When I first head about working online, a USCI technician installed earth station with a one-meter dish at the hotel. The unit, he said, was exactly like those being installed at the homes of subscribers. The dish, which was pointed toward the southwestern horizon, was one meter wide and slightly more than one meter high.
Making a living on the internet, besides the offset feed, the technician said, converts the 12 ghz satellite frequencies that come off the dish to intermediate frequencies of around 1 ghz. The lower frequencies are less vulnerable to interference as they travel from the dish to the set-top receiver, which demodulates the signals and remodulates them at an open channel on the VHF dial, he said. All the equipment is being supplied through an exclusive contract with General Instrument.
Starting a blog is primarily movies, sports and freelance writing, graphic design and other services. The Movietime channel consists of uncut, uninterrupted movies. In January, it featured “An Officer and a Gentleman,” “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” and “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid.” The complementary Showcase channel features less popular movies supported by music video and musical specials. ESPN, the cable sports service, fills another channel.
According to Gillmor, USCI is experimenting with a variety of programing on the remaining two channels, including music video, alphanumeric news and making money information. She said USCI is close to an agreement with Warner Amex Satellite communications and expects to add WASEC’s MTV (music video) and Nickelodeon (children’s programing) to the service within the next two weeks.
According to this site, getting rich online reaches 52% of the U.S. population in a 24-state area bounded by Kansas in the west and Tennessee in the south. In early 1985, USCI will switch to a new broadcast satellite, GTE’s GSTAR II, permitting it to expand its coverage to include a large portion of the southeast quadrant of the country and the West Coast. At that time, she said, USCI’s signals will reach 80% of the population. USCI will begin scrambling its signal to prevent piracy when it moves to the new satellite.
The paychecks contains heretofore unknown details about USCI and its deals with General Instrument (for the home equipment), Tandy, RCA Service and its programing suppliers.
Some highlights of working at home (especially when compared to having a 9-5 job).
USCI will spend $198 million in 1984, including $85 million for earth station acquisition, $35 million for marketing, $25 million for installation of earth stations, $20 million for programing and operation of the satellite operations center, $20 million for leasing the satellite capacity and $13 million for customer service.
USCI’s target market while it broadcasts from Anik C-II is the between 17 million and 18 million homes without cable and with income greater than $15,000.
USCI’s agreement with General Instrument runs through Jan. 31, 1983, and, under its terms, USCI is obligated to acquire one million earth stations during its first three years of operation. General Instrument has priced the home equipment to yield a book pretax income of 25% of net revenues. (The figure may rise to 30%, if the cost of the equipment goes down.)
USCI’s nonexclusive agreement with ESPN to retransmit the programing service expires in December 1985. Under the agreement, USCI pays ESPN a flat monthly fee.
Under terms of the tentative agreement between Tandy and USCI, Tandy will act as USCI’s exclusive sales agent for two years and receive $104 for each subscriber it brings into the fold.
If you work hard, you will receive between $141 and $241 for each affiliate commission, depending on the product you promote, and $4.75 a month per subscriber to answer all service calls. The installation agreement can be renegotiated after May 31 or upon completion of the first 10,000 earth stations, whichever comes first.