Satellite Technology Feature Article
December 03, 2009
Interview: EchoStar on its Broadband Stimulus Applications
By Marisa Torrieri, TMCnet Editor
Most all broadband stimulus applicants claim they’ll use federal grants to reach U.S. citizens in unserved and underserved areas – but how many will actually reach every single household in the United States?
That’s the question satellite Internet pioneer EchoStar said it hopes the NTIA – the federal agency responsible for doling out $7.2 billion in at least two rounds of funding – will ask itself as it weighs the pros and cons of each applicant.
With satellite broadband technology, “you could reach everybody in the country, rather than everybody in just one space,” Dean Olmstead, president of EchoStar Satellite (News - Alert) Services, a division of EchoStar, told TMCnet in an interview. “We think we can offer something that helps the country out. Our view is the best way to do broadband is with satellites, not with terrestrial systems that have limited reach.”
In October, TMCnet reported that Englewood, Colo.-based EchoStar sought a combined $1.1 billion or so in stimulus money, making it the largest single applicant for broadband stimulus money.
The news made headlines, as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has only set aside $7.2 billion for broadband Internet in unserved and underserved areas – less than one-quarter of funds requested by applicants in just the first round.
In applying for all that money, EchoStar teamed up with several partners to submit four big applications.
For one of those, EchoStar and Carlsbad, Calif.-based ViaSat Inc. reportedly asked for $36 to $114 million to build and launch a new satellite that would serve thousands of rural unserved and underserved households in all or some of 20 states west of the Mississipi.
In another application, EchoStar teamed up with WildBlue Communications, a satellite broadband provider, to form EchoBlue Rural. The newly united couple applied for $530 million in stimulus loans and grants to build and launch a satellite capable of 10 mbps that would serve at least 1.5 million rural households, according to reports.
In another application, for $100 million, EchoStar is asking for subsidy funding for the ground segments to make its satellites operating in the “Ka band” more economically feasible.
“We had two other applications of a satellite nature,” Olmstead said.
Today EchoStar has two satellites with the Ka band, which is similar to cellular spectrum in that it’s used for different broadband purposes.
“That one could start immediately – it’s ‘shovel ready,’” Olmstead told TMCnet. “Whereas, with the new satellites, it would take a couple of years to build the satellite.”
EchoStar has also applied for $28 million in loan money to go toward a “sustainable broadband adoption” coupon program to help those without broadband afford a converter box or other equipment.
“NTIA did something like this already,” Olmstead said. “We basically modeled this after that. In all of these cases, we’re putting in Echo dollars.”
Olmstead said the reason EchoStar’s applications are so high has to do with need – not greed.
“You can’t just put up one mile of satellite – you have to put up the whole enchilada. But once you put them up, the cost per subscriber is a lot lower,” Olmstead. “When they bring the fiber into a neighborhood, they could only have one subscriber. Every ounce of the satellite is used somewhere. We pass all 100 million households in the United States.”
Marisa Torrieri is a TMCnet Web editor, covering IP hardware and mobility, including IP phones, smartphones, fixed-mobile convergence and satellite technology. She also compiles and regularly contributes to TMCnet's gadgets and satellite e-Newsletters. To read more of Marisa's articles, please visit her columnist page.
Edited by Marisa Torrieri
