Uplink Activity Report - 8/6/2008 2:02pm - 488 changes
- Thread starter DigiSAT Uplink Report
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So is E* going to provide HD LiLs on 72.7 and/or 77 in addition to 61.5 for the EA?
Not necessarily.
61.5 has a big spot beam satellite that allows E* to add lots of HD Locals.
72.7 and 77 add all the other channels normally found on 110 and 119, so that people with their HD locals on 61.5 do not have to have two dishes.
No. My point was that given the condition of Dish's sats a single dish solution seems a bit risky
There are no known problems with either EchoStar 6 or EchoStar 8. they were both replaced by satellites with more spot beams or higher power.
So, there is no reason to think that Eastern Arc will have any more likelihood of a failure than any other satellite slots.
I would like to know what the 77 satellite will be used for ? I know that 72.7 is loaded up with all the sd channels in mpeg 4 that takes up the conus beam 110/119 satellites. Will they use 77 for internationals possibly? That would leave 61.5 for all hd and spotbeam locals . Also the 77 satellite is for Mexico unless they negotiate a deal like they did for 129 with Canada.
TalonDancer asked why the big rush to get Eastern Arc in place. mike123abc rsponded: "EA is a rush because currently it is the only way Dish can add HD LiLs at this time. And, they have to have a single dish solution to compete." I understand the desire for a single dish solution but don't get the LiL angle for EA and still don't. LiLs were already being lit up on 61.5 without EA, so unless LiLs are going to placed on the new EA satellites as well as 61.5, I don't see how EA does anything for adding LiLs.
I believe the E-6 satellite has had some failures that only allow 25 TPs to be used in regular power mode or 11 or 12 in high powered mode. Dish stated in their FCC filing in moving E-6 to 72.7 W that they would only use 11 TPs there initially out of the 16 odd TPs available. Dish will have use of 16 TPs at 72.7 W when the Nimiq 5 satellite gets launched there in the second half of 2009. I have speculated at that time that E-6 will be moved over to 61.5 W at that time to help E-3. Since E-3 can not provide programming from 4 TPs, if Dish does this, they will gain those 4 TPs plus the other 5 TPs at 72.7 W for an additional 9 TPs for the Eastern Arc.
Currently the E-12 satellite is using both its spotbeam and CONUS beam on various TPs at 61.5 W. The Eastern Arc plan should allow Dish to move some of the national programming to one of the other Eastern Arc slots freeing up more TPs on E-12 for locals on its spotbeams.
But what about the missing spot beam for Indy, Cincy, Louisville and Lexington? Three of those are top 50 markets
Dish will have 2 satellites doing HD locals on spot beams. 61.5 E12 (formerly Rainbow 1) will be doing spot beam local HD channels for the "Eastern Arc". Ceil-2 being launched somewhere around the end of the year will be doing spot beam local HD channels for the "Western Arc".
Dish has some HD locals on 110 spot beams where there was extra capacity (which I see no reason for them to change), and some on 118.7. I expect the 118.7 locals will move to 129 once Ceil-2 is up. Since people with a 118.7 dish for HD locals already point at 129, the change will be seamless. Then they should have more capacity to move internationals off of 61.5 to 118.7.
Ceil-2 and E12 will probably have overlap in cities allowing installers a choice of which way to point a dish. I expect this will be the case in mostly larger DMAs east of the Rockies since E12 does not have a lot of capacity out west and there are poor look angles out there. Also the NE will probably have no choice but to point to the EA. Some of the larger markets will have a choice, some will not, if they have satellite capacity it really does not cost Dish anything to serve from 2 directions.
Yes some people will probably have to have 2 dishes in the long run. It will be a small minority, which are special cases, like have locals on EA but watch internationals from 118.7.
They started adding HD Locals to 61.5 before Eastern Arc was ready (in order to be more competitive in those markets), thereby requiring two dishes (one for 61.5 and one for 110/119).
Eastern Arc allows a single dish for all those markets whose HD Locals are on 61.5.
