All DMA's now Western Arc

[renjy651]

Well, Good!!!! I am still happy with having Dish, along with my Family.

Let see Echostar owns 110/119/61.5 and 105 orbital location. 72 is leased. The western arc you can get 80 signal. Eastern arc you cannot get 80 signal from where i am. May be they can use 105 satellite for USA? Now it is used for South America. With the super Satellite at 110 location they can get all the local channels there

 

[HipKat]

BS

Really??

DISH's Eastern Arc was basically a bandwidth-and-HD strategy born in the late 2000s, back when satellite TV engineering involved solving a giant orbital Tetris puzzle and pretending nobody would ever have to undo it later.

Eastern Arc officially launched in August 2008. The setup used 61.5°, 72.7°, and 77° with the new DISH 1000.4 dish. At launch, it was aimed primarily at new HD customers in selected eastern and central DMAs, including Chicago, Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Green Bay, Minneapolis, Nashville and others. TxDish

The big reason was MPEG-4. Western Arc was still carrying a lot of legacy MPEG-2 customers on 110°/119°/129°. Rather than immediately replace millions of receivers, DISH could build Eastern Arc as an all-MPEG-4 platform. That let them fit substantially more SD, HD and local programming into the available transponders. DISH specifically promoted Eastern Arc in 2008 as its first system where both SD and HD programming were transmitted in MPEG-4. Google Groups

There was another practical reason: locals and spot beams. The eastern orbital positions gave DISH more satellite capacity and spot-beam flexibility for eastern DMAs, especially as HD locals exploded. 61.5° had already been used by DISH for HD and international programming, and DISH acquired additional capacity there when it bought the former VOOM/Rainbow satellite assets. 72.7° then became the workhorse for core programming, while 77° helped carry local markets. CareQuest

So originally you basically had:
Western Arc: 110 / 119 / 129
Eastern Arc: 61.5 / 72.7 / 77

Programming was largely mirrored between the two arcs. DISH's own 2008 installer notice explicitly said the two systems would simulcast essentially the same programming, with some exceptions such as DishLATINO and certain international services. TxDish

Back in 2008, Western Arc had millions of MPEG-2 boxes tying DISH's hands. Today virtually everything is MPEG-4-capable, the Hopper ecosystem is standardized, SD duplication has been massively reduced, satellite capacity has changed, and DISH has consolidated programming repeatedly. Maintaining two mostly redundant orbital architectures becomes expensive and operationally stupid once there's no technical need for it.

So Eastern Arc wasn't some weird experiment. It let DISH introduce an MPEG-4-only architecture without forcing every existing customer to replace their receiver overnight.

Ironically, nearly 20 years later they're doing the reverse transition: instead of using Eastern Arc to escape legacy Western Arc equipment, they're moving customers back to Western Arc because maintaining both architectures no longer buys them much.

 

[HipKat]

Is Dish reaching out to customers to schedule appointments?

Nah. We just show up at the door....
Kidding. Mostly, they're still using a passive migration system where customers call in for whatever reason; Dish sees they're on EA (although most are on WA already) and add the arc swap tag to the work order

 

[HipKat]

Let see Echostar owns 110/119/61.5 and 105 orbital location. 72 is leased. The western arc you can get 80 signal. Eastern arc you cannot get 80 signal from where i am. May be they can use 105 satellite for USA? Now it is used for South America. With the super Satellite at 110 location they can get all the local channels there

Which is what they've done, at least in the markets we serve, moved the locals to 110

 

[cpdretired]

I have the same wish.

To add what Scott said. When there is bad weather Dish will stream the channels. So they can stream channels.

 

[Juan]

Really??

Tell that to the thousands..err hundreds now of customers who only got dish because of the eastern arc....directv had the same so called bandwidth issues but didn't need east and west arcs to solve it

 

[navychop]

So they can stream channels.

Not all channels. Contracts.

 

[Almighty1]

I don't know why DISH doesn't just start a streaming version of DISH and then if you can't see the western arc you go with streaming versions and then they could keep customers if they had good internet speeds. I mean Sling TV could be changed to Streaming DISH TV if they wanted since both companies are under Echostar. Then you would still be able to use your ota antenna with Air TV devices like I do with Air TV Anywhere with 4 ota tuners.

They probably could as 118 was where all the international channels were which was moved to streaming only that is not even available on DISH Anywhere anymore. Not sure if all international channels were optional paid packages or not.

 

[nelson61]

Lots of Charlie type buy cheap history at 61.5W
First, he bought merged with DBSC to get their licenses and renamed their to be launched satellite EchoStar 3.
Then he went on to buy the frequencies and assets of Rainbow which added some of the very first spot beams.

He was the robber barons in space back then. I'd say Musk is the grandchild and doing a repeat.

 

[slow_poke_pete]

Lots of Charlie type buy cheap history at 61.5W
First, he bought merged with DBSC to get their licenses and renamed their to be launched satellite EchoStar 3.
Then he went on to buy the frequencies and assets of Rainbow which added some of the very first spot beams.

He was the robber barons in space back then. I'd say Musk is the grandchild and doing a repeat.

somethings up with ET!!! why would he need dish for

 

[HipKat]

Tell that to the thousands..err hundreds now of customers who only got dish because of the eastern arc....directv had the same so called bandwidth issues but didn't need east and west arcs to solve it

That's not WHY they went EA, that's just a benefit. There were very few times before EA that we didn't find a place or a way. I've used 3 wing dishes in 3 spots with a 44 switch to get the job in, back in the day

 

[Strega]

I don't know why DISH doesn't just start a streaming version of DISH

A neighbor recently asked me to help her because she couldn't get to DirecTV via her new "smart" TV. Much to my surprise, her DirecTV box was an internet streaming box and she didn't know there was any other way to get it.

 

[navychop]

Lots of Charlie type buy cheap history at 61.5W
First, he bought merged with DBSC to get their licenses and renamed their to be launched satellite EchoStar 3.
Then he went on to buy the frequencies and assets of Rainbow which added some of the very first spot beams.

He was the robber barons in space back then. I'd say Musk is the grandchild and doing a repeat.

So you agree, good businessman / men?

Let us not cloud our perceptions with personal biases.

 

[dweber]

I don't know why DISH doesn't just start a streaming version of DISH and then if you can't see the western arc you go with streaming versions and then they could keep customers if they had good internet speeds. I mean Sling TV could be changed to Streaming DISH TV if they wanted since both companies are under Echostar. Then you would still be able to use your ota antenna with Air TV devices like I do with Air TV Anywhere with 4 ota tuners.

I love the Hopper 3 but if Dish were to create a streaming receiver that acted like a Hopper 3 allowing you to record shows and select programs from a guide I would be one of their first customers. My Spectrum internet is capable of streaming but nothing can match the ease of the Hopper 3. I don't want to have to decide what streaming service I need to use for each show. I just open the DVR and immediately my content is all available. I looked at sling and it is very hard to use. Nothing compares to the ease of the Hopper 3. If Dish could duplicate Hopper 3 using streaming instead of satellite they would hve a lot of happy customers. And the cost would be less since no satellites would be needed.

 

[navychop]

if Dish were to create a streaming receiver that acted like a Hopper 3 allowing you to record shows and select programs from a guide I would be one of their first customers.

If they did that, we'd have a contest as to which of us gets the first one!

 

[Jimbo]

I love the Hopper 3 but if Dish were to create a streaming receiver that acted like a Hopper 3 allowing you to record shows and select programs from a guide I would be one of their first customers. My Spectrum internet is capable of streaming but nothing can match the ease of the Hopper 3. I don't want to have to decide what streaming service I need to use for each show. I just open the DVR and immediately my content is all available. I looked at sling and it is very hard to use. Nothing compares to the ease of the Hopper 3. If Dish could duplicate Hopper 3 using streaming instead of satellite they would hve a lot of happy customers. And the cost would be less since no satellites would be needed.

Except they would charge you the Same or More ... because they can.

I'm surprised the Sling isn't taking over DISH as a Streaming option.

 

[HipKat]

I'm surprised the Sling isn't taking over DISH as a Streaming option.

I've been wondering the same thing for a long time now

 

[MikeD-C05]

I think some of both. DiSH was always at something of a disadvantage to DTV for look angle, being at 110/119 vs. DTV's 101. DiSH added 61.5 way back simply because it had the allocation there, and placed most of its int'l, Sky Angel, etc. ch's there. Subs only getting int'ls could then use the smaller original "300' dish just on 61.5, or if combining with regular ch's would add it on to the "500" as a 2nd "wing" dish. So that was really the "seed" for their EA concept. Then 2 things happened- first, they got slapped down by courts on activating net affils from out of subs' local markets and decided the answer was to try to put all of the many markets' net affils up there, and second, HD. Thus became a huge bandwidth crunch, particularly with SD being left up there even as HD versions of same stuff were being added. Not only could 110/119 not handle it all, even adding on 129 and putting most of the HD there still was leaving them short.

Plus, now they've taken a merely disadvantageous look angle and made it all the worse. 129, which they've now done away with, was really tricky to get in most places. So the idea of offloading some carriage to a new "eastern arc" looked good to them, both from the bandwidth availability and the look angle- now they could offer an alternative to prospects with blockages to the southwest (and needed to, given how low 129 was). They switched a bunch of the locals over there, presumably ones located more in the eastern US, and duplicated all the regular stuff.

But now things have resettled after they've mostly shut off SD feeds and dropped 129. Still though my question stands- How can they put everything they have now into just 110 and 119? Or maybe they'd go back to 61.5 as a "wing" add-on for certain locals, etc.

I remember that they used to be able to put 8 HD channels on one transponder and they pushed that to 15 with compression. So I am sure they are reusing the transponder spotbeams to put all the locals on there. I am betting that all the HD channels are being compressed further in order to fit all of them on just one satellite. Not that you can see a difference, like when they had VOOM HD satellite channels at almost full HD signal without compression. Then when they compressed them they got called HD Lite channels and people could see a difference in the quality. The compression is probably much better now and the encoders have improved too.

 

[MikeD-C05]

Honestly if someone was really thinking@E*, not only should they be doing this, but they should just abandon the "SLING TV" platform/layout, & start over fresh with a new "DISH Stream" TV service, a la DirecTV Stream. AND like D* stream, the first thing they should do, is come out with their own streamer box, that also includes a full-function remote just like their original satellite DVR remotes, with numerical keypad! It really shouldn't be that difficult, considering D* Stream's Gemini box is Android TV based & comes with a full numerical remote as well. BUT, E* should also design it that if someone chooses to use their own streaming device, (Roku, Google & Fire to at least start with) they can do so as well, but obviously they won't get the full functionality experience.

One thing I have always thought E* got right, was the design of their satellite remotes...at least until, IMHO, they started downgrading them with their latest "limited button" remotes with the Ho/Jo's. They even used that same, basic design when they came out with their DTV Pal OTA converter boxes. The layout is still one of the best around, & they could almost copy that same design into a stream TV service. They should also try to mimic the EPG/DVR & other menu elements of the basic Hopper platform, as again, it's still one of the most simple systems for folks to understand & manipulate.

If they did this & allowed users to purchase these devices outright - instead of making subs RENT them forever like D* does now - E* could have a winning service in their sights. (of course, they would have to market it correctly, but I think it would be so doable)

I agree. I have been saying use the same Sling packs structure and let you keep the cheaper programming prices, but use the DISH interface like the Hopper and the Remote could stay the same or you use the Roku or the Fire tv remote if you don't want the remote control. Just add the DISH app. They could add 3 to 5 streams at a time you could watch in your house and each could have it's own interface for each family member. You would then be more attractive for customers who want to stay with DISH but lose the extra DVR FEES and Additional receiver fees and you wouldn't need the installation of all that equipment anymore. Now add the Air Tv ability to be used like Sling TV lets you do for ota and you would have a complete streaming interface that lets you do much of what you do now with a Hopper and none of the extra fees they charge. You could transition customers to the streaming version as the time goes on and eventually stop using the satellites for customers all together. This would be a good competitor to You Tube Tv.

When you think about it DISH Anywhere app is a streaming version of DISH now. Maybe use that interface as your template?

 

[Bruce]

I'm surprised the Sling isn't taking over DISH as a Streaming option.

That time has passed, YouTube TV has a tremendous advantage, both in time ( since 2017) and subscriber numbers ( 12-13 Million, about double of Dish/Sling combined).

DirecTV streaming is doing well also, about 3 Million subscribers ( of over 8 Million for all of DirecTV), the Genre Packs have really helped get subscribers to the service.