Will Snoopy Dance today?

[vegassatellite]

Ciel-2 will only have 16 CONUS TPs. I believe that is effectively one more than they have now (given the local HD goes to spot). While Ciel-2 will improve signal, I don't see it as a huge HD boost; just 7 more spaces. Next bandwidth boost I see coming in Echostar 14 to 119, but that's a year or more away.

I'm thinking they might be waiting for Feb. to justify a big price increase, not to mention avoid giving stuff away to us HD Absolute customers.

According to The List! many of the ConUS transponders on E5 at 129 are serving LiL channels. The manufacturer of Ciel-2 states it will serve 100 local markets with 145 spots. So, many of the current ConUS transponders will be freed up when those stations move to spots. Also, this is a pretty powerful satellite, much more powerful than E5 so they should be able to run with a tighter FEC similar to how they did it with E11.