About 1.9 million people in rural America don’t have high speed Internet. To tap that market, Dish Network Corp. (NASDAQ:DISH) is planning to launch its satellite Internet service on October 1. Dish Network said the new service will be called DishNet.
The lowest plan starts at $40 per month, if you bundle it with any of the TV programming packages of Dish Network Corp. (NASDAQ:DISH). It will offer download speed of up to 5 mbps with a 10 GB data cap. Another plan that costs $50 per month will have speeds up to 10 mbps with a 20 GB data cap. The only trouble is that in order to get those prices, you must sign a two year contract, and combine the satellite broadband service with any of Dish’s TV packages. If you want to use only Internet service without any TV package, that will cost you $10 more.
Of course, you have to pay for the equipment, but there is free installation if it is bundled with a TV package. Otherwise, add $99 for installation. Still it is cheaper than what other companies charge (usually $200 to $300).
The service will be available starting this Monday in Utah, Washington, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oregon, New Mexico, Nebraska, Montana, Minnesota, Iowa, Idaho, Arizona, and Colorado.
Dish Network Corp. (NASDAQ:DISH) is also planning to revolutionize the television business. According to Bloomberg, it is in talks with Viacom’s MTV, Univision Communications, and Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc. (NYSE:SNI) about offering their TV channels over Internet. The networks will provide smaller bundles of channels and charge a lower fee from viewers who watch television over a computer or tablet.
However, the networks have been reluctant on breaking up their TV packages into smaller bundles. The move is likely to lower their advertising inventory. Viacom, Inc. (NASDAQ:VIAB) and other companies sell ads at much lower rates, so they depend on volume. Another problem is that Nielsen can’t measure online videos the same way it measures television. So, they can’t track the number of people watching a program, and sell advertisements on that basis.
The stocks of Dish Network Corp. (NASDAQ:DISH) jumped 29 cents to $30.70 on Thursday.
