Free To Air & Echostar

Last week DISH Network launched an attack on sales of Free To Air (“FTA”) satellite equipment. On last Friday’s “Retailer Chat”, Echostar warned dealers that they are no longer allowed to sell Free To Air equipment or they could face disciplinary action by the satellite giant.

I suspect that many readers of “The Satellite Dish” may not know what FTA is, so here is a brief overview and how it works.

Free To Air Satellite Television is the receiving and viewing of digital satellite signals that are being sent unscrambled “in the clear.” Here in the United States there are hundreds of channels up there which are “in the clear.” Most of the programming that you can get with an FTA satellite setup is ethnic or religious content. Most of these services are put up on satellite for home reception and are intended by the owners of the programming to be available free to the viewing public. For many the only way to receive these channels is with a Free To Air setup.

And while most of what is available is religious or foreign ethnic programming there is a lot of quality English programming up there as well. Sure you are not going to find HBO or MTV up there. But if you’re a fan of classic television shows, there is a lot of enjoyable stuff to see.

Something else that is up there in the clear is a lot of what the industry calls “Wild Feeds.” Wild feeds are things like live sporting events being sent out from the uplink truck at the events (many times with no commercials). Other times wild feeds are live news feeds, which sometime enables you to catch reporters getting ready to go on the air, fixing their hair and uttering a profanity or two. But more importantly, FTA news wild feeds allow you to see what is really going on without a network taking the news that you are seeing live and cutting it up for a 30 second sound bite. If you’re a news fan Free To Air television is a great way to see what is really happening in the world, unedited.

While the cost to get started in FTA television is relatively cheap, it is not for everyone. Installing a motorized setup is hard, and finding programs to watch (especially wild feeds) is even harder.

Many satellite dealers make a good living installing FTA systems, most of the time installing them for churches or for people who want to view ethnic programming from their homeland.

So you may be asking yourself if FTA is this good, then why is DISH Network trying to curb dealers from selling it to their customers. The answer is because DISH Network is trying to curb piracy. With many Free To Air receivers, it is very easy for folks to tap in to the Dish Network signal and enjoy it for free. To do this people take perfectly legal FTA receivers and modify them to unscramble the DISH Network signal.

Instead of DISH Network working to secure its signal, they instead want to stop dealers from selling perfectly legal satellite equipment. Those who fail to stop selling this legal equipment may soon find themselves kicked out of the Dish Network retailer program.

DIRECTV use to be one of the most widely hacked satellite services, but they have moved to a new security system and have been hack free for a few years now. DISH Network needs follow DIRECTV’s lead and secure their system.

While Echostar does not want retailers to sell Free To Air equipment, it appears that it is ok for them to do so. Echostar is one of the largest manufacturer and distributor of Free To Air equipment in Europe.