EchoStar and DirecTV, the two competing satellite broadcasters in the United States, have both announced increases in their number of subscribers -- EchoStar added around 325,000 new subscribers to its Dish Network in the first quarter of the 2005, bringing its total number of satellite customers to 11.23 million. DirecTV added over half a million subscribers in the United States in the same period, an increase of over 20 percent on the previous year. At the end of March, DirecTV had a total of 14.45 million customers, a 14 percent increase on a year previously. Chase Carey, president and chief executive of DirecTV, said the company is moving quickly to enhance its service, launching three new satellites to allow it to introduce compelling new programming services. At the end of the year the company will also introduce a Home Media Center.
The industrial sector is on the eve of a wireless transformation, driven by an urgent demand for greater network capacity, reliability, and deterministic performance. Historically, manufacturers and mission-critical operations have relied on wired networks — favoring their predictability — because spectrum congestion in legacy 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands limited confidence in wireless for operational technology (OT) environments. However, with the introduction and rapid adoption of the 6GHz spectrum, compounded by significant advances in Wi-Fi standards, industrial facilities are now poised to embrace wireless LANs as the backbone for automation and digital innovation. Industrial WLAN Market Development Recent research from ABI Research forecasts that over 70 percent of industrial-grade wireless LAN access points (WLAN APs) shipped in 2030 will support the 6GHz band. This is a leap from 2 percent in 2023, highlighting a rapid and profound technological shift. The market for ruggedized indust...