Initial sales of EchoStar’s Hughes Communications’ new high-speed satellite broadband...
Initial sales of EchoStar’s Hughes Communications’ new high-speed satellite broadband service are “very encouraging” and it has gained “positive reaction” from subscribers, EchoStar CEO Michael Dugan said on a conference call. HughesNet Gen4 launched Oct. 1 delivering up to 15…
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Mbps/2 Mbps download/upload speeds with the top-end package carrying a $99 monthly fee. The entry-level 10 Mbps/1 Mbps download/upload is priced at $49. The service, delivered from the EchoStar-17 satellite at 107.1 degrees west, is being sold through Dish Network dealers. HughesNet ended Q3 with 616,000 subscribers, down from 626,000 a year earlier. “The initial rollout is very promising and we are pleased with the new orders” Hughes has received and “the number of sites that have been activated,” Hughes Communications President Pradman Kaul said. EchoStar is in discussions with “several” potential partners for a DTH service that would operate from a 45 degrees west orbital slot it secured with an $80 million bid approved by Brazil’s telecommunications regulator Anatel. EchoStar also invested $32 million in equity in a Dish Digital Holding venture formed with Dish Network in July, the company said. EchoStar, which owns 33 percent of the venture, also contributed $37 million in assets including the video streaming service Move Networks, which it acquired in 2011. Move championed adaptive bit rate technology that seamlessly adjusted the quality of a video stream to match the bandwidth available on a network. EchoStar had a $22.5 million Q3 profit, vs. a $19.1 million loss a year earlier as revenue declined to $764.7 million from $863.1 million. The downturn was partly tied to a decrease in Dish-related revenue to $256.9 million from $339.2 million amid a slowdown in set-top box shipments in Q3, company officials said. EchoStar had increased set-top shipments in the first half, including those of Dish’s new Hopper DVR/satellite receiver, and this “resulted in high inventory at our customer,” said Dugan, presumably referring to Dish, which accounts for about 50 percent of EchoStar’s revenue. The Hopper also was built at lower hardware cost, contributing to the downturn in revenue, he said. EchoStar will gradually add features to Hopper to increase revenue, the first of which will appear in early 2013, President Mark Jackson said. EchoStar’s equipment revenue, which includes sales to Bell Canada and Dish Mexico -- a Dish-MDC Communications joint venture -- fell to $143.7 million from $151.6 million. Dish Mexico is said to have about 2.5 million subscribers in Mexico. Services and other revenue declined 5.3 percent to $234 million as Hughes sales decreased by $16 million, EchoStar said.