The satellite business is booming. By the end of 1999, about 12 million households had subscribed, remarkable numbers for an industry just five years old in its DBS incarnation. Consumers, retailers, and integrators today look to satellite for quality of picture and sound thanks to satellite s early arrival in the market with crisp digital signals.
Satellite continues to trump cable in terms of choice, too.
EchoStar s latest hardware supports a choice of 500 channels. DirecTV offer 215 channels. The average cable operator offers 140. And with recent federal legislation enabling DBS to retransmit local stations, one of the most significant obstacles to selling the service has been removed. In short, DBS is the preferred television-programming source in the installed home electronics market.