Dish Network Corporation is a direct broadcast satellite service provider that offers satellite television, audio programming, and interactive television services to households and businesses in the United States. Services were launched in March 1996. Today, the company competes primarily with satellite rival DirecTV and with cable television providers. The corporate office is based at Meridian, Colorado, though the postal designation of nearby Englewood is commonly listed as the company's location in corporate filings and news accounts. The company was spun off from Echostar in 2007. Dish Network serves approximately 13.78 million subscribers.

History

Dish Network began operations in 1996 as a service of EchoStar. EchoStar was formed in 1980 by its chairman and chief executive officer, Charlie Ergen, as a distributor of C band satellite television systems. In 1987, EchoStar applied for a direct broadcast satellite license with the Federal Communications Commission and was granted access to orbital slot 119° west longitude in 1992.

On December 28, 1995, EchoStar successfully launched its first satellite, EchoStar I. That same year, EchoStar established the Dish Network brand name to market its home satellite TV system.

In 1998, EchoStar purchased the broadcasting assets of a satellite broadcasting joint venture of News Corporation's ASkyB and MCI Worldcom. With this purchase EchoStar obtained 28 of the 32 transponder licenses in the 110° West orbital slot, more than doubling existing continental United States broadcasting capacity at a value of $682.5 million. The acquisition inspired the company to introduce a multisatellite system called DISH 500, theoretically capable of receiving more than 500 channels on one dish. In the same year, Echostar, partnering with Bell Canada, launched Dish Network Canada.

In January 2005, EchoStar bought the broadcasting assets of the troubled HDTV satellite provider Voom, including its Rainbow 1 satellite colocated with EchoStar 3 at 61.5° West. On April 29, EchoStar announced that it would expand its HDTV programming by adding the first 10 of 21 original Voom channels and mirror the channels on a CONUS slot.

On January 1, 2008 EchoStar split into two separate businesses, Dish Network Corporation and EchoStar Broadcasting Corporation. DISH Network Corporation, the larger of the two resulting companies, focuses on US-based marketing of satellite television, while EchoStar Corporation runs a majority of the satellite fleet and other signal infrastructure.

Satellite dishes

DISH Network offers different types of satellite receiving equipment for obtaining signals from its diverse satellite fleet. Most of their consumer boxes are manufactured by Sanmina-SCI Corporation to EchoStar specifications. Prior to the December, 2001 merger of SCI Systems and Sanmina, DISH Network receivers were produced at factories in Huntsville, Alabama and Fountain, Colorado. Currently, receiver assembly takes place in Guadalajara, Mexico.