Tps 23 and 24 at 61.5w Goodbye E* Hello Rainbow DBS

[JohnH]

From Todays FCC Daily Digest:

ECHOSTAR SATELLITE CORPORATION AND RAINBOW DBS COMPANY, LLC. Granted
Rainbow's request for special temporary authority. Denied EchoStar's
request to renew its special temporary authority. Action by: the
Commission. Adopted: 10/01/2003 by O&A. (DA No. 03-3024). IB
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-03-3024A1.doc
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-03-3024A1.pdf
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-03-3024A1.txt

[Cyclone]

I would not be surprised if more TPs from 61.5 find their way over from E* to V*. Either by FCC mandate or by lease.

[JohnH]

I would be surprised if that happened. Dominion cannot lease theirs to anybody but E* or they would lose their satellite for Sky Angel. E* is not likely to lease any to V* as they will be quite linited by the loss of 23 and 24. The FCC is not likely to change any of the licensed channels either.

[rtt2]

This is temporary for 180 Days right? I assume there will be an auction for these frequencies in the future. I think think the original auction date for these frequecies was postponed a little while ago. So if Voom or Echostar want these frequencies bad enough they will be bidding on them based on their interest.

[Jacob S]

I would say that the FCC granted Voom the space because they need it a lot more than Dish does, seeing how many slots Dish had plus the additional space at 105 and 121 Dish has.

[EdV]

It should be interesting what E* does after the 16th.

TP 23 is being used for 8 SD channels, mostly PPV stuff. So those can be squeezed into unused space on some of the other transponders. But TP 24 is the non 8psk HD-PPV channel and takes up nearly the entire transponder.

What they might do is make the HD Demo channel 8psk and move it to the HD HD Special events channel on TP 4. Then they could move the HD-PPV to TP 16 where the HD Demo channel was.

In fact, this may have influenced the FCC's decision here. Having half a TP sitting idle most of the time and another TP running a demo loop which is primarily of interest to a limited number of dealers with showrooms and an HD set is not a very efficient use of transponder space these days.

New HD customers who will be purchasing 811/921 with the SuperDish will be all set since the HD-PPV along with HBO-HD, Showtime-HD and HD-Events are already assigned space on the 105 bird (using 8psk).

[JohnH]

While the HD stuff on 105 does require the 8PSK module, it is not 8PSK. It is QPSK with Turbo-Coded FEC.

Don't forget Discovery HD is still on Tp 4 at 61.5 and has subscribers which only have 61.5.

[EdV]

While the HD stuff on 105 does require the 8PSK module, it is not 8PSK. It is QPSK with Turbo-Coded FEC.

John, thanks for pointing this out. I didn't know that the Enhanced-HD module had Turbo-Coded FEC capability, which is relatively new technology.

8PSK modulation (using RSV FEC) achieves it's increased throughput at the expense of higher power requirements, and/or larger receive antenna. The existing 105 sat operates at a lower power level than the other sats. So it looks like E* feels they can achieve the same level of HD quality as 8PSK by using QPSK/Turbo Code along with the larger SuperDish.

And 8PSK has proven itself to me based on the excellent pq of Discovery-HD. So I'll be looking for any reports of pq degradation of HBO-HD and Showtime-HD, when subs upgrade to SuperDish.

Don't forget Discovery HD is still on Tp 4 at 61.5 and has subscribers which only have 61.5.

As well as HBO-HD and Showtime-HD

[Ken_F]

So it looks like E* feels they can achieve the same level of HD quality as 8PSK by using QPSK/Turbo Code along with the larger SuperDish.I don't think 8-PSK was an option with AMC-2. That's probably something they'll try again once AMC-15 is up.

They have about 3.5-4.0Mbps less per 105 transponder (36MHz) than they have per 8PSK transponder (27MHz) on 61.5/110/148, but this may suffice so long as they mate the right channels on each transponder. At the DBS slots, Dish can put just about any two HD channels they want per 8PSK transponder with bandwidth to spare; at 105, they'll need to pick and choose to get channels to fit without extra compression, and it looks like they are able to do that with the channels up now. Whether they'll be able to do that with future HD channels remains to be seen.

[JohnH]

Well, they have vacated Tps 23 and 24 and what you see is what you get. :)