7th annual Carmel satellite confab starts Wednesday

[John Corn]

MONTEREY, Calif. -- Direct broadcast satellite service providers have been making serious inroads against cable operators, but can cable be overtaken?

This and other questions about the industry will be tackled Wednesday and Thursday at the seventh annual Carmel Group Satellite Conference, set against a picturesque Northern California backdrop.

With some analysts giving the EchoStar plan to merge with Hughes only a 20 percent chance of getting federal approval, EchoStar Chairman Charlie Ergen and DirecTV Chairman Eddy Hartenstein will take center stage. They'll be part of a group discussion about the future of satellite broadcasting in general, but investors will be listening for their latest comments on the deal.

Hugh Panero, chief executive of XM Satellite Radio, and Joe Clayton, CEO of rival Sirius Satellite, will be on hand, along with keynote speaker Leo Hindery, former TCI chief and current president of George Steinbrenner's YES Network.

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[lee635]

Hey sounds great. To me cable modems are a DBS killer. I'd turn my pizza dish into a planter tomorrow for a cool package deal on digital cable with a cable modem!

[Scott Greczkowski]

I think many folks feel this way Lee. I love my cable modem.

Digital Cable could be a killer application but its not ready for primetime yet.

Almost all the Digital Boxed out there don't even have Dolby Digital outputs on them yet (even though the boxes have a Dolby Digital Logo on the front of them) No channels are carried on Digital Cable in Dolby Digital. The channels Digital Cable carries is all filler channels, but hey you do get 40 channels of PPV. And I didnt even mention HDTV. :)