Echostar Earnings Call Transcript

[Scott Greczkowski]

Here is a complete transcript of today's Echostar Earnings Call (Not Dish Network) with Charlie Ergen and company.

EchoStar Corporation Q2 2008 Earnings Call Transcript - Seeking Alpha

 

[nelson61]

Good stuff in here.

Most important to me was the sleeper concerning Ciel 2. The Canadian gov has said they will not let Ciel lease over 50 percent of capacity to Dish until after launch date. But quoting from the transcript " We have a satellite being launched by a Canadian company in the fourth quarter of this year that we have leased all the capacity on." If true, Dish has picked up all 32 transponders which is great news for the west. Great news for

Next, they explained that the new cards are being phased in by market segment and will be activated when each market sub has their new card-- probably means they will segment by things like internationals, sex, sports, etc. They say the switches will probably start turning after the first of the year.

They will no longer be selling MPEG2 boxes sometime in 2009 and expect phase out of MPEG2 in 3-5 years.

Expect to launch one satellite per year with 10 in the fleet.