IB 05-72 Rainbow1 at the FCC

[James Long]

The Proceeding - found in the FCC's Electronic Comment Filing System

IB 05-72
EchoStar Satellite LLC (Assignor) and Rainbow DBS Company LLC (Assignee) Seek Approval for the Assignment of FCC licenses and Authorizations Held by rainbow DBS Company LLC to EchoStar Satellite LLC.

Not bad since this page is still showing -
Accepted For Filing PN Date: None
Status: Filed - payment received

Looks like it was accepted ... otherwise the FCC wouldn't be requesting comments.
Public Notice
(Thanks to rocatman)

Enjoy!

JL

 

[Walter L.]

JL:
Good finding. I guess is time for all Voomers to flood the FCC with comments against the sale to delay the process as much as possible

 

[gutter]

And the FCC expects just that. It's the nature of the political process. But the number of complaints against the sale, can have an impact.

 

[mike123abc]

JL:
Good finding. I guess is time for all Voomers to flood the FCC with comments against the sale to delay the process as much as possible

It would be foolish to do so, it would sink VOOM for sure to do this. If CVC cannot sell the satellite, the VOOM sale to Dolan Sr would probably fall through and the system shut down at once. You notice in the CVC earnings report how much they stand to gain by shutting down the system ASAP. CVC is not going to let VOOM drain the company any more. Dolan Sr obviously did not want the satellite or he would have bought it when he made the deal to buy the service.

 

[danielle_s]

I'm not so sure about that Mike. I mean he did wait until after cv did agree to sell the sat to echostar before he presented cv a letter of intent. However though, it wouldn't surprise me if he's betting that the fcc deny the sell so that he can buy it with the rest of the assets.

Just my 2cents

 

[James Long]

Dolan Sr obviously did not want the satellite or he would have bought it when he made the deal to buy the service.

From all reports he did not have the choice. E* had a long standing offer for Rainbow1 and the related assets and the Cablevision board accepted the offer. Mr Dolan was unable to block the deal.

For those who want to overload the FCC ... remember that all comments are part of the PUBLIC record, and the FCC will only consider responses that are on topic for the matter before them. The more oddball the message the less it will be read.

BTW: As noted in the public notice, the decision will be made in NO LESS than 31 days ... so if the FCC is happy on March 28th they could legally make the decision. I do not expect that they will make the decision until after the April 18th date.

JL

 

[HookedOnTV]

IMO, financing this venture without the satellite is going to be challenging enough as it is. I don't think he would prefer to have the satellite as part of the deal. If he did he probably would have got it.

 

[mike123abc]

From all reports he did not have the choice. E* had a long standing offer for Rainbow1 and the related assets and the Cablevision board accepted the offer. Mr Dolan was unable to block the deal.

Echostar may have had a long standing offer, but he could have offered more money. Quite frankly the cost of Ku-FSS is extreamly cheap (why do you think E* is renting all this space when they could be putting up Ka birds?).

VOOM is losing real cash. For VOOM to survive it will have to cut costs. If you look at what both E* and D* are doing you would realize that the small DBS dish is going to become a think of the past soon. A 30" Ku-FSS dish is not going to be that big. The look angle of "R-2" is better on the west coast. Their lease allows them to grow to take over the entire satellite if they want it. With MPEG-4 they have a chance to offer all the channels they think they will need to get the customers to make a profit.

VOOM built the cadillac of satellites in R-1 and the cadillac of uplink stations. They unfortunately are not seeing the sub growth to pay for them. 61.5 is a nice set of DBS frequencies, but there are only 11 of them and they would have to put in a superdish anyways to expand the service. Keeping 61.5 does not make business sense.

Lets say the sale of the satellite goes through to Echostar and Dolan Sr picks up the remaining assets for free. What does this mean for VOOM subs?

1. They would get a 30" dish for Ku-FSS. Well they would have gotten this dish anyways since R-1 was out of space and they needed to expand to R-2.

2. VOOM serice continues from R-2 exclusively. They lose some channel capacity, so they may have to add new channels at a slower rate. It is not clear that an explosion of new HD channels is coming very quickly so it might not have made any difference at all.

3. MPEG-4 switch is not affected by the sale of R-1

4. DVR plans are not affected by the sale of R-1

So, in reality if everything goes smoothly VOOM subs in the end see no real difference in the medium term. In the short term they would be forced to get the bigger dish sooner. In the very long term it looks like if VOOM wanted to do LIL HD they would have to use Ka instead of spots on R-1. R-1 certainly did not have the capacity beyond 10-20 markets, so only a few would be impacted by this.

 

[James Long]

Echostar may have had a long standing offer, but he could have offered more money. Quite frankly the cost of Ku-FSS is extreamly cheap (why do you think E* is renting all this space when they could be putting up Ka birds?).

E* doesn't believe in Ka for quality. They have spoken against D*'s plans to use Ka and would rather stay with higher powered satellites in the Ku-FSS, Kux and ku-DBS bands.

It isn't like they have ignored Ka, but they strive for something with a little more umph. Ku is better.

Lets say the sale of the satellite goes through to Echostar and Dolan Sr picks up the remaining assets for free. What does this mean for VOOM subs?
1. They would get a 30" dish for Ku-FSS. Well they would have gotten this dish anyways since R-1 was out of space and they needed to expand to R-2.

Actually they would have got a dish similar to a "Superdish121". Being ONLY on R-2 saves a great deal of expense.

2. VOOM serice continues from R-2 exclusively. They lose some channel capacity, so they may have to add new channels at a slower rate.

An immediate doubling of bandwidth and potential trippling without the MPEG-4 conversion factored in. HD is not growing at a rate where it will outpace the space VoomHD LLC will have available.

3. MPEG-4 switch is not affected by the sale of R-1
4. DVR plans are not affected by the sale of R-1

Other than to the extent that the sale affects everything Voom does.

R-1 certainly did not have the capacity beyond 10-20 markets, so only a few would be impacted by this.

R1 can do 120 spots in 22 beams on 11 transponder frequencies. Probably enough to do 40-50 markets. In that full configuration all other HD and SD would have to come from elsewhere.

Under normal progression (no sale to E* or Voom DBS) Voom would have released the "Superdish72" and upgraded customers. Over time they would have shifted their channels to 72 to make room for spotbeams to be turned on for the markets they wished to carry. Those without a Superdish72 may have gained their local channels but would have lost any channels moved to 72. A trade off that would encourage more subscribers to get the upgrade.

JL

 

[bryan27]

IB 05-72

Actually it is DA 05-72, IB just indicates it is the International Bureau. When commenting to the FCC use DA 05-72.

 

[James Long]

Actually it is DA 05-72, IB just indicates it is the International Bureau. When commenting to the FCC use DA 05-72.

Actually, if you read the PDF linked above the FCC, that agency that you claim to know SO SO MUCH about, says it is IB 05-72.

Interested parties may file comments regarding or petitions to deny the Assignment Application no later than March 28, 2005. Oppositions or responses to these comments and petitions may be filed no later than April 12, 2005. Replies may be filed no later than April 18, 2005. All filings concerning matters referenced in this Public Notice should refer to IB Docket No. 05-72.​

If you do a search for proceedings they also list it as IB 05-72. In practice, all you have to enter is 05-72 anyways. But try to be correct in your posts and not correct others when they are not wrong.

BTW: This FCC page has not changed and yet one can file comments on the "filed, payment received" application.

JL

 

[TheForce]

I plan to send in comments to FCC regarding this acquisition by E*

Thanks for the lead links on this. Made it easier to get started.

 

[bradley]

I as well.

 

[ScottChez]

Im sorry guys, myself and the millions of Dishentwork Sub plan to flood it in favor as we need more bandwidth.

We will just end up canceling out your entries, so we might as well just leave the FCC be, they can make up there mind on there own.

 

[James Long]

I believe that any comments from any of us will be read as Ex Parte.
Also, prior to the resolution of Cablevision's issues with Mr Dolan, comments are premature. There are still three weeks left to file comments - I suggest seeing what the parties are doing before adding Ex Parte responses.

JL

 

[Ilya]

Im sorry guys, myself and the millions of Dishentwork Sub plan to flood it in favor as we need more bandwidth.

We will just end up canceling out your entries, so we might as well just leave the FCC be, they can make up there mind on there own.

I am sure they will not count the votes, just the arguments!

You need more bandwidth we need more satellite providers! Which of these needs you think is more important for FCC?

 

[Ilya]

I suggest seeing what the parties are doing before adding Ex Parte responses.

I would agree. Let's see how the hands are played first.

 

[James Long]

You need more bandwidth we need more satellite providers!

It should be noted that the #1 DBS provider in the country with over 15 million customers is second in active DBS bandwidth and third in assigned DBS bandwidth. Their expansion plan is taking them to ka land.
The #2 DBS provider in the country has much more DBS as well as a heavy investment in KuFSS, KuX and Ka bandwidth (mostly future).
The #3 DBS provider in the country only uses two transponders of the eight they have been assigned.

I would agree. Let's see how the hands are played first.

Thank you for the kind words.

JL

 

[jame_g]

Im sorry guys, myself and the millions of Dishentwork Sub plan to flood it in favor as we need more bandwidth.

We will just end up canceling out your entries, so we might as well just leave the FCC be, they can make up there mind on there own.

Actually, as a (recently) former E* customer, I can assure that most won't. E* has the majority of programming at 110 and 119 which can be received with a single dish. Most people don't want a second dish pointing off in a totally different direction. E* needs solutions which can be attained with nothing more than a single Dish 500 or Superdish.

 

[gutter]

I plan to wait 24 hours and see what late Monday brings.