Interesting E* FCC Filing

mdonnelly

Supporting Founder
Original poster
Supporting Founder
Aug 26, 2004
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Mustang, OK
Charlie is spelling out the separation of assets in his proposal to split E* into two companies, and he's requesting expedited approval from the FCC.

See here.
 
You gotta love this line...

"The separate companies will be freed to pursue opportunities and compete more intensively in their respective markets, which in turn will lead to more consumer choice, better quality services, and lower prices."

Sounds like we consumers will have more programming choices, better/cheaper hardware, and will be paying less for our AT100, AT200, AT250 programming packs. However, if you read betwen the lines...

"The separate companies will allow Charlie Ergen to hold all the cards while pursuing the sale of low profit margin Dish Network to AT&T because they are so desperate for video marketshare due to their U-Verse disaster. Charlie will still be able to schlock his overpriced Dish Network receivers made in Mexico, and the only cost savings the consumer will see is a small reduction in next years planned 10% rate hike.":rolleyes:
 
Does this have more to do with finding more bandwith or selling the company.- Or both??
 
Does this have more to do with finding more bandwith or selling the company.- Or both??

E* has never received enough credit on Wall Street for its hardware and technology business. Creating two seperate entities will solve this problem. Simple as that.
 
And how is it going to do that?

This split does not spell out how great Echostar is at making hardware.

Again it just fuels the AT&T rumors that we keep hearing.
 
What does this mean and how does it effect those of us that have dedicated dishes pointed at either 61.5 or 121?
 
E* has never received enough credit on Wall Street for its hardware and technology business. Creating two seperate entities will solve this problem. Simple as that.

They found lots of credit from a Federal Court for having infringed on TiVo's patents, so they DID get some credit for their hardware & technology, they "borrowed" (stole is such a nasty word) it. :eek:

Not the kind they wanted? :D
 
And how is it going to do that?

This split does not spell out how great Echostar is at making hardware.

Again it just fuels the AT&T rumors that we keep hearing.


Charlie has long felt that Wall Street doesn't understand the true value of ETC. Spinning off ETC into a seperate company allows this part of the business to receive more exposure on the Street. It will no longer be lost in the fray of E*'s other operations.

I don't debate that it also fuels rumors.
 
I don't debate that it also fuels rumors.
Especially when the name of the new company is Echostar HOLDING Corp.

Who are they holding it for? :)

Of course these AT&T rumors have been very good for Dish Network stock, so even if they are not planning on selling they can continue to ride the rumor wave as it helps the value of the company stay up.
 
The short answer is: the owners of the holding company.

"Holding Company" is a very common name. It is almost the "Default" name in a situation like this.

our firm has two pieces that operate, and a "holding Company" that is the sole shareholder in the operating companies. The partners own the Holding company, not the operating units. Sears is set up the same way with Sears Holding owning both Sears and Kmart.

It does make it easier to sell one of the operating units, although there are a lot of other reasons for setting things up that way. Among other reasons, it limits liability if one of the operating units is sued. It can shield one from the liability of the other.

There also could be financial reasons in the way of the kinds of loans that one company takes out. For example, A stand-alone satellite company would be very capital intensive: They spend big bucks to launch a satellite and then they take in payments over a long time to make the money back.

A stand alone Dish Network, no so much. They take in cash every month and would make payments to programmers and the Satellite provider on the same basis. If it were separate, almost none of its costs would be capital.

This would probably almost immediately increase the valuation of both entities, I would think.

Another advantage would be that you would thik Dish competitors would be more likely to buy things from Echostar if the two companies were separate. Settop boxes, in particular. Why would Comcast make it's own boxes when they could by them? Now they won't because Dish is a competitor.

This has happened in the auto industry. Delco used to be owned by GM. At that time they did some business with other automakers, but not much. Now that they are separate from GM, they do a lot more, although most of their business is still with GM.

Also, it would make it easier to start a new DBS service. Echostar could almost make it turnkey.

This is getting more interesting.
 
It does paint the picture that 61.5/77/86 are going to be a different service, it would not be that hard to make a single dish solution for this. But, interestingly it gives AK and HI the boot. It would not be an 18" solution, but closer in size to 1000. With spots on E8 at 86 and spots on R1/E12 at 61.5, they could realistically cover most major markets under spots and have a huge amount of bandwidth.

Question is why would someone want to buy the old system? I guess they are looking for the sucker in AT&T.

They are seriously looking to have 94 TPs + 2 on STA61.5 vs the old system of 66 (50 on 119/110 + 16 (maybe more) on 129). This plus MPEG-4 will give the new system a capacity that blows away the old system, close to 2x!.

Of course the other issue is how are they going to pull this off without CIEL, E11 and AMC-14 up. Would a buyer of Dishnetwork want to have it now without 61.5 and parts of the US not able to be served in HD? This points to it being at least a year before anything happens.

In theory the new system could start now if 61.5 and E6 gets over to 86. They could run the spots on 61.5 and they can carry the entire system in MPEG4 on E3 and E6, single dish with perhaps the 4 TPs on E4 for dish alignment testing. Of course the old dish guys that need 61.5 would be hosed unless they want to go to the system