Man, mega delay on HD coming off this Sat no mater what they do. First a few weeks of decision making, then the actual implementation, then the testing to make sure it worked. And even then won't E* want to re-negotiate everything involved with the satellite owners since the time of life will have changed? Then even more testing by E* once they are on it. Can't see all that resolving itself anytime soon. Aren't we looking at a end of year time frame at best?
Not really. They could slide it in to 61.5 and test on the TP's that Echostar3 can't transmit on anymore. Then if they wanted they could slowly transfer the load one TP at a time.