Charlie Chat Surprise / iPhone Thoughts

For the majority of last nights Charlie Chat with Dish Network CEO Charlie Ergen it was a bore fest. However for many viewers it contained a nice surprise.

The big surprise was Charlie announcing that HD distant network locals would be available from All American Direct starting on Saturday June 13th. It seems like a law that would keep them from offering these networks expires when the analog channels get flipped off.

This is big news for Dish customers especially in areas where Dish is having programming disputes such as Washington State where Dish customers are missing locals owned by Fisher Communications. Now those customers missing locals can get the HD versions from All American Direct.

The distant networks provided by All American DirecTV in HD will be from LA and Chicago. And from what I can tell almost anyone can qualify to pick up these distant networks.

It appears that with the switch to digital there is nothing in the law books stating what is an acceptable digital signal and thus many will qualify for these distant networks through all American Direct.

Now for Dish Network customers who have no locals available to them they will soon be able to watch network television via satellite. I can see why many folks are excited by this news.

Dish Network Customers will be able to order HD Distant Networks from All American Direct starting on Saturday at www.mydistantnetworks.com

As for the rest of the Charlie Chat the only other interesting thing announced what that the launch of MSNBC HD on Dish Network has been moved to July 8th.

The rest of the show was filled with guests and interviews. The next Charlie Chat will be held in October.

Retailer Chat Today

Dish Network held its monthly-televised chat for retailers today. Not much was new on it that wasn’t said on last nights Charlie Chat show.

On today’s show Dish showed retailers how to better sell the new packages that were introduced last month at their Team Summit event in Denver. No changes were made to any of the offers.

No New iPhone For Me

Yeah I know this is a Satellite Blog, but for me my iPhone falls in the realm of necessary communications for me.

Last night after trying for hours, I was able to get in and (almost) order a new iPhone 3G S. I was up to the point where I entered my credit card number, which I filled out and the only thing left to do was click the submit button. However after some thought instead of clicking the submit button I closed my browser window.

Now truth be told I love my iPhone 3G. In the time that I owned it, it has become my all time favorite phone/pda. And watching the coverage of Apple’s WWDC conference yesterday I was all excited about the new Apple iPhone.

But then I thought about it…

Whats really new in the Apple iPhone 3G S? When I went to the Apple Store to order the new phone I was told it was going to cost me $499 for the 32 gigabyte version. While the price was high I was willing to pay for it.

I asked myself “what can the new iPhone do that my current iPhone cant?”

The new iPhone is supposed to be faster, but without any published specs or benchmarks is that speed increase worth $500? Sure the new iPhone can do video and voice commands but I can do those things now with my current iPhone. For video I can jailbreak my phone and use an application called Cycorder and it takes some great looking video using the camera built into the current iPhone 3G. And for voice commands there are numerous applications in the app store which can do voice commands.

Then I thought about how the new iPhone could do faster internet, up to 7.2 Mbps. While it sounds exciting, the current iPhone is supposed to handle speeds up to 3 Mbps and to be honest I rarely get speeds over 1 Mbps. While it would be nice to have a phone that could do data that fast its useless if the network can’t support those speeds. As I have said before I believe that AT&T has oversold their network, so in that regard the increase in Internet speeds is not a factor at this time.

So what’s left that the new iPhone can do that my current one cant… well it can’t do Nike + which is ok I am not going out and buying some new sneakers just so my iPhone can tell me how far I walked. It has a built in compass, which is cool but is that feature worth $500?

How about battery life… my current model has 5 hours talk time and the new one has 5 hour talk time. I have a Mophie Jucebox, which is an extended battery so the new battery life is not an issue.

So after I thought about it, there is really no reason for me to spend $500 now. So what I have decided to do is wait, next Wednesday Apple will release the new 3.0 software for the current iPhones. I will load that up and get most of the new features that the new iPhone has.

Then after the new iPhone is released I will go to the Apple store and see the new iPhone in person and compare them side by side and then I will judge it to see if $500 and a 2 year extension of my contract with AT&T is worth it. By that time it should be easy to walk into any Apple store and walk out with a new iPhone if you want one.

I was so close to hitting the submit button to order one, but now in really thinking about it I am glad I didn’t.