EchoStar Seeks $1.1 Billion in Broadband Stimulus Funding

[Scott Greczkowski]

EchoStar Seeks $1.1 Billion in Broadband Stimulus Funding

September 28, 2009 | Satellite Today | Staff Writer
http://www.satellitetoday.com/st/topnews/EchoStar-Seeks-$1-1-Billion-in-Broadband-Stimulus-Funding_32199.html

[Satellite TODAY 09-25-09] EchoStar has filed applications with the U.S. government seeking more than $1.1 billion in broadband stimulus money for several projects and partnerships, the company announced.

EchoStar formed a cooperative satellite broadband project with ViaSat Inc. to apply for $483 million in stimulus money to build a new satellite. EchoStar and ViaSat said they would each invest between $36 million and $114 million toward the spacecraft, depending on how much in stimulus money is granted to them, if any.

The satellite would provide download speeds of up to 8 megabits per second in all or parts of 20 states west of the Mississippi River, including Colorado, the application said. The project is estimated to cost $519 million and is expected to create or save 450 jobs during the satellite’s construction and another 2,650 jobs during the satellite’s 15-year life expectancy.

Read the rest at http://www.satellitetoday.com/st/to...lion-in-Broadband-Stimulus-Funding_32199.html

 

[space86]

Thank you for the news.

 

[mike123abc]

This is one I hope does not get approved. Remote areas would be better served by running fiber out. If the governent is going to be spending billions, I would want fiber. Even considering some areas may be too remote for fiber, they could get fiber to towers and allow last few miles wireless, still better than satellite.

 

[space86]

This is one I hope does not get approved. Remote areas would be better served by running fiber out. If the governent is going to be spending billions, I would want fiber. Even considering some areas may be too remote for fiber, they could get fiber to towers and allow last few miles wireless, still better than satellite.

If you are for fiber like Verizon Fios over satellite
why are you on a satellite message board?

 

[gpflepsen]

If you are for fiber like Verizon Fios over satellite
why are you on a satellite message board?

WTF does that have to do with anything?

 

[mike123abc]

If you are for fiber like Verizon Fios over satellite
why are you on a satellite message board?

This is for broadband internet access. Not satellite TV. I believe satellite TV is a great delivery method. When you have to deliver the same content everywhere satellite is ideal. Interactive internet is not well served by satellite. I much rather see Echostar use all the terrestrial bandwidth they have bought to do local internet service for the last mile than satellite. Fiber to the premises is still ideal for internet, but not always practical. Terrestrial wireless for the last mile (or miles) is much more interactive.

 

[drdroo]

I'd be in favor of this if they were going to do it with their 700mhz licenses (which for all I know they've sold off). I think it's foolish to do it with satellites. It's been long said that a satellite is the worst method for doing Internet. Anyone who has had Wildblue, Hughesnet or Starband certainly knows that rings true. There were high promises, until they crammed so many people on the sats and the service has reduced and reduced and reduced.

As far as Fiber goes - A reasonably sized rural 'city' (100K people) area can be done for ~100-150 million from what I've seen online. If that's true, 1.1 billion$ wouldn't do much on a national scale and in most cases those rural 'cities' already have competition in the form of FTTN (cable carrier) and DSL (ADSL2+, VDSL2, etc.).

The other thing is credit. We've seen them deploy FTTH here in some markets and people couldn't pass credit checks to actually subscribe. The end result was the telecom company really regretting the decision. The acquisition cost of these customers is significant, it is unwise to install somewhere that the person won't pay the following months.

Yes, I do work in rural broadband, amongst other things.

 

[foghorn2]

Socialism for Corporations and the Rich, how wonderful.

 

[Frank Jr.]

I wish that everyone had fast access but I really grow tired of this mess. Sucking off the government boob, our tax dolor. The fed is bankrupt. Quit spending money we do not have. Shame on E* for even asking.

 

[drdroo]

I'm not terribly interested in the grants because for the most part the major cell carriers seem to be getting them, like Verizon Wireless, even though they're not really offering a broadband service as much as a cell service. 5GB a month on EVDO isn't really broadband, it's just a distraction.

 

[Frank Jr.]

Socialism for Corporations and the Rich, how wonderful.

They want to tax the heck out of business and the wealthy. Who ultimately pays? The consumer. duh! I am amazed and frustrated that people do not understand that. Increase taxes on business or the wealthy who own business. Does anyone think they will lower their standard of living to support all this craziness. Nooooo! They just charge more for goods and services. So who pays.......... For E* to ask for government tax dolors is nuts as well. Shame! Greed is going to kill us all.....

 

[MikeD-C05]

Corporate Welfare.

 

[Awohar]

They want to tax the heck out of business and the wealthy. Who ultimately pays? The consumer. duh! I am amazed and frustrated that people do not understand that. Increase taxes on business or the wealthy who own business. Does anyone think they will lower their standard of living to support all this craziness. Nooooo! They just charge more for goods and services. So who pays.......... For E* to ask for government tax dolors is nuts as well. Shame! Greed is going to kill us all.....

Maybe they should spend that money on funding education in South Carolina. You misspelled "dollar" not once, but twice.

 

[Frank Jr.]

Maybe they should spend that money on funding education in South Carolina. You misspelled "dollar" not once, but twice.

OMG! at 2:41 a.m. Why don't you come on down and teach me how to spell? (or in your case up here):devil:

 

[tounces]

Okay

They want to tax the heck out of business and the wealthy. Who ultimately pays? The consumer. duh! I am amazed and frustrated that people do not understand that. Increase taxes on business or the wealthy who own business. Does anyone think they will lower their standard of living to support all this craziness. Nooooo! They just charge more for goods and services. So who pays.......... For E* to ask for government tax dolors is nuts as well. Shame! Greed is going to kill us all.....

Funny, isn't that exactly what corporations want you to think?

Really, if they were capable of simply raising their prices and still selling just as much of their product, why wouldn't they? Taxes or no taxes.

As you'll notice, Republican agenda's such as the Bush administration always seek to alleviate taxes on businesses.

And look where that got us. Worldwide recession.


Back on topic - this is actually a smart move on Echostar's part and a good usage of what the stimulus is INTENDED for, which is to increase the availability of broadband internet to the most amount of people possible. It may not be as GOOD as fiber, but the idea here is quantity, and you can't get much more far-reaching than an orbital satellite.

 

[aklarvanto]

I don't like companies who take money from Government. There is always strings attached to it. Obama will take over ISPs they provide money to and tell them what content will be "safe" and "appropriate" on their networks. If EU ideas are followed here too by current administration, individual websites (like this) need to be licenced and if not, their content is not acceptable. Bye bye small content providers who will not get "licensed" because government has need to keep your children safe online.

Echostar, please stay away... :rant::rant:

I feel better now...LOL...

 

[tounces]

I don't like companies who take money from Government. There is always strings attached to it. Obama will take over ISPs they provide money to and tell them what content will be "safe" and "appropriate" on their networks. If EU ideas are followed here too by current administration, individual websites (like this) need to be licenced and if not, their content is not acceptable. Bye bye small content providers who will not get "licensed" because government has need to keep your children safe online.

Echostar, please stay away... :rant::rant:

I feel better now...LOL...

Last I checked America does not own the internet, so even if Obama wanted to censor it, it would be an impossible task.

What would be the point of restricting certain specific ISPs when they have no control at all over the rest of them? That's like throwing a few rocks into a river in hopes of damming it up.

I mean come on, if China, a country that has basically full power over it's people, can't manage to control the internet within their own country, how the heck would the US ever manage to do it?

Besides which, remember the presidents school speech? Last I recall the GOP was fully in support of censoring that.

 

[aklarvanto]

By licensing....man have you ever watched Euronews? It has been big deal in europe to control content on the Internet. I didin't want this to become a big political issue, but fact is; all you need to do is to put websites into same category as radio stations, license them and you know what that means. Did you know in EU, 99% of ISPs are blocking port 80 by default? That happens to be HTTP = website path to run personal server on the Internet. I'm not saying this WILL happend here in US, but since I am european immigrant, I know what I'm talking about.

 

[aklarvanto]

I think this discussion should be moved to political forum....I'm done..

 

[NotMe546]

Socialism for Corporations and the Rich, how wonderful.

Can you say Corporate Welfare.

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_welfare"]Corporate welfare - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]


I missed that Mike beat me to it.