Point well taken. Dish would benefit greatly from a DTV failure, but DTV has been agressive in attacking and converting Primestar customers. With over 3 million subs, DTV would drop to 140 channels if DBS 1 fails. Primestar has 160 channels and DTV could not get a spare up until 1999. In rural areas, many Primestar customers swear they get better reception from the larger dish, especially during inclement weather. Since the current Primestar still offers a lease and DTV customers have an investment in DTV hardware, the option would be to lease the large Primestar dish or buy a second Echo dish. I think Echo would be the prime benefactor here, but Primestar would enjoy some of that as well.
In addition, Primestar has far more options if the GE bird were to go down. They only need medium power and there is other real estate in their location to switch to if needed. Another benefit to Primestar if DBS 1 fails is the close proximity of Tempo 1. DTV has even mentioned it as a potential contingency plan. I wonder what kind of extortion Primestar would demand to let them use that bird? USSB would be shit out of luck if DBS 1 fails. They are in a really bad position.
DISH has the most capacity in the sky and can reconfigure there service to overcome one or two failures. I will admit that is a big benefit. Wall Street is not concerned yet about these space events. I like TSATA because I know the DOJ and Primestar will settle this case before year end. The analysts will trip over themselves to say how cheap Primestar is per sub based on the migration to high power and new sales. I will be out at $10. Remember, perception always wins over fundamentals when investors get overly excited about a sector or overly negative. The baby can get thrown out with the bath water. I wrote a 10 page report on the impact of these coming space events with the help of NASA and the Aerospace corporation. Trust me, Iridium is a short. Any move up (from a successful launch next week, to the start of commercial service) will be a great chance to add to my short position.
DTV, DISH, and Primestar customers will be plauged by outages, interference and poor reception due to the solar cycle peak. That is not great PR and it will happen during the Comcast, Mediaone, Time Warner and COX digital roll out. Trust me, they will make sure they take advantage of these problems. Good luck. |
