostar instead of Dish.

 

[AT&TDishman]

So what happens if the new E* satellites go kaboom?

 

[RandallA]

So what happens if the new E* satellites go kaboom?

No more TV for you. They just won't be able to expand their programming and we'll just have to wait longer.

 

[rocatman]

At the 61.5 W location, Dish could actually start using the E-12 spotbeams now to provide more HD locals but it probably wouldn't result in more national HD programming since Dish would need at least the 4 TPs being used in CONUS mode for HD locals to go to spotbeam mode. Currently there are three TPs at 61.5 W that Dish can not provide signal from because of failures on the E-3 satellite and design limitations of the E-12 satellite. In addition, it appears Dish will gain use of the 2 Sky Angel TPs at 61.5 W by April 1. It appears the next launch for Dish is the AMC-14 satellite that will go to 61.5 W and is scheduled to launch in March on a Proton. AMC-14 will allow Dish to use these 5 TPs at 61.5 W. It also has higher powered TPs that may allow Dish to reduce the error correction thus increasing the useable bandwidth for programming allowing perhaps 7 or 8 HD channels per TP or perhaps 15 or 16 SD channels per TP.

 

[AT&TDishman]

No more TV for you. They just won't be able to expand their programming and we'll just have to wait longer.

I still don't understand why E* can't get rid of a whole bunch of useless channels and give us more HD and HD locals. I know it's said E* has to take useless channels (public service, foreign language, music and infomercial) to get good ones, but aren't we the customers paying? Shouldn't we be the final deciders and not E*? Chuckles says he is getting screwed by having to take the useless channels and pay more for the package and then he turns around and charges us more. Has there ever been a federal investigation of the cable and satellite companies, or are the politicians in the back pocket of them too?

 

[navychop]

So what happens if the new E* satellites go kaboom?

I believe the minimum turnaround time to get new satellites is 2 years, probably longer. Dish would likely have to scramble to lease more space, if there's any available in the right places.

I still don't understand why E* can't get rid of a whole bunch of useless channels and give us more HD and HD locals. I know it's said E* has to take useless channels (public service, foreign language, music and infomercial) to get good ones, but aren't we the customers paying? Shouldn't we be the final deciders and not E*? Chuckles says he is getting screwed by having to take the useless channels and pay more for the package and then he turns around and charges us more. Has there ever been a federal investigation of the cable and satellite companies, or are the politicians in the back pocket of them too?

Not everyone agrees which ones are "useless."

Yes, if they use public airwaves, they must carry a certain amount of "public service" channels.

Infomercial & shopping channels pay Dish to carry them, so Dish has a revenue stream other than our pockets. This is a good thing. Unless you or your wife actually buy anything/too much. Somebody must.

In our representative democracy, our representatives, "who only have our best interests at heart," decide for us/on our behalf.

So far, the government/courts have upheld a provider's "right" to require carriage of certain channels in order to get the "one" channel that is actually desired. And to require it to be included in stated packages. In fact, I think they're in a lawsuit now over this- with Fox?

 

[lakebum431]

I still don't understand why E* can't get rid of a whole bunch of useless channels and give us more HD and HD locals. I know it's said E* has to take useless channels (public service, foreign language, music and infomercial) to get good ones, but aren't we the customers paying? Shouldn't we be the final deciders and not E*? Chuckles says he is getting screwed by having to take the useless channels and pay more for the package and then he turns around and charges us more. Has there ever been a federal investigation of the cable and satellite companies, or are the politicians in the back pocket of them too?

Those "useless" foreign language channels generate a ton of money for E*. Don't expect those to be leaving anytime soon.

 

[vurbano]

I think a few of the Dish launches are being launched by Borat.

The comedian?

 

[retorq]

I think a few of the Dish launches are being launched by Borat.

I AM VERY EXCITE.