[Guest]

Well it looks like the number of pizza providers could shrink.

Shaw has put Star Choice up for sale.

The heavy hitters from Motorola met with BCE (Expressvu's parent) last week.

Expressvu then made a bid to match an offer from either Videotron or Scientific Atlanta for Star Choice.

Expressvu is looking at killing 3 birds with 1 stone here.

a) get rid of competitor
b) get rid of hacked Nagravision
c) reduce debt by selling NIMIQ fleet to Charlie.

Under the BCE plan, over a period of 3 years, all Expressvu customers would move to Star Choice/Motorola system. They would be given new receivers and Edishes capable of receiving Ku from 4 Anik satellites.

Charlie and BCE would do straight swap with Charlie getting NIMIQ1 and Expressvu getting either a C/ku or ku Galaxy satellite to relocate to 114.3.

BCE would then lease NIMIQ 2 @ 91 to anyone who wants it.

 

[bryan27]

So if Charlie gets Nimiq 1 at 83 and/or leases Nimiq 2 at 91 then we really don't need a D/E merger. If the merger goes through the FCC would never approve NE (New E*) to operate 148,119,110,101,91,83,&61.5

Depending on how quickly things go the FCC could force E* to divest itself of 83 if it is aquired after the merger is approved (if approved). If aquired before the merger decision the FCC could just reject the merger.

This could be a positive move for SES if their 105.5 slot is not approved. They could simply buy 83 off of Chrarlie and lease or buy 91.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Charlie would be better off with 91, this way he could get all 4 sats (91, 101, 110 and 119) all on one Dish. Of course I guess he could get 83 too if he had 91.

 

[jmeluni]

This is great news for *E subscribers such as myself. If Charlie does get Nimiq1 and 2, no matter which way the merger goes we'll get the extra capacity needed for the additional LIL stations and other additional channels. I do however, still hope the merger is approved.

 

[TNGTony]

Wait a minute? 91° is a canadian location according to international treaty, not a US satellite location. Charlie may be able to buy it to offer canadian service, but ai don't see how he could provide service to the US with it.

Did I miss something?

See ya
Tony

 

[Jacob S]

Who would get all of those extra expressvu receivers? Hopefully they wont junk them but that they could at least sell them for cheap for use with Dish Network or for SkyAngel or something. It would be nice to offer each person wanting Sky Angel a system for free or very cheap for signing up for service, just an install charge in which I would do it for cheap just to help out myself. Even the parts could be handy for what we use now here in the U.S.

 

[mnassour]

Oh yea, right. Like the CRTC would approve THIS one!

 

[Jacob S]

Sounds like they got the idea from a Dish/Direct merger that we have here.

 

[Guest]

Bell Expressvu recievers should be backwards compatable with KU band satellites such as the ones used for Star Choice. Consider proof of this, with Echostar using the 129 Degree satellite for Philly.

I sure hope Bell doesn't abandon the 91 Degree slot, as they got a really nice system right now!!!

 

[Guest]

DirectTV tried to offer service early on in Canada, but CRTC blocked it. I seem to remember that the satellite/locations must be owned by a Canadian company. They might be able to lease space, but CRTC would have some say on the issue. CRTC is equivalent to FCC in Canada.

 

[Jacob S]

So why dont other program providers have satellites up that are medium power that uses something that is like the one at 129 to compete with Dish? They would have to swap out dishes though, those lnbf's are not backwards compatable are they? Its not circular polarization is it for starchoice?

 

[bryan27]

Tony, have you forgotten that the FCC approved that DBS locations issued to other countries could be used for domestic US service provied that the other country grants permission The FCC and CRTC have already approved Anik E1 at 118.7 for US Domestic use.

I think the CRTC will grant E* the slot with conditions. Such as a French language service which is no problem just put all the internationals at 91 and you have TV-5 and RFI as a French service. The FCC will probably approve the slot for US use. 83 would be much easier to get approved with CRTC as there is no service and never has had service there.

Jacob, basically the program providers owning their own satellite is relatively new here in the US. We still(with the exception of D* and E*) have a multi-tiered system. A company builds, launches and maintains a satellite, then the program provider rents space on the satellite.

There are competitors up in the FSS KU-Band. These providers mostly compete with E* in international programming. Telestar 5 at 97w has PIT with 2 TPs, GlobeCast with 4 TPs, and Arab Choice, C Sky Net, ABS/CBN, and TIS with 1 TP each. 6 providers at 1 location. Another provider on the FSS KU-Band is Paquete Digital RTVE on Hispasat at 30w which offers a 23 channel Spanish service to the Eastern US. Arab Choice also has an alternate package on NSS-7 at 21.5 available to the Eastern US.

 

[Jacob S]

There is also some competition called HITS or WSNET or something like that in the ku band using a primestar sized dish with a skew using two satellite slots with two lnbf's (looks like a bigger directv para todos dish).

 

[Guest]

Originally posted by cacruden
DirectTV tried to offer service early on in Canada, but CRTC blocked it. I seem to remember that the satellite/locations must be owned by a Canadian company.

DirecTV, in partnership with Power Corp. of Montreal, received a DBS licence for Canada at least 2 years before the Expressvu and Star Choice companies were formed.

The licence was the same essentially as the ones SC/Expressvu have now. DirecTV refused to abid by CRTC Canadian content regulations so they never used the licence.

They found it much more profitable to participate in a grey market instead.

 

[dlsnyder]

Originally posted by METRO25
Bell Expressvu recievers should be backwards compatable with KU band satellites such as the ones used for Star Choice. Consider proof of this, with Echostar using the 129 Degree satellite for Philly.

I sure hope Bell doesn't abandon the 91 Degree slot, as they got a really nice system right now!!!

My understanding of this is that the E*-built equipment and the encryption system that goes along with it is one of the things they want to get rid of. The VCII system is more secure than Nagravision and I don't think E* receivers are capable of handling it.

 

[dishrich]

The satellite itself has NOTHING to do with whether a certain receiver will work - it has EVERYTHING to do with what digital encoding system a programmer uses. Many satellites have multiple digital systems up on the same bird. And there is no way E* equipment would be compable with SC, since the DigicipherII system SC uses is proprietary & not even DVB based.

Seeing how (not) well E* equipment works in comparison to DCII, I can totally understand why they'd want to retain the SC boxes...

 

[Jacob S]

Has anybody broke into the Digicypher II boxes yet getting channels they are not supposed to receive or are they completely hack free? That would be a good reason for them to switch although if they did switch over to the new standard they might try to break into the new system more or if there is already a break in the system i would be more publically known which may be bad as well considering that they have no cards to swap to combat the piracy if it would occur.

They could add a card to the slot though right? Or is there a card for a slot in the board or could they switch the boards? Or would they even have to switch boards/add a card to combat piracy if it would occur?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Jacob,

As far as I know the DC-II Datastream has not been compromised in any way that I know of. Of course I don't think up untill now anyone has really tried hacking it, however if a large userbase is switched to it, you can bet people are going to work really hard on breaking it.

 

[Jacob S]

Thats just like this merger with Dish and DirecTv, even if they do go to a new encryption method there are going to be 2-3 times as many people trying to work on the same stream therefore a lot more likely for it to be broken and it is just a matter of time until it is done, the question is how long.