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From: amichiel@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Allen J Michielsen)
Newsgroups: misc.consumers,sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Cable Competition at Last!
Keywords: Direct Broadcast Coming Soon
Message-ID: <1991Jan25.183121.9017@rodan.acs.syr.edu>
Date: 25 Jan 91 18:31:21 GMT
References: <620@wybbs.mi.org>
Sender: amichiel@sunrise.acs.syr.edu
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Organization: Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
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In article <620@wybbs.mi.org> ken@wybbs.mi.org (Ken) writes:
>This weeks Engineering times has an article on something I have been

>Starting this summer, a company called Sky Pix (Kent, WA) will be
>selling a direct broadcast dish system for the home. Dishes have
>been around for a long time, but check out these details:
   Pretty good description, but sorry.  All of this was available in the
30 largest us cities more than 5 years ago.  The single difference was that
the antenna pointed to the tallest building downtown for it's 'sat' signal,
and downtown, the 'sat' sales company used down link dishes to create the
artificial sat.
    In short, except for a very few locations (maybe zero).  They've all gone
bankrupt in short order.  They discovered a lot of things, one of which was
that you can't compete with the costs for most cable companies, and people that
are willing to are willing to spend the money for a real dish.  The costs of
launching the sat and cost for the startup are so astronomical that unless the
government foot the bill and holds everybody's hand, it a belly up deal.

al


-- 
Al. Michielsen, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Syracuse University
 InterNet: amichiel@rodan.acs.syr.edu  amichiel@sunrise.acs.syr.edu
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