Dish purchases key to broadband plans

Network has completed its purchase of two satellite operators whose wireless licences it hopes to use to offer broadband access that can help it compete better with cable TV and phone companies, The Washington Post writes.

Cable and phone companies are able to offer customers packaged plans that include TV channels and Internet access services. Satellite companies cannot do so because satellites can't provide Internet services to many households, and speeds are slower.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the transfer of wireless licences to Dish this month, but it deferred decisions on whether Dish could use the spectrum more broadly to offer broadband services that is primarily ground-based, The Associated Press reports.

For now, devices using the spectrum must be able to access satellite signals as well. That excludes the types of smartphones and tablet computers popular today.

The FCC tries to promote the expansion of wireless broadband services, but it recently decided to kill a similar proposal from a Virginia company called LightSquared after tests showed it would, in some cases, jam personal-navigation and other GPS devices. Dish has said its signals won't cause similar interference because its network would be using different frequencies.

Dish added a net 22 000 satellite TV subscribers in the last three months of 2011 after posting losses for most quarters in the past two years, Yahoo News reveals.

It ended the year with 14 million subscribers to keep its position as the third-largest provider of paid TV signals to US households, behind DirecTV and Comcast.

Dish's stock fell 36 cents, or 1.1%, to close at $31.10 on Monday.