Dish Network 2007 Annual Report Download - page 12

Table of Contents
Installation
. While some consumers have the skills necessary to install our equipment in their homes, we believe that most installations are
best performed by professionals, and that on time, quality installations are important to our success. Consequently, we are continuing to expand
our installation business. We use both employees and independent contractors for professional installations. Independent installers are held to
our service standards to attempt to ensure each DISH Network customer receives the same quality installation and service. Our offices and
independent installers are strategically located throughout the continental United States. Although there can be no assurance, we believe that
our internal installation business helps to improve quality control, decrease wait time on service calls and new installations and helps us better
accommodate anticipated subscriber growth.
Digital Broadcast Operations Centers
. Our principal digital broadcast operations centers are located in Cheyenne, Wyoming and Gilbert,
Arizona. We also have five regional digital broadcast operations centers that allow us to utilize the spot beam capabilities of our satellites.
Programming and other data is received at these centers by fiber or satellite, processed, and then uplinked to our owned and leased satellites for
transmission to consumers. Equipment at our digital broadcast operations centers performs substantially all compression and encryption of
DISH Network’s programming signals.
Customer Service Centers . We currently operate ten owned and several out-sourced customer service centers fielding most of our customer
service calls. Potential and existing subscribers can call a single telephone number to receive assistance for sales, hardware, programming,
billing, installation and technical support. We continue to work to automate simple phone responses and to increase Internet-based customer
assistance in order to better manage customer service costs and improve the customer’s self-service experience.
Subscriber Management
. We presently use, and are dependent on, CSG Systems International, Inc.’s software system for the majority of
DISH Network subscriber billing and related functions.
ECHOSTAR TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION
EchoStar Technologies Corporation (“ETC”), one of our wholly-owned subsidiaries, designs and develops EchoStar receiver systems. Our
satellite receivers have won numerous awards from the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association, retailers and industry trade
publications. We out-source the manufacture of EchoStar receiver systems to third parties who manufacture the receivers in accordance with
our specifications.
The primary purpose of our ETC division is to support the DISH Network. However, ETC also sells similar digital satellite receivers
internationally, either directly to television service operators or to our independent distributors worldwide. This has created a source of
additional business for us and synergies that directly benefit DISH Network. For example, our satellite receivers are designed around the
Digital Video Broadcasting standard, which is widely used in Europe and Asia. The same employees who design EchoStar receiver systems for
the DISH Network are also involved in designing receivers sold to international customers. Consequently, we benefit from the possibility that
ETC’s international projects may result in improvements in design and economies of scale in the production of EchoStar receiver systems for
the DISH Network. We believe that direct-to-home (“DTH”) satellite service is particularly well-suited for countries without extensive cable
infrastructure, and we are actively soliciting new business for ETC. However, there can be no assurance that ETC will be able to develop
additional international sales or maintain its existing business.
Through 2006, our primary international customer was Bell ExpressVu, a subsidiary of Bell Canada, Canada’s national telephone company.
While we currently have certain binding purchase orders from Bell ExpressVu and others through mid-year 2007, we anticipate that 2007 sales
could decline compared to 2006. In addition, the availability of new compression technology could impact our relationship with Bell
ExpressVu depending on its strategy to upgrade customers. There can be no assurance that Bell ExpressVu will continue to use our equipment
in the future.
We are actively trying to secure new orders from other potential international customers. However, we cannot guarantee at this time that those
negotiations will be successful. Our future international revenue depends largely on the success of these and other international operators,
which in turn, depends on other factors, such as the level of consumer acceptance of DTH satellite TV products and the increasing intensity of
competition for international subscription television subscribers.
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