SimpleSimon said:
AFAIK, they don't. If you know otherwise, please provide a reference.
I agree and don't believe they do.
This is one case where Dish is following the law but they've certainly added to the confusion about HD DNS & HD LiLs by also blaming the law for not providing them where they ARE allowed to. They may be changing that though because in emu1's post above, he reported Dish admitted it's a Dish issue and not the law.
It is a Dish issue because Dish doesn't sh*t unless they can make a dollar doing it. In the case of HD DNS, Dish could legally provide them to anyone currently qualified for analog DNS but why should they? They're already getting the price of the distants (analog) from the customer, so adding the HD equivilent wouldn't bring them any additional revenue. Plus once they have HD locals available in that customer's dma, they'd have to disconnect the HD DNS anyway.
Now if they provide HD locals in a particular DMA and they also have analog LiLs available there, the customer MUST sub to both - and there's where Dish can make some money. At least for a while. I expect at some point Dish would shut off the analog locals and just downconvert HD LiLs to non HD subs.