Satellite broadcaster DirecTV has not ruled out working with its US DTH rival Dish in order to push ahead with its nationwide broadband plans, but is focused on a fixed rather than wireless broadband offering.
Speaking on DirecTV’s third quarter…
Satellite broadcaster DirecTV has not ruled out working with its US DTH rival Dish in order to push ahead with its nationwide broadband plans, but is focused on a fixed rather than wireless broadband offering.
Speaking on DirecTV’s third quarter results conference call, CEO Michael White responded to an analyst question over whether the company would consider partnering with Dish on its wireless broadband strategy by stating that company would not rule anything out.
White said: “In terms of broadband, look if there is a smart strategy we’re open minded. Just as in Latin America, we talk with everybody, and I mean everybody, about other ways that we might provide broadband to the home.
“It is very clear to me that there is an awful lot of confusion going on in the whole world with spectrum – is T-Mobile going to go through with its deal? What’s going to happen with Clearwire? Is LightSquared’s spectrum plan going to work? The way I look at it the mobile wireless business is a really tough business, just look at Sprint. Fixed broadband to the home is something no one’s done in scale up to this point but it is certainly something that we continue to think about and have done a lot of technical analysis on.
“We will continue to keep an open mind and as I said before I am willing to partner with anyone if it makes good sense to our shareholders and for our customers.”
Over the past year, Dish has been aggressively expanding its wireless spectrum assets, snapping up ATC – MSS licence holding satellite operators DBSD North America and Terrestar North America. It has also made a series of acquisitions in the broadband video-on-demand streaming sector, such as the purchase of Blockbuster.
For its part DirecTV has sought to increase its bundled broadband offering by partnering with US telcos. To that end, on 3 November, DirecTV and AT&T signed a three-year extension to their commercial agreement and will continue to offer a co-branded version of DirecTV ‘s satellite television service across the 22 states where AT&T offers residential broadband and voice service.
Meanwhile, DirecTV’s Latin American operations continue to drive the company’s growth. In its Q3 results, DirecTV reported a 14% year-on-year increase in quarterly revenues to US$6.84bn with operating profit up 19% to US$1.03bn. Much of this rise was the result of DirecTV Latin America reporting a record 957,000 gross and 574,000 net subscriber additions. This in turn led to revenues increasing by 46% to US$1.36bn and operating profit up 37% to US$236m
DirecTV Latin America owns approximately 93% of Sky Brazil, 41% of Sky Mexico and 100% of PanAmericana, which covers most of the remaining countries in the region.
