Eastern Arc: Risky Business Plan?

[impeyr]

So Dish is building the Eastern Arc out of older, nearly end of life satellites, and only “own’ one of the three orbital slots. Canada owns 72.7, and has only leased 16 transposed to Dish, while Mexico owns the 77 slot. I understand Dish must show that using the Mexican slot to broadcast to the US will not interfere with the Canadian 82 satellite only 5 degrees apart. If Dish plans to roll out the 1000.4 dish, and make the effort to re-tool and re-point new and current subscribers, this would appear a little bit of a risky business plan?

 

[tempVAdish]

I don't know how risky, but seems to show initiative to go with newer technology. Having an all MPEG4 service seems pretty cutting edge, since MPEG2 has been around for sooooo long. Just my $0.02

 

[Voyager6]

So Dish is building the Eastern Arc out of older, nearly end of life satellites, and only “own’ one of the three orbital slots. Canada owns 72.7, and has only leased 16 transposed to Dish, while Mexico owns the 77 slot. I understand Dish must show that using the Mexican slot to broadcast to the US will not interfere with the Canadian 82 satellite only 5 degrees apart. If Dish plans to roll out the 1000.4 dish, and make the effort to re-tool and re-point new and current subscribers, this would appear a little bit of a risky business plan?

E6, E8 and E12 are no where near the end of their useful lives. IIRC, D* currently has the use of 16 TPs at 72.5 until 12/09. After 12/09, E* will be able to use these TPs. I also believe that E* has ordered a new replacement for E3 (which AMC-14 was supposed to replace). E*'s real risk is that now there are no backup sats in case of a failure.

 

[greggor48]

Taking all that was said into consideration it mean that the signal strength may be low. For I guess a high signal strength may interfere with those Canadian Sat.

 

[mdonnelly]

129w is a Canadian slot, and I've been getting most of my Dish HD from there for a couple of years now. As far as old equipment, maybe, but it's constantly being refreshed.

I believe that Dish will be using some transponders from the new Mexican satellite when it's launched, just as they plan to use Canadian transponders from Ciel-2.

 

[Laddyboy]

It doesn't really matter a lot who owns the slot or the satellite. If there's a slot open and a perceived need, someone will finance the build and launch to be able to lease the bandwidth. As it stands, Canada has more sat slots and bandwidth than are required for its needs so Canadian enterprise benefits by being able to lease that bandwidth. Same goes for Mexico or any other country that has allocated slots and birds aloft.

I think the risky part of E*'s plans is the delay in getting HD locals to very large swaths of the country. Supposedly EA will aid in getting some HD locals to some DMAs in the east. D* has announced HD locals for nearly all DMAs of any size by late fall. D* is now estimating September for my DMA. E* hasn't ever mentioned my DMA at all for HD locals so they have to be looking at next year at the earliest when, I assume, the 129 replacement gets in place. New subs in this area will end up with D* by default since E* won't have locals when they go to compare. I suspect current E* subs not under contract will bail as well. Even though it's flat around here for the most part, people aren't fond of having antennas sticking up in the air and getting them twisted off by thunder and ice storms.

 

[mike123abc]

Both 72.7 and 77 satellites are being built now. The "older" Dish satellites are just temporary until the new satellites go up. E6 and E8 are both in good working order and do not have known major issues (all satellites have some minor issues that is why they tend to have 2-3 backups of systems, cannot fix it in space).

Dish will probably be announcing the E3 replacement (via the usual some company bragging about getting the contract to build).

With the loss of E2 and AMC-14 Dish is now very low on backup capacity. They really only have E1 left as a backup. Of course one could view having 2 "arcs" as a backup system running in the sky.

 

[makado]

I am a new Dish customer in Marin county in SF Bay area with installation scheduled for this Sunday. I was told by the salesman that I should be getting the new Eastern arc dish. Will it work for us on the west coast?

 

[navychop]

That's a definite maybe.

Also, EA is for new customers. It will eventually be offered to current subs that want it. No plans to move folks wholesale to EA.

 

[Laddyboy]

I am a new Dish customer in Marin county in SF Bay area with installation scheduled for this Sunday. I was told by the salesman that I should be getting the new Eastern arc dish. Will it work for us on the west coast?

You can probably see the EA sats from there but I'd be surprised if you're getting an EA install as it's supposed to be limited to a few DMAs at the beginning. See here:

http://www.satelliteguys.us/attachment.php?attachmentid=27638&d=1218129927

 

[levibluewa]

I'd also be surprised if you get the new EA setup. Anyway, if the 129 subject comes up be sure they put up a separate dish (preferrably a 24" one) directed at the 129 sat. Otherwise you might only be enjoying your HD programming 55 minutes out of an hour! If you can hit the 61.5 do so.

 

[navychop]

Sales guys go to the same training as CSRs? :haha