Dish Spectrum to Pave Way for VOD?

Dish Network’s recent purchase of wireless spectrum suggests the satellite TV company is positioning itself to offer on-demand content, but exactly how remains to be seen. The Wall Street Journal writes that the 168 licenses on the E-Block spectrum that Dish paid $711 million for could nearly blanket the country, but the spectrum is weak and couldn’t power a full-on wireless network without some complex adjustments.

Looking to keep up with cable companies (and changing viewer habits), satellite TV providers need to offer some kind of on-demand service. But, since satellite is a one-way communication, they need to build out another way to deliver it. DirecTV announced its plans earlier this month, which calls for subscribers to use an alternate broadband connection. (EchoStar has a similar arrangement with AT&T’s HomeZone.)

The issue with the Dish move is that the company purchased “unpaired” spectrum, which typically allows only one-way communication and isn’t suited for a full-service wireless broadband network without some major tweaks. The Journal describes potential workarounds including: just using the wireless network to augment delivery (a separate internet connection would still be needed for two-way communication), creating a mobile video service using EchoStar’s Slingbox, or implementing a technology called time-division duplexing.

For now, Dish is keeping mum on its plans, and the company doesn’t even get access to the spectrum until February at the earliest. Any network infrastructure would take a long time to build out, so it would be a couple years before the service could launch.