Echo II gone?! (CONFIRMED) (Echostar 2)

[Laddyboy]

I'm sorry Scott, but you sound like a politician.

This thread is one of the least intelligent discussions in the history of DBS.

I'm not sure that closing discussion is the right move, but certainly I've seen more intelligent discussions of Britney Spears than of E*2.

Nothing anyone said in the thread made any sense, nor did any statement add one iota to our understanding of the situation. Most of the thread caused an increase of disinformation....

-10

You're the one who predicted last night there probably wasn't anything wrong with E2. Why'd you participate in the discussion given your comment above?

http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-network-forum/142373-echo-ii-gone-confirmed-4.html#post1446806

Turns out, the sleuthing and rationale offered by others was right on the mark.

 

[GeorgeLV]

Look at it this way...

Dish Needed 3 Satellites to make Eastern Arc work, two of them no longer exist. AMC14 and Echostar 2. This is another reason why I say that they should scrap the Eastern Arc Project.

Also another thing to look at is the satellites delivering HD at 61.5 and 129 are on their last leg. Anytime one or both of them could die at anytime. Could you imagine the uproar if one of them died?

Dish has some big problems on their hands at the moment they need to concentrate on keeping the core services running, to add a second clone of its main service is unrealistic to me at the moment, and really does nothing to increase the income of Dish Network.

I think Dish needs to look into buying/leasing DirecTV's transponders on 110/119 and completely moving their core national HD service to those slots so 61.5 and 129 can be dedicated for HD locals only.

It would be expensive and directly benefit their main competitor, but it would be a move to a more efficient operating strategy that avoids duplication of resources.

 

[OV_HDFan]

Not to go totally off topic, but this is the reason why the D* E* merger was denied. The shareholders of the joint company would not let them keep 4 or 5 spare birds sitting in storage. Imagine we didn't have any of the new birds leased or owned by E* since the merger talk, and D10 and D11 both went up in smoke on the launch pad. Everyone in the boonies would be getting their DTV Converter Boxes to find that none of their Locals are strong enough to receive at their location and in Feb they would be watching snow on the TV instead of outside. Just my .02 worth

 

[John Kotches]

Actually, I thought the FCC or Congress had dictated that they can't use a 2nd dish for locals.

No, they dictated that you can't split a market's locals across two dishes. They didn't dictate that you have to have one dish for everything.

 

[TalonDancer]

Look at it this way...

Dish Needed 3 Satellites to make Eastern Arc work, two of them no longer exist. AMC14 and Echostar 2. This is another reason why I say that they should scrap the Eastern Arc Project.

Also another thing to look at is the satellites delivering HD at 61.5 and 129 are on their last leg. Anytime one or both of them could die at anytime. Could you imagine the uproar if one of them died?

Dish has some big problems on their hands at the moment they need to concentrate on keeping the core services running, to add a second clone of its main service is unrealistic to me at the moment, and really does nothing to increase the income of Dish Network.

I agree.

Anyone who has read my posts on the EA subject knows that I have frequently referred to Dish's current EA strategy as "Plan B - recycling space junk ". Unfortunately, it's not a joke anymore

The issue now is risk management. Dish has more to lose than it can possibly gain by continuing to try to implement EA with it's current sat assets (i.e. numbers & condition). I know Charlie is a gambler. But good gamblers "know when to hold them and know when to fold them". Dish needs to put the EA on hold until it has enough sat assets in good enough condition to both implement EA AND provide adequate spares to both maintain and ADD channels to stay competitive.

Talon Dancer

 

[HDRoberts]

No, they dictated that you can't split a market's locals across two dishes. They didn't dictate that you have to have one dish for everything.

It may not be the FCC that mandates one Dish, but I bet a lot of potential customers might mandate it. If an Eastern potential sub objectively looks at both services, they will observe that Directv can get them everything on one slimline, while dish needs 2 dishes. Some won't mind, others will.

I think they may need to delay the Eastern arc until the appropriate sats come on line. Aren't there other birds (Nimiq 5 comes to mind) that will have CONUS capability from these slots coming? It can be implemented further then. If E2 can fail so suddenly, E8 should stick around near 110 and 119. Imagine if it had been E7 that was lost. The 90% of Dish customers that are SD would have suddenly lost most of the main core of programming. Of course, E5 is in bad shape, too, so it may be needed there.

Perhaps they can have even have a limited Eastern arc with just E3/E12 and 61.5 and E6 at 72.7, only providing the new Turbo packs so they don't have to duplicate all 110/119 SD. Most of the HD is already at 61.5. It might be a bit useless to have E6 and E8 puttering arouind as backups.

 

[rad]

I think Dish needs to look into buying/leasing DirecTV's transponders on 110/119 and completely moving their core national HD service to those slots so 61.5 and 129 can be dedicated for HD locals only.

It would be expensive and directly benefit their main competitor, but it would be a move to a more efficient operating strategy that avoids duplication of resources.

D*'s not going to give those up, too much programming there now to sell it off.

 

[Poke]

I think the main thing is that they really need to try to get the Sat manufactures to get their new sats up ASAP.. I think with the failure of the recent one and issues with the AMC14 that they should look at getting their sat times push ahead and get them up sooner than they planed..

 

[nelson61]

I think the main thing is that they really need to try to get the Sat manufactures to get their new sats up ASAP.. I think with the failure of the recent one and issues with the AMC14 that they should look at getting their sat times push ahead and get them up sooner than they planed..

The problem appears to be lead times for construction. Best I've seen for satellite construction is something like 18 months from contract date which puts the AMC 14 replacement out something like 15 months from now if they push it. Ceil might be able to help at 129 but does not have full
Conus coverage and they are legally prohibited from leasing more than 50% of capacity to non-Canadian providers until after the launch date.

 

[John Kotches]

It may not be the FCC that mandates one Dish, but I bet a lot of potential customers might mandate it. If an Eastern potential sub objectively looks at both services, they will observe that Directv can get them everything on one slimline, while dish needs 2 dishes. Some won't mind, others will.

That's a completely different kettle of fish which is orthogonal to the error I was correcting. It also isn't a legal requirement.

TTBoMK, there are only a handful of markets requiring a two-dish solution for locals + everything else anyway.

Best,

 

[foghorn2]

I think Dish needs to look into buying/leasing DirecTV's transponders on 110/119 and completely moving their core national HD service to those slots so 61.5 and 129 can be dedicated for HD locals only.

It would be expensive and directly benefit their main competitor, but it would be a move to a more efficient operating strategy that avoids duplication of resources.

This is one of the stupidest things Dish could do.
What they should do is take over Directv and convert them over to Dish.

 

[vegassatellite]

Maybe they can purchase DirecTV 1R and move it where they were planning to move E2. Both satellites only do RHCP and DTV 1R is already at 72.5. If its value is similar to the estimated value of E2 ($6.4M), then it should be a relatively cheap transaction. It's probably worth less since it is older than E2.

DTV 5 can run 32 transponders but is only running 3 at 110 right now. If E11 can support transponders 28, 30, and 32, perhaps Charlie can negotiate a lease of DirecTV 5 and fill the gap left by moving DTV 5 elsewhere by providing the same three transponders off of E11 as part of the agreement. DTV would still have coverage at 110 but make better money off their DTV 5 bird by letting Charlie lease the whole thing and park it elsewhere. Charlie would be better off to negotiate that now than to wait till something like E5 dying prematurely, leaving DirecTV in a better negotiating position down the road.

 

[whatchel1]

Won't happen

The likely hood of E* being able to rent any D* bird is close to a sucker bet. They are major competitors and I just don't think it likely to happen.
E* isn't the only company having trouble with sats. Galaxy 26 two weeks ago went belly up. At the station where I work it has been much more frantic relocating where everything moved to than anything we have had happen w/ E* sat problems. Sun June 29th everything was fine then around 8 pm everything started going belly up. We had to move a 10 meter dish on July 1st to be able to pick up CBS. I'm just very glad that E XI is looking good to be in place in a few weeks.

 

[megamike]

IMHO, EA was a way to move to MPEG4, new subs and any current subs who payed up could have a single dish and all MPEG4. Charlie just needs a new way to get people to pay for the move to MPEG4. After all the premium channels are MPEG4, Aug 1, then start with one DMA at a time, you want locals, you need Vip.

 

[nlk10010]

It may not be the FCC that mandates one Dish, but I bet a lot of potential customers might mandate it. If an Eastern potential sub objectively looks at both services, they will observe that Directv can get them everything on one slimline, while dish needs 2 dishes. Some won't mind, others will.
-snip-

I understand what you're saying but would disagree.

C-Band is a "one-dish solution" but would hardly be considered an attractive option.

Rather, I would contend that a 2-dish solution, where the dishes are small, is much easier to sell than is the humongous D* "Slimline". While I understand not everyone is like me, I would have gone to D* a while ago except for the fact that I can't mount their dish on my chimney, while I can easily put the two smaller E* dishes there. Hey, if it's a marketing thing maybe Dish can come up with a weird mast with two "forks" so that there is only one mount but two pipes (perhaps at staggered lengths) that will carry two dishes. So a "one-mast/mount", if not "one dish" solution, that, IMO, would still be easier to handle than D*s monster.

 

[darrencp22]

I would contend that a 2-dish solution, where the dishes are small, is much easier to sell than is the humongous D* "Slimline".

I prefer my D slimline to the 2 500s I had with E.

 

[nelson61]

Keep an eye on Anik F3 at 118.7. They could move the internationals off and pick up a pile of Conus capacity if they are in trouble.

 

[nlk10010]

I prefer my D slimline to the 2 500s I had with E.

Well, as I say, everyone's different.

But if you don't mind my asking, what is it about the Slimline (i.e. one dish) that you prefer to the two separate dishes? One mount, simpler wiring, etc. ?

 

[RVD420]

I think Dish needs to look into buying/leasing DirecTV's transponders on 110/119 and completely moving their core national HD service to those slots so 61.5 and 129 can be dedicated for HD locals only.

It would be expensive and directly benefit their main competitor, but it would be a move to a more efficient operating strategy that avoids duplication of resources.

At one time Dish had some discussions with DirecTV about doing a transponder swap. But from what I remember DirecTV was being less than reasonable (wanting 6 TPS at 119 for 3 TPS at 110)

 

[gadgtfreek]

I prefer my D slimline to the 2 500s I had with E.

Ive owned both, the Slimline is nicer than a 1000.2 and a 500 wing. The Slimline also gets a much better SS.