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Hey Charlie, Here is an Aspirin
April 11, 2008
If you name is Charlie Ergen you probably have one of those big headaches today. It has not been a good 24 hours for him or his Dish Network satellite company.
The bad news started out late yesterday afternoon when it was announced that the AMC14 Satellite was declared a total loss by SES Americom. This satellite which was owned by SES Americom was supposed to be leased to Dish Network for the life of the satellite. The satellite never made it into its proper orbit due to the malfunction of a second stage booster rocket.
Scientists believe that they could get AMC14 in proper orbit by using a lunar flyby process, however the patent for that technique is owned by Boeing and SES Americom did not want to violate that patent.
The failure of AMC14 does not have an effect on Dish Networks short term plans, however it could affect their long term plans. There is no word of how long it will take for a replacement for AMC14 to be built and launched.
But that wasn’t the end of the bad news for Charlie, as earlier today the United States Court of Appeals has denied Echostars motion for an appeal in its long running legal battle against TIVO over its “time warp” feature.
Is it a case that Echostar should have lost? From where I sit that answer is no, however Echostar almost seemed to implicate itself when they announce after the last loss was handed down that the code in question was changed to get around an or Tivos patent concerns.
From where I sit Charlie would have tried fighting this in courts for years in the hopes of forcing Tivo out of business. My advice to Charlie is to just pay up and move on. Charlie has a lot of other issues he should be focusing on such as his customer base. A number of his customers are getting vocal online about the fact that with all that’s going on there are stuck in limbo. Dish Network has been telling customers that great things are coming, however from where I sit actions speak louder then words.
So to Charlie Ergen I say take these two aspirin, get some rest and call me on Monday.
Have a great weekend everyone!
Posted by Scott Greczkowski on April 11, 2008 | Comments (2)
