Looking at this part, it appears that this new satellite won't be giving us more bandwidth - this is only a backup or a replacement if something goes wrong? Or will having two satellites at 110 give twice as much bandwidth as before? I would assume that it is only a backup and we will have the same amount of bandwidth as before?
Newly launched satellites are almost always--in the case of DBS this has ALWAYS been the case--used to repalce the one already there and the older one is put to back-up or sent to another slot. Echo 18 will have the latest tech, and so we know it will be used as the primary.
However, more than one satellite can be co-loacted and the duties shared between the two. I believe Echo 11 (or was it another sat) was an ALL spotbeam sat designed for 110. This meant that another satellite had to simultaneously perform the CONUS duties. So, both satellites were needed for service at 110. Now, that extra capacity, including spots of the older sat provided as a back-up to SOME of the content at 110, but a back-up, indeed, better than nothing at all.
In fact, in the early years of DirecTV and Dish, DBS a single satellite was capable of only 16 transponders. If a DBS wanted to exploit the 180 degree out of phase trick to get an addtional 16 transponders for a total of 32 transponders, they needed TWO satellites co-located at the same orbiltal slot and operational at the same time. One sat handled 16 transponders and the other sat handed another 16 transponders. Over the years, the sats were capable of more power making it possible for a single satellite to handle all 32 transponders. In fact, the two biggest innovations for DBS sats have been more and more and more POWER, and MORE and MORE spotbeams, but with POWER being the key to just about everything in DBS innovation. In fact, POWER has also been the key to adding more channels to each transponder because if a DBS is going to use more compression to squeeze more data on each transponder, it, consequently, will send less Forward Error Correction which will increase the chance of key data being lost on the downlink and resulting in interrpuptions of picture and sound. To compensate for that higher risk of loss, the satellite must operate at higher power to ensure all the key data gets to your reflector and you have no interruptions in picture or sound.
FWIW, I have noticed over the years that Dish has become more and more suseptiable to "rain fade" along with the ever increasing loads of data on the sat. It is not a terrible situation by any means, but we in the house have commented "it never went out as often before." This is the compromise for more channels and services. You may notice that sometimes even during very bad storm conditions, while your national channels will be lost, you locals, if they are on a spotbeam, are often still showing fine picture and sound. This is becuase the spotbeams are operating at a higher power than the ConUS. POWER is just about EVERYTHING for satellites, DBS and all.
. Of course, if someone says "4K" in conversation, I certainly don't correct them, as I undestand that the term has stuck and is a big part of the marketing, and I understand what he means. I seem to have noticed more recent TV's being labeld as "UHD" without any "4K" reference.
