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Dish Network has been contacting current subscribers to the HD Absolute Package and notifying them that it is being discontinued.
Dish Network had stopped offering the HD Absolute Package to new subscribers years ago.
Statistics: Posted by A_Z_A — Wed Aug 11, 2010 2:35 pm
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ISRO has lost two of its satellites earlier -- Chandrayaan in 2009 and INSAT-2D in 1997 -- and INSAT-4B partially now.
A big setback to the space agency, which is trying to get a foothold in the global communications satellite building market is the failure of the W2M satellite co-built by ISRO and EADS Astrium for Eutelsat Communications in January.
"It seems the culprit is imported components for satellite power systems. The Chandrayaan satellite was lost due to power problems in an imported component. It seems the culprit is the imported components used in supplying power to the satellites," an ISRO official told IANS over phone on condition of anonymity.
The DC to DC converter in the Chandrayaan satellite failed, which in turn heated up other components/equipments and stopped their functioning, ultimately forcing ISRO to junk the mission well ahead of its planned life of two years.
Another ISRO official, on condition of anonymity, said: "The component is imported as its size is small whereas the Indian built one is bigger. In space, every additional gram is important. The problem with INSAT-4B may not be connected to DC to DC converter and it is similar to the problem that afflicted W2M satellite."
The 3.4-tonne W2M, the heaviest built by ISRO, launched by Ariane5 rocket from French Guyana in December 2008, developed a problem in its power supply sub-systems when it was being transferred to its intended orbit from the test orbit and Eutelsat later said the satellite is not available for service.
According to ISRO, the problem with INSAT-4B is a power anomaly in one of the satellite's two solar panels and six Ku-Band and six C-Band transponders were switched off so that there is power for the remaining 12 transponders (six Ku-Band and six C-Band).
ISRO officials said the agency imports the solar cells to make the solar panels that supply power to the satellite.
Queried about ISRO tightening its quality control processes, an official said the agency is now focusing on the component quality.
For ISRO, loss of satellites means loss of revenue opportunities - that is higher than the cost of satellite and the rocket that launched it.
Now eyes are on the successful operation of the to-be launched Hylas communication satellite built by ISRO/EADS Astrium for Britain-based Avanti Communications. Its success is expected to clear any doubts of India's capability in satellite manufacturing.
"We have taken care of the power supply glitches in that," an ISRO official said.
Statistics: Posted by Prodigy — Sun Jul 11, 2010 8:11 pm
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The DVR company has been the subject of takeover rumors in recent weeks, but by DIRECTV rival, Dish Network, with which it's engaged in a years-long patent dispute.
If DIRECTV bought TiVo, it could use the company's patent portfolio as a weapon in its competition against cable, telco and satellite providers.
For instance, if TiVo ultimately wins its patent fight against Dish Network, the satcaster would be liable for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages and possibly be forced to disable its subscribers' DVRs.
For TiVo, the purchase would guarantee a reliable marketing and distribution partner for its DVR software. DIRECTV has agreed to license TiVo's software, but has been slow to roll out the service to its subscribers.
TiVo has struggled to generate new subscribers over the last several years, dropping nearly 50 percent of its subscriber base since 2006.
Zacks.com reports that no "concrete information" was available from either TiVo or DIRECTV on the rumor.
Statistics: Posted by Prodigy — Thu Jun 17, 2010 11:07 pm
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Telefónica's board of directors will force an extraordinary shareholders meeting at PT so they can state their own opinion on this matter. But the Spanish telco has declared it would be more profitable for the Portuguese telco to sell itself to Telefónica rather than just Vivo.
Telefónica is PT's main shareholder with 10% of its capital and is offering €5,700 million for Vivo's 30%.
"An offer for Portugal Telecom would be uncertain. We don't want to do this although the economy of this operation suggests it would have been more profitable," said Santiago Fernández, financial director at Telefónica.
But Portugal Telecom's internal laws are closed to an operation of this type and also the European Union would study the case very closely if Telefónica proposes to buy the whole of Portugal Telecom.
Telefónica's financial results of 2009 allow the company to tackle buyout operations like this one because it got a net profit of €1,656 million last year, 2% more than a year before. The telco's revenues grew 1.7% to E13,932 million in that year. However the analysts had hoped for better results.
Statistics: Posted by Prodigy — Fri May 21, 2010 10:08 am
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Instead, Dish Network said it is airing a new weather-focused channel that will replace Weather Channel.
Dish Network said Weather Channel—owned by NBC Universal and private-equity firms Bain Capital LLC and Blackstone Group LP—is asking for exorbitant monthly fees to pipe the channel to households that subscribe to Dish Network TV service.
"Dish has chosen to be the first distributor to drop The Weather Channel rather than pay the standard industry rates others in the industry have already agreed to pay," the Weather Channel said in a statement. The Weather Channel encouraged Dish Network customers to switch to other TV providers.
A rising number of TV-fee impasses are causing channels like the Food Network, Walt Disney Co.'s ABC and News Corp.'s Fox to go dark or threaten to be dropped from TV lineups around the country, as consumers get caught in the middle of financial disputes between TV-channel owners and TV distributors.
Cable- and satellite-TV companies pay an average of 12 cents a month for each television household that has access to the Weather Channel, according to research firm SNL Kagan. Neither the Weather Channel nor Dish Network would say how much of a fee increase the Weather Channel is seeking.
While the two sides have tried and failed to reach a deal for several months, it was still possible they could reach an agreement before their existing TV contract expired at midnight EDT Thursday.
In addition to its financial complaints, Dish Network also said the Weather Channel is relying too much on "weather-tainment" such as movies, and turning away from local-weather reporting, according to Dave Shull, senior vice president for programming.
Mr. Shull said Weather Channel fees are harder for Dish Network to stomach as more people get weather information online. "They're looking for bid increases when I feel like there's a real migration to the Web, and it's difficult to really justify those rate increases at this time."
More than 100 million households have access to the Weather Channel. Dish Network said its new weather channel, called The Weather Cast, will have more local-weather updates.
Statistics: Posted by Prodigy — Fri May 21, 2010 9:15 am
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Building on the main event of deployment to inform that Al Jazeera Sports conducted for the World Cup, the head of the chain has said that "piracy has become the scourge of direct transmission of major sporting events in the world."
Al-Khulaifi added that piracy is the current scourge of satellite and hence the chain has taken a number of measures in cooperation with private and governmental organizations from various Arab countries, including the Intellectual Property Center.
The aim is to carry out a joint strategy to combat piracy and protect the rights of viewers and subscribers of the channel.
Al Jazeera Sports has TRANSMISSION rights for the Middle East area of South Africa's World Cup, an event that will take place from 12 June to 12 July.
The chain has suffered in recent months the effects of "bad" fraudulent viewing your encrypted signal to the weakness of Viaccess conditional access system.
Besides technical measures to prevent piracy, Al Jazeera Sports threatens legal action against fraudulent viewing of its signal via satellite.
Statistics: Posted by Prodigy — Thu May 20, 2010 4:36 pm
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Statistics: Posted by hcc — Wed May 12, 2010 2:09 pm
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