Sky Angel Satellites

[teneightyp]

What's the deal with acquiring the satellites from this company. Did Echostar own this company? How many satellites are there? If they are additional satellites isn't that like launching new satellites and having more bandwidth all of a sudden? Wouldn't that make the loss of AMC-14 less critical? Thanks!

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Dish did not aquire any satellites from Sky Angel, Sky Angel used transponder space on the Dish Network owned satellite.

 

[teneightyp]

Thanks!

 

[TheKrell]

They gained the use of another 2 transponders, so it helps a bit. AMC-14 would have added 4 more, currently unused due to hardware failures on Echostar 3 and missing frequencies never built into Rainbow 1.

 

[JohnL]

What's the deal with acquiring the satellites from this company. Did Echostar own this company? How many satellites are there? If they are additional satellites isn't that like launching new satellites and having more bandwidth all of a sudden? Wouldn't that make the loss of AMC-14 less critical? Thanks!

Teneightyp,

Sky Angel was the name of the service provided by Dominion. Dominion is separate company and owned a license for several transponders at 61.5. Since Dominion did NOT have any satellites in Orbit they leased bandwidth from Echostar3 (Dish Networks' Satellite). In exchange for the use of the Echostar3, Dominion allowed Dish to lease back 2 transponders Dominion did not need for their service.

The contract for the use of Dish Network's Bandwidth was specific in that it was for Bandwidth from ONLY the EchoStar3 satellite. The relationship between Dominion and Dish soured over the years. With the proposed launch of AMC-14 a couple of years ago Dominion realized they would need to do something different.

Dominion knew that they would NOT be able to get a new contract with Dish for Bandwidth. Since Dominion didn't have any money for a satellite and uplink facility of their own they decided to give back their transponder licenses to the FCC. Dish requested and won these transponder licenses so Dish now owns the transponder licenses for all 32 DBS transponders at 61.5.

Dominion has since shutdown their DBS service and relaunched it into a IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) Service.

With all that said currently Dish owns two satellites at the 61.5 orbital slot, Echostar3 and Echostar12 (Formerly Rainbow1 purchased from the former Cablevision which Carried their VOOM HD DBS service). AMC14 was launched last month and experienced a premature shutdown of their Breeze-M final stage that resulted in the AMC14 satellite failing to reach its service orbit. SES Americom owns AMC-14 which was to be leased to Dish Network for service at 61.5. AMC14 was slated to replace Echostar3. Both Echostar12 and Echostar3 are operating a total of 28 transponders of the 32 available transponder because of the design of Echostar12 and failures of Echostar3 Dish was hoping to get back the use of those 4 transponders with the use of AMC14.


John

 

[Jerryinvirginia]

Dish did not aquire any satellites from Sky Angel, Sky Angel used transponder space on the Dish Network owned satellite.

Scott: thought you'd be around. What's the latest word on AMC 14? Has it smoked or still buzzing around?

 

[Smith P.]

Jerry, we have a few threads DEDICATED to AMC-14 and all its perturbations.