Probably just a diagnostic connection for Dish to use. When they get a receiver back in they can just plug in a network cable and diagnose what is wrong with the box. Probably a completely automated process.
I think you're missing the importance of what PLFinch is saying ...
UPnP on a dish receiver opens up ports for Dish to communicate *into* the receiver .. currently the receivers use the 5000 ~ 5100 range ... 5001 ~ 5002 being the default recommended ports for Sling *Box* .. and 5101/5102 for Sling *adatper* ...
Since the receiver itself is *listening* to 443 .... the receiver ... in a UPnP enabled home .. would have to tell the UPnP router to open up 443 on the outside, and direct it at the dish receiver's internal IP ... in my case I can easily look at the list of opened / forwarded ports and see that 443 is not mapped internally ...
The end meaning... is that Dish receivers have this opened ... its *currently* only used internally ... whether it stays that way, or is for some planned future use no one knows (yet).
Dish though ... would have *better* use, using some *other* port higher than 1023 ... since many ISP's block home users from running servers .. the *inbound* blocks would be for blocking 21, 22, 25, 80, 443 ...
ie.. if you wanted to run a server from your home internet IP connection ... you would setup apache or IIS ... and it would listen on port 80 ... ISP's block inbound calls to port 80. Not the same as an outbound call for port 80 ... or a *reply* to a port 80 network call.
that is.. if they wanted to access the receiver in such a fashion.
Thats why I agree that maybe this is some internal future product ... I would love to think it means the Sling Extender is coming .. or some other technology that would allow *internal* Sling like connections to our receivers to get access to a near HD stream across our networks.. OR that maybe it would allow receiver to receiver connections for me to watch on my 722k ... something that is on my nephew's 722k in the room upstairs.