Spaceway Setback Shows Satellite Shift

"We look forward to developing Spaceway to its potential," Carey said, according to the CCBN transcript of the call, "but we'll broadly evaluate what is in the marketplace, and how do we bring the best option to our customers. I don't look at the consumer satellite broadband business as a place ... that we ourselves would be deeply subsidizing."

In the company's call for the first quarter of 2003, Carey mentioned that the company was looking at how it could use part of Spaceway's capacity to deliver high-definition television or local broadcast stations instead.

Meanwhile, Charlie Ergen -- CEO of DirecTV competitor EchoStar (DISH Quote) -- hasn't been too interested in broadband, either.

"The economics are still tough," Ergen said on EchoStar's fourth-quarter 2003 call, according to CCBN. "We're going to have to have some good, strong partners to help us."

Asked later about business opportunities for broadband in the U.S. and elsewhere, Ergen wasn't wildly enthusiastic.

"[If] there's a business opportunity, we'd look at it," Ergen said. "But our focus realy is on ... getting to 10 million [video] subscribers ... and how do we maximize our free cash flow while we're doing that. Pretty simple business."