Dish Network 2014 Annual Report Download - page 22

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Satellites Under Construction
EchoStar XVIII. On September 7, 2012, we entered into a contract with Space Systems/Loral, Inc. (“SS/L”) for the
construction of EchoStar XVIII, a DBS satellite with spot beam technology designed for, among other things, HD
programming. During October 2013, we entered into an agreement with ArianeSpace S.A. (“Ariane”) for launch
services for this satellite, which is expected to be launched during the fourth quarter 2015.
Satellite Anomalies
Operation of our DISH branded pay-TV service requires that we have adequate satellite transmission capacity for
the programming that we offer. Moreover, current competitive conditions require that we continue to expand our
offering of new programming. While we generally have had in-orbit satellite capacity sufficient to transmit our
existing channels and some backup capacity to recover the transmission of certain critical programming, our backup
capacity is limited.
In the event of a failure or loss of any of our satellites, we may need to acquire or lease additional satellite capacity
or relocate one of our other satellites and use it as a replacement for the failed or lost satellite. Such a failure could
result in a prolonged loss of critical programming or a significant delay in our plans to expand programming as
necessary to remain competitive and thus may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition
and results of operations.
In the past, certain of our satellites have experienced anomalies, some of which have had a significant adverse
impact on their remaining useful life and/or commercial operation. There can be no assurance that future anomalies
will not impact the remaining useful life and/or commercial operation of any of the satellites in our fleet. See
“Impairment of Long-Lived Assets” in Note 2 in the Notes to our Consolidated Financial Statements in this Annual
Report on Form 10-K for further discussion of evaluation of impairment. There can be no assurance that we can
recover critical transmission capacity in the event one or more of our in-orbit satellites were to fail. We generally do
not carry commercial insurance for any of the in-orbit satellites that we use, other than certain satellites leased from
third parties, and therefore, we will bear the risk associated with any uninsured in-orbit satellite failures.
AWS-4 Satellites. As a result of the DBSD Transaction and the TerreStar Transaction, we acquired three AWS-4
satellites, including two in-orbit satellites (D1 and T1) and one satellite under construction (T2). See the table below
for further information.
Degree Estimated
Launch Orbital Useful Life
Satellites Date Location (Years)
Owned:
T1.................................................... July 2009 111.1 15
D1................................................... April 2008 92.85 15
Under Construction:
T2 (1).............................................. NA NA NA
(1) During the fourth quarter 2014, EchoStar purchased our rights to the T2 satellite. See Note 20 in the Notes to
our Consolidated Financial Statements in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for further discussion of our
Related Party Transactions with EchoStar.