Ergen's broadband satellite Net service

1713 Views 4 Replies 4 Participants Last post by Jacob S, May 3, 2002

Scott Greczkowski

Discussion Starter · May 1, 2002

Ergen's broadband satellite Net service

The founder of Echostar Communications (DISH: news, chart, profile) said he's prepared to spend $2 billion over the next two years to deliver high-speed Internet service from space. Appearing at a satellite industry convention in New York, Ergen said his plan for $30 a month broadband is contingent on the government's approval of his company's acquisition of Hughes Electronics Corp. (GMH: news, chart, profile) and its DirecTV unit. Without combining the satellite operations, and their communications spectrums, Ergen said his plan would fail. "Even if we could technically do it, there's no way to economically do it," he said, according to the report by Bloomberg.

Reposted from
CBS Marketwatch

Save

Status: Not open for further replies.

1 - 5 of 5 Posts

· #2 · May 2, 2002

What I don't get is how he plans to get it to scale. At $30 a month even with the latency problem it's definitely going to be a steal for the 80% of people out there that still can't get cable or DSL and it's probably going to be a steal even for some of those people, since they are paying $10 to $20 more right now for their service.
So at that price (if it's not a bunch of BS), you are definitely going to see a lot of people flocking to this service and I just don't know how it's going to be able to take care of them technically - there is very limited bandwidth out there for uplink and downlink. Does anyone have any ideas?

Save

Adam Richey

· #3 · May 2, 2002

I'm surprised we haven't seen anybody post that they shouldn't waste space on that internet junk. They need to add more programming! Hehe. I guess I'm that guy.

Save

AllieVi

· #4 · May 2, 2002

I think Charlie is simply using the promise of $30/mo satellite internet as a way to rally folks to his side of the proposed merger. D*'s satellite internet service is expanding worldwide, but I haven't seen its price drop. I don't believe economy of scale applies to satellite internet the way it does in the broadcast-only system since each additional internet subscriber requires additional satellite and frequency resources.

Charlie invested a lot of money in StarBand with the expectation that it would be a money-maker and he was very wrong. Optimistic cost per subscriber estimates I've seen to deliver the service are way above the $30 Charlie promises. I don't think we should believe his promises now. Many other broken promises come to mind (4700 upgrade schedule, 721 release, etc.).

The merger is a high priority for E*. I wouldn't be surprised to hear a claim that Charlie will bring peace to the Middle East if it's approved...

See less See more

Save

Jacob S

· #5 · May 3, 2002

I heard Charlie and others on a chat say that they were also going to have a smaller dish for the internet by satellite as well to transmit and receive the signal, about as small as the dishes currently being used. This would lower the cost, be easier to set-up, and take up less space, and still be able to use one dish for video and internet services. They could set-up screens that tell you if you are positioned right to transmit signals and make the installation easier and also make it to where it will not transmit unless it is within the allowed range to prevent interference to the other satellites.

Dish is probably going to say that it is a bundled deal with video services and you get it for $30 if you subscribe to the video service as well. Either that or they could make it cheaper than $30 if you subscribe to video services which would make it a killer deal especially if it was on a smaller dish. They could also make a lease deal which is affordable if they can get the price down on the hardware.

See less See more

Save

1 - 5 of 5 Posts

Status: Not open for further replies.

Top Contributors this Month