The SW sats are KA band Sats that are highly configurable.
The SW birds could still be switched to internet use, or even mixed use at any time.
DIRECTV Could Team With EchoStar On HDTV
- Thread starter Poke
- Start date
- Latest activity Latest activity:
- Replies 77
- Views 10K
The SW sats are KA band Sats that are highly configurable.
The SW birds could still be switched to internet use, or even mixed use at any time.
Why would E* want this at all, if they are looking at launching sats for the new DBS expansion band (10 new sats in 10 locations)? That would give them much more bandwidth, and not have to share. Heck, just the 110, 114.5 and 119 locations (assuming 32 tps per, and conus) gives them 192 HD channels minimum (like HDnet/HDnet Movies used to be) in MPEG2 at full resolution/bitrate. Throw some spot beams into the mix, as well as at 61.5 and 129, and it sounds like E* would have all the bandwidth they need. Seems like the timeframes for both projects are nearly identical, and it seems to me that Charlie would rather do it on his own (selfish?) rather than partner up with D* (unless he could buy D*). Am I wrong?
"... Also Didn't Dish and Direct decide to wait a few years for the analog locals to get shut off to use that bandwidth instead for the internet access when they went together to try to get some bandwidth?..."
And then in the last spectrum auction, they both backed away from the table.
And then in the last spectrum auction, they both backed away from the table.
Building 10 new satellites and paying to launch them is a ton of $'s. Since Charlie doesn't like to spend $'s, he wants to keep those montly bills low
, I don't see them actually ever using all those slots.
They must, or they lose them. Money is involved and I don't think they will walk away from it. Or maybe he's asking for 10 to try to actually get 5. But I doubt it.
So they loose them. As you said, maybe shoot for the moon and see what you end up with and the use what you really want.
Even if Dish and Direct merge the bandwidth Dish still might want to get those slots as it could mean even more bandwidth would be had to do more things with. You cannot get enough bandwidth when it comes to HD (especially HD locals) and OnDemand and Internet and VoIP. That takes lots of bandwidth. If HD gets even higher definition in the future then they will need all the bandwidth that they can get.
Them backing away from the table is what I was talking about when I stated above that they wanted to wait a few years for the analog locals to get shut off. They probably want to use technology that will work on rougher terrain.
There has to come a point where the CBA doesn't make sense, would E* be able to raise their rates high enough to cover all the additional expenses that would go with all these additional slots without driving customers away to cable or the telco's? HD locals can and are being taken care of by spotbeams. OnDemand, Internet and VoIP are not a good use of satellite bandwidth and would be better served by a terrestrial based system.
Dish may want to lease out some additional satellites to companies or prevent competition from getting them. They could offer games over the satellite as well for gaming systems or something. There is too much ping for VoiP and Internet for satellite. I could see them using it for OnDemand services though but just how much OnDemand content could they serve by using the satellites? If there are constant requests to download the shows then how long would it take to get the shows or to retrieve it from their server like the cable companies do?
What I don't understand is D* has been bragging and promising for 2 years now that they have the 2 new satellites in production and that by 2007 they will have capacity for 150 HD channels. Since there aren't even that many HD channels available now or in the near future why would they have any incentive to cooperate with E* when they will have so much excess transponder capacity anyway.
I left D* 3 months ago because I got tired of their promises while they were turning HD channels OFF on Sunday for NFL-ST and now this makes me wonder if there isn't something wrong with the new sats or their plans that is causing them to consider this whole deal.
I left D* 3 months ago because I got tired of their promises while they were turning HD channels OFF on Sunday for NFL-ST and now this makes me wonder if there isn't something wrong with the new sats or their plans that is causing them to consider this whole deal.
What do you see the use form gaming being? If you're talking about the distrubution of video games, maybe, but if it's to be played on the E* STB I don't think any serious gamer would want to when they're probably using their Xbox's, Playstations or Wii's for gaming. Distribution for OnDemand programming to DVR's might be something that would be usable, very high speed download which is buffered on the DVR, as long as there isn't too much of a demand placed on the system where customers need to wait for transponder space to download their request (it's not OnDemand then).
They could have some type of adapter or something for the video gaming systems to download the games into them. They used to do this on some of the cable systems with the Sega Genesis. I do not see any of the other providers offering this now so this would be something that they could offer that the others don't.
Having an Iridium Satphone, I can say the quality is better than virtually every cellphone in use today if you are in the same region (Say SE USA where the signal goes up in Florida and down to landline in Atlanta or Charlotte). Now, remember these are LEOs compared to the Wildblue, D* and E* birds up 22k miles, but the delay is non-existent when you are in the same region. When you cross regions and thus transfer the signal between satellites (Hawaii to SE USA for example - something that Wildblue would not do using a single hop) the quality drops and the delay increases.
IMHO, I don't see that happening since Sony and Microsoft have their own network offering available for their game systems using standard internet connections, why would that want to provide for a competator to take some of their business away?
Agree, if someone had a LEO system the latency would be much less and would have a good shot of picking up some of the teresterial based users.
"DIRECTV Could Team With EchoStar On HDTV"
Good Grief, just what we need...more than 1500 HD-Lite Locals, 150 HD-Lite nationals, and all 21 of the VOOM-Lite channels.
Good Grief, just what we need...more than 1500 HD-Lite Locals, 150 HD-Lite nationals, and all 21 of the VOOM-Lite channels.
Although maybe not considered a merger, there would no longer be competition, and I would think that someone would have to have oversight to eliminate price fixing, as with the airlines.
They - as a merged company - would be actively competing with Cable and Telco's. Plenty of competition.
