Satellite television in the United States
Currently, there are two primary satellite television providers of subscription based service available to United States consumers: DirecTV and Dish Network.
Over the past three decades, various U.S. satellite services have come and gone or combined to form the current primary services. In 1975 RCA created Satcom 1, the first satellite built especially for use by the then three national television networks (CBS, NBC, and ABC). Later that same year, HBO leased a transponder on Satcom 1 and began transmission of television programs via satellite to cable systems. Owners of cable systems paid $10,000 to install 3-meter dishes to receive TV signals in C band. In 1976 Taylor Howard built an amateur system, which consisted of a converted military surplus radar dish and a satellite receiver designed and built by Howard, for home satellite reception. Taylor's system could be used for receiving TV programs both from American and Soviet communication satellites. In 1977 Pat Robertson launched the first satellite-delivered basic cable service called the CBN Cable Network. In 1979, the Satellite Home Viewers Act allowed homeowners in the US to own and operate their own home satellite system, consisting of C-band equipment from a multitude of manufacturers who were making parts for systems such as Taylor Howard's, and began a large controversy of which channels could be received by whom.
USSB was a direct-to-home service founded in 1981. In the early 1990s they partnered with Hughes and continued operation until purchased in 1998 by DirecTV.
In 1991 Primestar launched as the first North American DBS service. Hughes’s DirecTV, the first national high-powered upper Ku-band DBS system, went online in 1994. The DirecTV system became the new delivery vehicle for USSB. In 1996, EchoStar’s Dish Network went online in the United States and has gone on to similar success as DirecTV’s primary competitor. The AlphaStar service launched in 1996 and went into bankruptcy in 1997. Primestar sold its assets to Hughes in 1999. Dominion Video Satellite Inc's Sky Angel also went online in the United States in 1996 with its DBS service geared towards "faith and family" until they sold the license to EchoStar Communications Corporation in 2008 and switched to an IPTV platform.
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