Dish Announces Upgraded Satellite Services
Dish Network announced at CES upgrades to it’s satellite based broadband internet and DVR services.
The new broadband internet service will boast download speeds up to 12Mbps and upload speeds of up to 3Mbps. Hughes, Dish’s closest competitor, offers download speeds up to 2Mbps and download speeds of 300Kbps.
The upgraded internet will cost $79.98 per month with a $99 installation charge. The price is bundled with Dish’s satellite TV service. The new service will go live, along with the new whole-home Hopper DVR service, when ViaSat launches a new satellite this summer.
According to CNET, Dish CEO Joe Clayton said the Internet service is aimed at underserved markets, such as rural areas, representing 8 to 10 million people. He said, “We see significant growth from this new product category.”
The new Hopper DVR service is different than Dish’s current DVR offerings. The new service will include an extra tuner setup to capture all the prime-time programs broadcast by the major broadcast channels, ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC. The hard-drive in the unit will have storage capacity of 2 Terabytes, capable of holding onto all the programs for eight days, along with hundreds of hours of movies chosen by the customer.
The Hopper is designed to work with smaller set-top boxes called Joeys. These smaller boxes can be installed in separate rooms from the Hopper. According to Dish, a home equipped with a Hopper and three Joeys can watch four programs simultaneously.
The size of the hard-drive storage in the Hopper unit will also allow Dish to offer better on-demand shows. Unlike cable, which streams it’s on-demand directly from the cable office, satellite providers need the ability to cache their on-demand shows on the customer’s DVR box, the Hopper will offer this capability, according to the LA Times.
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