Spotbeam Outage on Sat 101

[jcrandall]

Looks like there could be a spot beam outage on satellite 101, primarily affecting SD local channels. I have no SD locals (Detroit) and get searching for signal. Also saw a report of Nashville being out on Edgecutter.

Does not look like any removal event as channel info is there and no slide is shown. Looks more like an unexpected event.

I have no signal on transponder 4, 12, 18, 20, 26, and 28 on satellite 101. I do not now which ones I normally have signal and which don't but share it as a reference.

 

[slice1900]

Maybe they're just removing MPEG2 SD locals now and not bothering with the slates. They've been telling people to upgrade to HD for years, the small number of customers who are SD only and lose their locals will call Directv and get an offer to upgrade to Genie 2 / Gemini lol

 

[Don in CT]

Just shut off everything SD at this point.

 

[jcrandall]

Those SD locals are working again and I have signal on the 101 transponders. Not sure how long it lasted but it wasn't a major event by any means.

 

[slice1900]

Just shut off everything SD at this point.

They've got just about everything they needed from the SD shutdown already. They've consolidated to three satellite locations for all new/HD customers, there is very little incentive to shut down the locals on 119 used by legacy MPEG2 SD customers in the markets being delivered from 119. Until D9S is looking to run out of fuel there is no incentive to shut down the spot beams on 101. They don't need the additional bandwidth that would be freed up by dropping MPEG2 SD national channels.

The only real benefit of dropping SD would be moving a bunch of HD channels to 101 for slightly better rain fade resistance and the ability to pick up a large enough set of channels to have a viable 101 only setup for RVs in HD versus today's SD.

Since they are still slowly dropping MPEG2 SD markets I guess they figure the cost of free upgrades (most of that cost for commercial customers with headends etc. not residential) is worth it for the RV market. But the fact they are doing this so slowly tells me they are probably waiting until the beancounters say the cost to force a market off MPEG2 SD is below a certain amount before they pull the trigger.

 

[detuch254]

The only SD locals I see staying until the end are the New York, NY locals (WCBS, WNBC, WNYW, WABC) as they are the main market, and are used on aircrafts (airline core WCBS if that rings a bell).

 

[slice1900]

The only SD locals I see staying until the end are the New York, NY locals (WCBS, WNBC, WNYW, WABC) as they are the main market, and are used on aircrafts (airline core WCBS if that rings a bell).

A lot depends on what the terms of those specialty contracts with airlines and oil rigs are, when those contracts expire, and how many of those customers will be interested in renewal.

They could carry well over 100 HD channels on 101 so if that's enough to meet their contractual obligations then they could drop all MPEG2 SD including those NYC locals - which like the big 4 LA locals are delivered CONUS not on a spot beam so are irrelevant as far as shutting down spot beams goes.

They would have to get rid of all the spot beams before they can consider making 101 MPEG4 only.