satellite

Verizon Puts the Move on Video

February 6, 2012

After Verizon's CFO sais that FiOS was a poor economic decision for the company, I would think video would not be on the VZ radar. The FiOS TV service is so expensive to deliver that Frontier raised rates over 70% when it took over former VZ FiOS territory -- and then decided to switch all the TV over to DBS.

Comcast buying NBCU was a little different, but cablecos have owned channels before, especially sports channels (MSG, YES, BayNews9).

Maybe the TV-cord-cutting crowd is scaring the cablecos, despite the rhetoric to The Street. Content is expensive to license and to deliver. And getting more expensive all the time.

Posted in cableco, cellular, duopoly, satellite, spectrum, telco, video, wireless, wireline

The Cellular Battle

November 28, 2011

I don't mean the AT&T-T-Mobile merger, although that is just one battle in the war for cellular supremacy. (Other battles are Sprint with Clearwire, Sprint with the cablecos and the MVNO model.)

"Former T-Mobile CMO Denny Post says carriers should focus on retention, rather than relentless promotions aimed at new sign-ups." Post says that it is the end of the New-to-Wireless Customer Era and that cellcos must re-think customer care.

Post continues, "It is going to become an absolute competitive scrap battle, [because] any customer is going to have to come from somewhere else."

This isn't just the cellular market. Look at broadband, landlines, cable TV, voice - all flat.

While VoIP revenues are increasing, it is because TDM revenue is decreasing. Hosted UC or Hosted PBX sales are more than voice sales, but functionality, productivity, efficiency, collaboration and one-inbox.

Posted in Marketing, broadband, cellular, channel, hosted uc, sales and selling, satellite, wi-fi, wireline

DISH Grabs Spectrum, Cable Goes South

June 28, 2011

So Charter has purchased the "cable television systems from US Cable of Coastal Texas, LP serving, in aggregate, approximately 16,000 customers in Missouri, including the communities of Hannibal, Moberly and Mexico," according to The Mexico Ledger.

TDS parent, Telephone and Data Systems, Inc. announced it will acquire OneNeck IT Services for $95 million. OneNeck, generated revenues of $37 million in 2010, will be a subsidiary of TDS Hosted & Managed Services, LLC (TDS HMS). OneNeck is a hosted application management and managed IT hosting services provider, specializing in ERP apps.

Meanwhile, DISH scoops up TerreStar Networks operations and spectrum for about $1.4B out of bankruptcy court.

Posted in mergers, satellite, spectrum, video, wireless

Satellite Wants FCC Funds

April 20, 2011

Image via Wikipedia

Of course. Why shouldn't another bunch of billion dollar companies ask the federal government for money. From the Benton Foundation: "A group of satellite broadband providers -- Dish Network, EchoStar Technologies, ViaSat/Wildblue Communications and Hughes Network Systems -- told the Federal Communications Commission that they should be allowed to participate in the Connect America Fund."

What's ironic is that Hughes Communications, the holding company that operates Hughes Network Systems, was purchased by Echostar in February. Echostar owns DISH Network.

Posted in FCC, broadband, satellite

DISHing Up a Blockbuster

April 6, 2011

DISH Networks has bought Blockbuster video from bankruptcy for a bid of $320M, according to USA Today. DISH with 14 million satellite TV subscribers has rolled out Google TV enhancements and TV Everywhere, including on Android tablets. This purchase, if the BK Court approves it, might give DISH brick-and-mortar stores to sell more DISH services and Slingboxes.

This is the second asset purchase for DISH as they bought DBSD North America, Inc., a hybrid satellite and terrestrial communications company, for approximately $1 billion in February.

Looks like

DISH's parent company, ECHOSTAR, purchased Hughes Communications (NASDAQ: HUGH) for about $2 billion.

Posted in mergers, satellite, video

ILEC News

February 16, 2011

CenturyLink will be reselling VZW as an authorized agent.

Why AT&T will not be buying Echostar: Echostar has been on a tear buying up bankrupt assets of BDSD and Terrestar; then Move Networks; and now Hughes. It's too big to merge with Ma Bell. And Ma can't afford to wait over a year for that merger to be approved. Much better to strengthen the partnership to market cell/satellite bundles.

Minnesota postponed granting access to CenturyLink/Qwest merger.

National Broadband Map comes out tomorrow (2/17/2011)

Masergy, a network reseller specializing in MPLS, filed its IPO.

early Bird Special! ITEXPO Austin for just $99!

Posted in cellular, mergers, satellite, wireless

Satellite Merger

February 14, 2011

Gary Kim writes that Echostar is buying Hughes Communications Inc. A majority of Hughes is owned by investment firm, Apollo Management IV, which, according to the BizJournal already approved the deal. Of course, the FCC has to approve the deal too.

BTW, already there is a hungry lawyer in Florida ready to sue Hughes over the deal for not getting a better deal.

Echostar is in a bidding war with Phillip Falcone's Lightsquared over two bankrupt companies, BDSD and Terrestar.

Posted in broadband, channel, mergers, satellite

Satellite Spectrum is Beachfront Property

November 17, 2010

Satellite sprectrum for broadband is a polarizing topic. HughesNet, WIldBlue (ViaSat), Skyway USA, StarBand and others have launched but can't hit scale. Between rain fade and line of sight issues, there is the perception that it is not as dependable as terrestrial modes of transit. But then, not every parcel of land in America has access to terrestrial broadband.

There are latency issues with the service (due to the physical distance the packets have to travel to the satellite and back to Earth), as well as bandwidth constriction and bandwidth caps.

Echostar-9 is being used by StarBand for service; Echostar was an investor in StarBand.

Posted in FCC, Internet, bandwidth, broadband, cellular, satellite, spectrum, wireless

Losses All The Way Around

July 27, 2010

What a terrible quarter.

The FCC is playing around with Broadband - plans, definitions and classifications. The NTIA took the summer off from its task on the broadband stimulus.

Meanwhile, VZ releases its quarterly numbers as a loss due to pension payments and layoffs. It is planning more layoffs, because it has to cut head count in its wireline business to reflect the declining revenue. The spin was that VZW was counter-balancing any revenue losses, but with wholesale (pre-paid) cellular subs, not direct, contract ones.

Posted in CLEC, FCC, broadband, cellular, duopoly, satellite, sip trunking, wireline

Things are Round and Round

July 15, 2010

As one door closes, right? Well, WISPA is putting together a deal with DirecTV so that it's mainly residential wireless ISP base can grab some cash switching people from cable TV and Internet to fixed wireless internet access and satellite TV - kind of a cut the cable promotion.

It used to be that independent ISP's had to worry mainly about the ILEC, but in the residential (consumer) market, the worry is cable - Comcast, Cox, TWC, BrightHouse, CableVision and Charter.

The funny thing is that some of the MSO's are collapsing their wholesale division. Just like the ILEC's, the MSO's don't really want someone else to own the customer. So even as Charter opens up its wholesale cable modem program to FISPA members, I have to wonder how long it will be in existence.

Channel Partners Expo in Boston in 2008 when the cable guys were all lined up on a panel handing out crumbs of info about their newly developed channel program, all anyone wanted to know was how much commission and would there be an added spiff. What the agents in attendance did not hear was how this was just a test.

Posted in ISP, Internet, agents, cableco, channel, duopoly, satellite, telecommunications, wireless

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