LIL for everyone

[Bob Haller]

Lets talk about how Charlie could get LIL to the entire country. For the moment lets ignore whether its profitable, lets just think about the technical end.

If northpoint is successful he could bid on his already existing frequencies and use them for ground based locals in some areas.
This would put a roadblock in their way another bonus for charlie. Besides could E just reuse the frequences anyway? I mean can the FCC demand $ from dish to use the slots in a different fashion? I dont like the idea, because of interference just wondering aloud...


How about buying cablevisions 61.5 slots and spot beam bird they supposedly ordered? Any chance of using a multi sot dish for smaller east coast LILs?

How about using the western slots that are presently vacant to add a bunch of citys?

Even given public statements to the contrary I think LIL is going to come to nearly everywhere even those tiny markets.

I suspect E could decimate any small town cable system offerings by just putting up the DMA.


Picture a tiny cable operator trying to compete with 30 channels against Charlie. They would be decimated.

I think small DMAs have a chance because the take rate for the entire service will be huge....

[JavaJohnson]

There is one approach that would be feasible now, and is in fact utilized on the HD receiver, I think.

The receivers should have an optional module to buy that will tune OTA channels and place them into your channel lineup just like they were coming from the dish. I am sure Dish can get the channel guide information for all these local channels. If the unit is a PVR unit, the receiver should be able to work like a starndard Tivo, recording the OTA broadcasts as if they were part of the Mpeg stream.

The switch from OTA broadcasts to Dish broadcasts should be seamless, e.g. no having to press the tv/video button on the tv to switch to the TV tuner.

They could even market this as a transition box in the future as the OTA module could decode the DTV broadcasts and could still be viewed on a SD tv. Most non-HD tvs now a days can produce very good picture as most have capabilities above standard tv broadcast (500-550 lines of resoultion is fairly standard now for tvs, I think)

Will the 921 box do this? It seems that the 6000 series box does most of this functionality already.

--Mark

[jeffwtux]

How many of these "small time cable companies" and such are there anymore? Sometimes, they have the best deals, even in rural America. Then you might have commutity participation which always leads to awesome features. My city is about to be reverse conglomeratized. We are going to be sold off by Time Warner, back to the mom-n-pop cable company that had us originally, and we are a wealthy INNER suburb of Detroit.

[Bob Haller]

I am thinking more of rural america where big cable doesnt serve because the popuation density is too low.

[bryan27]

I don't know. Some small cable systems may be killed, but some will thrive. LIL laws are going to have to be changed to allow significantly viewed stations to be offered in the LIL package.

Locally:

Marshall County Cable at $20/mo for 37 channels and several of those available only if you get AT-100. Many may be hard pressed to pay more per month with E*. This system will survive.

Beech Cable, I have to wonder why they are still around they only offer 7 channels and all are OTA.
They will survive only because it costs nearly nothing to keep it going, the monthly rate is $0, and all you have to pay for is installation.

Centre TV Inc, with 47 channels they have a killer line up, lower price, multiplex HBO, & 11 OTA channels.

Blue Devil Cable, 27 channels, though they have a low price their service is crap. I could see E* killing it.

Bocco Cable, I could see them going away with their 22 channel line-up, but they do offer channels like Good Life that isn't on either provider.

Bellaire TV Cable, this system will never go away if E* offers LIL, and very few from this system of 98 channels would want to go with E*. Their locals line up is the best around and I would switch from DBS to them if they went past the house. This is the OTA channels carried and there is no way E* can compete with that!

KDKA(CBS)Pittsburgh
WDLI(TBN)Canton
WTAE(ABC)Pittsburgh
WTRF(CBS)Wheeling
WPGH(FOX)Pittsburgh
WTOV(NBC)Steubenville
WQED(PBS)Pittsburgh
WFMJ(NBC)Youngstown
WCWB(WB)Pittsburgh
WVPX(PAX)Akron
WNPB(PBS)Morgantown
WKBN(CBS)Youngstown
WYTV(ABC)Youngstown
WUAB(UPN)Lorain
WOUC(PBS)Cambridge
WNPA(UPN)Jeanette

Bob, I think you have forgotten (or didn't know) that small rural cable systems that have 1000 or less subscribers have benefits for being small and local. They don't have to negotiate station carriage, can carry any available OTA signals, and aren't subject to blackouts. E* could never compete with LIL offerings on some small systems.

[Chris Freeland]

One additional up-link center and one additional spotbeam satellite at 110 and one more at 119 might do the trick. If my math is correct the addition of a third up-link center would allow for an additional 38 frequencies at 110 and an additional 21 frequencies at 119 for a total of 59 additional frequencies, thus more then double the current spotbeam capacity. Since most of the remaining dma's not currently on E* have fewer stations then the larger ones, this extra capacity may just be enough. To reduce costs E* and D* could agree to share POP's and up-link centers while each dbs provider would still put up their own satellites in their own formats.

[raj2001]

Originally posted by Bob Haller
Picture a tiny cable operator trying to compete with 30 channels against Charlie. They would be decimated.

Which is why I am soooo glad the merger didn't go through. Charlie would have instantly become a huge, evil monopoly.

[Mike123abc]

If cost was not an issue Echostar could simply put 2 spot satellites up, one at 61.5 and one at 148 and provide LIL to every DMA. They do not need any additional frequencies. It would take them about 10 frequencies from each slot. They would essentially have to be super spot satellites like the one they proposed for 110 (new echostar 1) with 5x reuse on frequencies. They would also have to build 2 more uplink centers to be able to get this many spots up to the satellite.

If cost were no object, Echostar could put up enough satellite capacity on the wings to do the top 50 DMAs in HDTV. Echostar has a lot of frequency capacity would just take a new set of powerful spot satellites to get it used to the max. Extra costs would include more uplink sites, and new boxes for reception of HDTV using 256QAM (same format cable uses).

[Bob Haller]

Mike thats fine but unfortunately 2 dishes just dont sell. Whatever happens it would have to be on a 500 like dish.

[Chris Freeland]

Mike, by simply putting up one new up-link center would allow one additional spotbam satelite at 110 and 119 re-useing the same 5 down-link frequencies currently being used. Those 59 frequencies I spoke of in previous post were up link frequencies which add up to the total amount of additional frequencies the two orbital slots will support with one additional up-link center. With your proposal not only would it require a 2-dish solution, if you used 5 down-link frequencies each at 61.5 and 148 for spotbrams, the total number of frequencies would be 22 at 61.5 and 30 at 148 for a grand total of only 52 frequencies. I am not sure if those 30 at 148 would do anyone any good because E* already has the spotbeams to carry almost all of the dma's in the West now. The only advantage to placing spotbeam satellites at 61.5 and 148 is that no additional up-link facilities would be necessary, it could be done with the current up-link centers.