Are any other DBS services planned from these Full-Conus slots?
Rupert Murdochs News Corporation has purchased rights for 28 transponders at the 110 degree orbital slot. They have recently announced plans to work with Primestar to provide a new High Power Primestar service from 110 degrees with many channels. The FCC must approve this plan, but if allowed to happen, this will move Primestar from a medium-power, mostly rural service to a major well-funded High Power DBS player. Since a Cable TV consortium owns Primestar, there is concern in Washington that this plan will not help provide competition to Cable TV so there is resistance to this plan. However, many feel consumers would benefit from three good strong DBS services that are High Power and therefore use a very small dish. Primestar says it will be April 1998 at the earliest for the start of this new High Power service. They believe they will get FCC approval sometime before the end of 1998. They may decide to migrate their existing customers off the medium-power satellite by moving their di
