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DISH's New Sling TV


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The ill-informed see the lower prices and ignore the lower number of channels. By the time channels are added back in, the costs will be similar.

 

The demise of satellite TV is proposed by pundits that are not aware of the shortage of bandwdth is huge portions of the country.

 

Charlie E. at Dish is sitting on huge amounts of spectrum and he going to play is all the delivery games.

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Mark & Dale
Joey - 2016 Bounder 33C Tige - 2006 40' Travel Supreme
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The demise of satellite TV is proposed by pundits that are not aware of the shortage of bandwidth is huge portions of the country.

 

Shortages (at least in our great republic) never stop us . . . I'm in Arid-zona now watching them water golf course greens as Lake Powell water levels drop.

 

Back to DISH . . . of course you're correct, but if you're hooked to a cable modem it might look right.

SKP #79313 / Full-Timing / 2001 National RV Sea View / 2008 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon
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DISH TV for RVs

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I'm not sure why people are so negative towards this; the average person in a sticks and bricks, whose internet access is via cable or fiber isn't suffering the bandwidth problems unique to RVers. This move by Dish is likely to greatly accelerate the push towards unbundling. Who cares if you get fewer channels when you didn't watch 90% of them anyway? I know we could probably live with <10 channels out of the ~100 or so we get from DirecTV now.

 

HBO and Showtime are expected to announce subscription streaming services this year that will be separate from HBO Go and Showtime on Demand which require a cable or satellite TV subscription. For those with relatively unlimited bandwidth in homes this will be a direct challenge to the premium channel pricing charged by the cable and satellite companies. Furthermore, the streaming service will give its subscribers the ability to watch those channels anywhere on any device with internet access. No longer will you need to be at home to watch. CBS has already announced a subscription streaming service of its own and it's likely the other major networks will follow suit.

 

According to Dish this move is directed at Millennials who aren't currently cable or satellite subscribers. There have been numerous articles about many in that generation who rarely watch "normal" TV programming. One thing I found interesting about Dish's announcement is that its streaming service has no contractual commitments and can be started and stopped at will. For example, you could presumably activate it when something you were interested in was being shown on ESPN. So if you're a soccer buff you could activate it just to watch the World Cup, or a particular golf tourney, etc. You probably will have to pay for an entire month of service, but you'll be able to cancel when the program of interest is no longer on.

 

As for RVers, if I didn't have to pay DirecTV its monthly fee I could divert that >$100/mo to buying more bandwidth from Verizon. Yes, that will further stress the network which will spur additional investment to improve it. IMHO this is the future of television and it seems to be coming even faster than anticipated.

Sandie & Joel

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This is an interesting discussion since we just bought a new house. We decided that we would not subscribe to cable or even get a sat. antenna for our Dish receiver that is in the coach. So we subscribed to Cox for $60/month which gives us a soft cap of 300Gb/month. We have Amazon Prime and have been exploring all of the tv shows, movies, and music available with that. There's a bunch. We put up an HDTV antenna on the wall which gives us the big 4 networks + public broadcasting. In a moment of weakness I bought a Tivo Roamio for $50 in order to record the few local channels we watch even though that requires a 1 year commitment at $15/month. Then I discovered that on Amazon prime that I could buy the entire season of each tv show for about $40. So not sure which way we'll go after the year commitment with Tivo is up. Then there are about 5 other shows that we watch on either USA or AMC, etc. that we are paying about $40/season. So say we are paying about $1200/yr. That's a lot less than what we were paying with Millenicoms 20Gb/mth plan and Dish at about $100/mth.

Now with Dish Sling and other options showing up we'll see where that goes.

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It is amazing to me how people think that because they get something via the Internet, it will be free or very cheap.

 

The content providers, the shows, movies etc., are not going to give their content away for free because they will not be able to deliver content if they do.

 

So content is going to cost you whether is comes via satellite, cable, or Internet. Content cost is the biggest component of a satellite or cable subscription. The transport cost of satellite and cable is way less than Internet.

 

It will interesting to see the total cost of the "low cost" offerings add up. Unbundling isn't going to happen as it is a function of the content providers, not the transports

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Mark & Dale
Joey - 2016 Bounder 33C Tige - 2006 40' Travel Supreme
Sparky III - 2021 Mustang Mach-e, off the the Road since 2019
Useful HDT Truck, Trailer, and Full-timing Info at
www.dmbruss.com

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I see a real incentive for content providers to provide what they produce directly to the consumer, they potentially get to keep all the money instead of sharing with the Cable TV or Satellite providers. Now that will upset the local network affiliates and depending on their contracts for DMAs, content and such the locals may still be able to get a piece of the pie but it will still leave more money for the provider as long as they can keep delivery costs under control. That may well get them interested in using an existing CDN (content distribution network) as a partner, much as they do the cable and satellite companies today.

 

It will be interesting to see how this evolves, will you buy a network package that offers all the channels that they offer, buy just the channels you want or even just buy the shows you care about. Me, I'd be happy just buying the shows I like as I find almost everything on TV today of little interest and having the stuff I want delivered to a box hooked to the TV, ready to watch when I get to it with DVR type controls would be perfect. For the networks they could charge me more than I'm paying for their content now because by tossing the stuff I don't care about and the total costs there I'd be paying less per month.

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Another article on this:

 

http://smile.amazon.com/Kindle-Wireless-Reading-Device-Display/dp/B0015TCML0/ref=sr_1_1

 

 

The biggest "gotcha" I'm seeing for home users is the single viewer at a time one that will impact a lot of folks, for RV types the data transport is going to be an issue.

First rule of computer consulting:

Sell a customer a Linux computer and you'll eat for a day.

Sell a customer a Windows computer and you'll eat for a lifetime.

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The biggest "gotcha" I'm seeing for home users is the single viewer at a time one that will impact a lot of folks, for RV types the data transport is going to be an issue.

 

I wonder if you could kludge around that -- AirPlay? Wireless HDMI?

SKP #79313 / Full-Timing / 2001 National RV Sea View / 2008 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon
www.rvSeniorMoments.com
DISH TV for RVs

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You could get around the single TV issue with a HDMI / HDCP splitter since the downstream TVs are effectively invisible to the sending device but it really sounds like it is locked to a single content channel at a time so everyone connected would watch the same show.

 

Figuring out a decent copy protection system so that they could do multiple unit licencing for a single family use and avoiding leaches is a difficult task.

First rule of computer consulting:

Sell a customer a Linux computer and you'll eat for a day.

Sell a customer a Windows computer and you'll eat for a lifetime.

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I have a Samsung smart TV that I use with a Verizon wireless hot spot that runs on 4GLTE. Granted I usually work close to civilization so I guess I can pick up a better signal. I have found that at the last two campgrounds I stayed that their so called free cable was sad. If I'm not watching a movie on my smart TV I just watch the local channels on my HD amplified antenna. In my opinion before to long these smart tvs will have a wireless hot spot built into them. Also the phone and cable companies keep releasing a stronger wireless signal so I believe its going to be easier to just utilize a smart tv with a wireless connection.

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In my opinion before to long these smart tvs will have a wireless hot spot built into them. Also the phone and cable companies keep releasing a stronger wireless signal so I believe its going to be easier to just utilize a smart tv with a wireless connection.

 

Maybe, but the hangup is still cheap on-the-road broadband (i.e., cellular).

SKP #79313 / Full-Timing / 2001 National RV Sea View / 2008 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon
www.rvSeniorMoments.com
DISH TV for RVs

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Not surprising that RVers aren't counted very highly. Although Dish, with its $7 a month add-on, is pretty decent for snowbirds.

 

I like Stanley's remarks on individual producers who can create something of their own and just put it out there. But the production values we've come to expect make that difficult. Still a cool idea.

 

Where we are right now, which is probably not representative of RV "parks", we could simply plug into their cable and the Internet (WiFi) is remarkably good; at least downloading. I've been working steadily this past week and remoting into systems with no issues.

 

But bandwidth is still an issue in a lot of the US if you just count geography and not population density. Where we live, in a town of 25,000 in the desert of central WA there are no "local" stations (nor is there a CATV system any more) and the bandwidth that could carry two live HDTV programs at the same time is completely inadequate; barely good enough for one HDTV stream (if t hat).

 

Granted, rural populations are not much better than RVers when the "big picture" (pun intended) is considered. Which is probably why no one has seriously challenged Verizon in LTE coverage.

 

I have to say that this past 3 weeks, our first long RV expedition since the 1990s, has been a revelation. My cell phone bandwidth was a LOT more than I expected it to be; what with checking email, looking for a RV site, finding cheap fuel, watching the weather (lots of watching the weather), I used up what would have been more than my 6gb a month if the month-end hadn't come halfway through our trip. Going to have to rethink this next time.

 

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