DISH Network files fcc application to transfer terrestar licenses

[Scott Greczkowski]

DISH Network files fcc application to transfer terrestar licenses

Englewood, Colo., Aug. 22, 2011 – DISH Network Corporation (NASDAQ: DISH) issued the following statement today from Tom Cullen, Executive Vice President of DISH Network:

“Today we filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) seeking approval for the transfer of TerreStar's S-Band licenses to DISH Network, and a request to combine this application with DISH Network’s previous filing for acquisition of the DBSD S-Band licenses. We are excited about the opportunity to put this nationwide spectrum to productive use for competitive and innovative mobile broadband services. The regulatory flexibility we are seeking is consistent with FCC precedent while benefiting consumers by providing greater choice and broader service coverage. We look forward to working with the FCC to gain prompt approval of the transactions and to bringing DISH Network's track record of investment, innovation and job creation to the mobile broadband market.”

 

[CK SatGuy]

In another related story......
TerreStar seeks extension on filing bankruptcy exit plan - FierceWireless

 

[DustoMan]

Is this story also related?

Dish unveils plans for 4G LTE network | Wireless - CNET News

 

[nelson61]

Is this story also related?

Dish unveils plans for 4G LTE network | Wireless - CNET News

Yes it is related.

They are asking for waviers to intergrate the DBSD and the Terrestar satellite systems with a ground based wireless system with customer option to use either satellite or ground systems.
This Narrative provides a nice technical description of their plans.

Narrative

 

[Laddyboy]

This doesn't sound all that promising. Sprint is already engaged with LightSquared, so it seems Dish is left without a terrestrial partner. It also seems similar to Dish's past efforts at developing the midslot orbitals, which they didn't, causing the FCC to come down on them. Honestly, I doubt Dish really has any plan at all or if they do, the buildout will take so long, it will be obsolete before being ready for use. We've seen this before, when they decided on Sling, buying the company, to be their solution to a whole home, whole life DVR solution. They couldn't even get a catcher out the door years later for some reason and now are trying to get a wired whole home DVR solution out the door a couple years late to the party. The talk of 12 Mbit broadband via satellite seems pie in the sky as well. I could buy into some of this if Dish had any kind of decent track record for getting working stuff out the door in a timely manner. A wireless build-out just seems prohibitively expensive to me with all the competition they'll face from Verizon, ATT, and others. As for the Blockbuster purchase, BB seems to operate just as it did before. It's still expensive and its online operations pale in comparison to Netflix's.

 

[Scherrman]

I like BB because it offers video games along with movies.

 

[CK SatGuy]

Yes it is related.

They are asking for waviers to intergrate the DBSD and the Terrestar satellite systems with a ground based wireless system with customer option to use either satellite or ground systems.
This Narrative provides a nice technical description of their plans.

Narrative

I'm skimming this narrative and I find it to be very interesting, especially the "Dish's updated plan" section. It looks like they're going to build a LTE network based on the LTE Advanced standard, which is suppose to be 100x faster with a peak data rate of 1 Gbit/s (1000 Mbps) Of course it's going to take a couple of years as they don't expect to see any LTE advanced devices until 2014.
Another interesting part is on page 15: "DISH is committed to developing a buildout schedule consistent with FCC precedent and based on the buildout principles established in the Sprint/Nextel and Sprint/Clearwire transaction decisions." Hmmm..... Do any of you guys think Dish is going to team up with Sprint, Clearwire, and Lightsquared to help build this new LTE Advanced network?

 

[mike123abc]

Another interesting part is on page 15: "DISH is committed to developing a buildout schedule consistent with FCC precedent and based on the buildout principles established in the Sprint/Nextel and Sprint/Clearwire transaction decisions." Hmmm..... Do any of you guys think Dish is going to team up with Sprint, Clearwire, and Lightsquared to help build this new LTE Advanced network?

Dish Unveils Plans For LTE Network - Asks FCC For Waiver Similar to LightSquared's | DSLReports.com, ISP Information

According to BTIG Research analyst Walter Piecyk, the Sprint buildout requirements were 15 million POPs in four years and 30 million POPs within six years.

I think they just want the same time table sprint got.

 

[TheKrell]

Wasn't Rainbow 1 originally built to do data too, via those distributed spotbeam uplink centers?