SuperDish Update

[Guest]

Scott, let me get this straight...

Are you saying that if my locals (Birmingham, AL) are on 119 rather than 105, that I'll have to wait past the initial Nov. 15 rollout in order to order the Superdish/811 DHP offer? That is not what I wanted to hear. Please tell me that I am confused and that all is well.

 

[ROLLTIDE]

Bham locals are on 119 . They look worst than black and white movies Bham has good quality HD channels that are easy to pick up .

 

[Guest]

ROLLTIDE-

Yes, I know the Bham locals are on 119, but I am wondering if that is going to exclude me from the initial DHP lease plan. By the way, I live in Tuscaloosa, and shy of an 8-foot monster antenna on my roof (which my wife would never go for), I can't pick up any Bham OTA HD signals.

 

[fv3]

I think AMC-2 at 105 is going to be replaced in the Fall of 2004 with a new bird that will have Spot Beams.

The spot beams on AMC-15 (the AMC-2 replacement) are Ka band, and will likely NOT be used for DBS, but instead for Internet/broadband services.

http://www.sesamericom.com/media/2003/09_08_03.html

 

[Stargazer]

It looks good for Charleston/Huntington, WV soon because the company that puts up a lot if not most of the towers in WV (Black Bear) was putting the hardware needed on the towers to get the stations ready for launch.

Also there is supposed to be a meeting in Charleston, WV on November 11th for the retailers and they are going to train them how to install them and give information regarding the locals and HD.

 

[TNGTony]

Dish has a method to their madness with spotbeams and suchlike, but it seems funny that it has taken them so long to add Columbus when they are higher in the DMA list (34th) than other cities that already have their locals. Example: Tulsa is 60th, locals since July, 2002 and Albuquerque-Santa Fe is 49th, locals since Nov, 2000.

Baltimore seems to be the highest market on the list still without locals at 23rd, so Columbus isn't alone in its waiting.

Video,

The reason for interesting discrepancies you point out have to do with two things, location and the willingness of the locals to be put up without undue demands.

The WBNS Columbus thing was already explained. This is before Dish realized that it could still sell locals in a market missing one or even two major affiliates and people would still buy them. Saying that, Cincinnati launched without the NBC affiliate until Dish gave in and picked up Lifetiume Movie Network on AT100.

The main reason is location. The Dish sport beams can only carry so many TV stations. Even though there are three transponders on the "Ohio" spot beam, there are quite a few cities in the area. Currently Dish has Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo, Lexington and Pittsburgh locals residing on these three VERY crowded transponders.

Still in the area are Columbus, Zanesville, Lima, Youngstown, Parkersburg, Huntington/Charleston (not completely covered by this spot), Ft. Wayne, Dayton/Springfield and Toledo.

However if you look at the California area, you have a spot beam that carries Los Angeles. Around LA there are a ton of smaller markets. So...what do you do. Let the additional bandwidth lay around or pick up Santa Barbara (coming to 110° probably tomorrow). So what if it's a smaller market than Columbus. That bandwidth is unavailable in Ohio!

Same thing happened with Chico and Eugene.

See ya
Tony

 

[video62]

Thanks for the explanation Tony... makes perfect sense- it has been a combination of local station cooperation and spotbeam excess capacity. Build where you can when you can, go back and catch the ones you had to pass up sometime later.

 

[bryan92]

If it's not to much to type what has to happen for a local to be launched?

 

[dlsnyder]

First the DBS provider has to have enough transponder space to accomodate a new city. If that is true then they need to make re-transmission agreements with the area broadcasters. The final (or concurrent) step is to establish a point of presence in that city where the signals can be received then sent via fiber to the DBS uplink facility.