In March we discussed how Dish Network was sued for violating the Federal Do Not Call list by the Federal government and four States (California, Illinois, Ohio and North Carolina), At the time, Dish proclaimed that an independent audit revealed no violations, while heavily inferring that any violations may have been the fault of a reseller. This week Dish Network decided to settle, agreeing to pay $5.99 million to 46 different states for the company's marketing practices. The settlement resolves the states’ allegations that DISH Network:

•Refused to accept responsibility for the misconduct of its third-party retailers and installers;
•Made telemarketing calls to consumers in violation of No Call laws;
•Failed to disclose the complete terms and conditions of their customer agreements, including the availability of rebates, credits and free offers;
•Did not disclose that purchased or leased equipment was previously used and/or refurbished;
•Made reference to competitors’ price offers when the goods or services being compared were substantially different; and,
•Charged customer credit cards and debited bank accounts without providing adequate notice and obtaining appropriate authorization.

Back in 2003, Dish Network faced similar complaints by Colorado and 12 other states.

After Echostar was sued in 2004, a jury in 2006 ruled that Dish DVRs infringed upon a TiVo patent, and forced the company to pay TiVo $73.9 million in damages -- a ruling that was upheld in federal appeals court in January of 2008. Later on in 2008, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case -- essentially handing a victory to TiVo. Ultimately Echostar implemented a workaround, but a federal judge in Texas has awarded TiVo an additional $103 million in damages plus interest after finding that Echostar violated an injunction and continued to violate patents after previous rulings. Echostar and Dish Network say they're going to appeal the ruling, and have already paid TiVo $105 million in damages.

While DirecTV just posted their best subscriber gains in four years (460,000 new subscribers), rival Dish Network this morning announced they lost 94,000 subscribers during the first quarter. Still, net income rose to $313 million from $259 million one year ago, with total revenue reaching $2.91 billion -- up 2.1% compared with $2.84 billion a year earlier. The loss of AT&T as a resale partner hurt Dish, but the carrier was already struggling to stay competitive with telcoTV, cable, and DirecTV promotions.

Dish Network was already being hit pretty hard by the housing bubble, but AT&T's decision to cancel their partnership with the satellite company is only making things worse. Without AT&T's bundle promotions, or AT&T's previously much-ballyhooed DBS/DSL hybrid HomeZone unit taking on new customers, Dish is expecting already bad numbers to get worse. While most other TV operators managed slow but strong growth, Dish lost 102,000 subscribers last quarter, blaming "weaker economic conditions, aggressive subscriber acquisition and retention promotions by our competition, heavy marketing by our competition, the growth of fiber-based and Internet-based video providers, signal theft and other forms of fraud, and operational inefficiencies at Dish Network."

Dish Network today unveiled the SlingLoaded HD DuoDVR ViP 922, a new Dish DVR that comes with embedded Slingbox technology, allowing users to watch their home TV programming on the road via smartphone, PC or laptop. Somewhat less interestingly, Verizon announced new FiOSTV DVR functionality that lets users schedule DVR recordings via their Verizon phone. Not to be outdone, AT&T drops us a line to remind us that U-verse has included remote DVR features via Web since 2006 and cell since 2007 at no charge -- Verizon's remote programming requires you pay extra for their Home Media DVR service.

Over the summer, in competitive response to Verizon's NYC FiOSTV launch, DirecTV announced they'd be offering content in 1080p high definition. Not to be outdone, Dish Network announced that they'd be the first to get 1080p content to market, and began delivering 1080p to customer MPEG-4 HD DVR receivers back in July. Sound and Vision Magazine puts the new, higher definition through its paces and finds that Dish's claim of "Blu-ray Disc quality" 1080p comes pretty close, though Dish's offering is slightly more grainy, and doesn't have quite the same audio punch as its disc counterpart (5.1 versus 7.1-channel DTS-HD Master Audio or Dolby TrueHD).

Back in July AT&T announced that the company’s agreement with Dish Network to sell bundled TV, phone and broadband packages would be terminated at the end of this year. This caused speculation that the purpose of the announcement was to incite a bidding war for AT&T partnership between Dish and DirecTV.

Back in 2006, a court determined that Echostar was violating TiVo’s patents for certain DVR technology. The company was ordered to pay out damages but Echostar is still appealing the matter. TiVo recently asked the court to find Echostar in contempt for continuing to use the patent-infringing technology and also requested the court to order Echostar to pay $220 million in damages that have been incurred since the jury verdict has been on appeal. The judge took the matter under consideration and said that he hopes to have a decision by October 1st but may not have one until sometime much later this year.

Dish Network is tooting their own horn this morning by announcing they're the first company in the pay-TV industry (in the U.S., anyway) to transmit all standard and high definition programming in the MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding Standard. New customers living in 21 markets in the eastern half of the United States will be the first to get the all MPEG-4 service, with new markets arriving "in the coming months." The MPEG-4 compression standard uses less bandwidth, allowing carriers to provide more HD channels. Dish hopes that MPEG-4 and 1080P content will give them a competitive edge over telcoTV and cable.

Following an announcement of the first-ever quarterly subscriber loss for a U.S. satellite TV operator, Dish Network appears to have renewed long-dead discussions about a merger with rival DirecTV.

Last quarter, Dish network added 170,000 new satellite subscribers. This quarter? Not so much.

A few days ago, in competitive response to Verizon's NYC FiOSTV launch, DirecTV announced they'd be offering content in 1080p high definition. Not to be outdone, Dish Network today announced that 1080p VOD content will be activated and available on all MPEG-4 HD DVR receivers starting tomorrow, stealing DirecTV's thunder with the first 1080p offering in the industry. Dish says MPEG-4 capable DVR owners should see the update shortly, and Dish is offering users a discounted price for the 1080p version of the film "I Am Legend."

After a botched satellite launch last March, things looked dire for Dish Network's HD lineup. They managed to overcome the lack of new capacity by playing public relations patty cake with their channel count last May, but with Echostar II biting the dust, they needed some help. They got it today with the announcement that Echostar XI successfully launched last night. Dish says they'll be adding 16 HD channels on August 1, fulfilling their promise to have more than 100HD channels available before the end of the year.

At the beginning of this year, DISH network announced a goal to be able to offer customers 100 HD channels by the end of the year. They have done some fiddling with the numbers throughout the year; for example, in May they added 22 channels, issued a statement that they were near their goal with a total of 95 channels but then pulled 15 channels right away. Nevertheless, they are currently stating that they will be adding 17 new HD channels on August 1st which will bring the current total up to the stated goal of 100 HD channels. If this is indeed the truth, the company will have reached its goal approximately five months ahead of originally planned. DISH will also be launching a new HD-only programming package called TurboHD that they say is the first of its kind.

AT&T has told Dish Network that the telco is ending their agreement at the end of the year to sell bundled TV, phone and broadband packages. According to Reuters, AT&T Is setting the stage for a bidding war between DirecTV and Dish Network for who'll get to partner with the nation's largest broadband provider. Obviously AT&T wants consumers to use their U-Verse IPTV service, but they're still going to want a DBS partner in the significant number of market where U-Verse won't be profitable to deploy. It's not particularly good news for Dish, which was already facing a decline in subscribers. I've dropped a line to AT&T to see how this will impact the Homezone DSL/DBS service they offer in conjunction with Dish Network.

Dish Network has been embroiled in patent battles with TiVo for awhile now and Dish investors haven’t been too worried … until now. According to analyst Craig Moffett, recent developments in the litigation are reason for concern. The biggest cause for concern is a request by TiVo that the court find Dish in contempt for failure to disable DVRs that are in violation of a patent; that decision isn’t expected until September but should it fall in favor of TiVo, Dish could be in some serious financial trouble. In part due to these issues, Dish has been consistently losing market share to DirecTV.

Back in 2006, TiVo filed a patent infringement lawsuit against DISH Network, claiming that DISH’s DVR was a violation of a patent held by TiVo. The courts found that to be correct and recently denied DISH their appeal request. DISH is moving on to the Supreme Court with its appeal but in the meantime has filed a lawsuit against TiVo regarding DISH’s new DVR software. TiVo has been making public statements that the new technology also infringes on a TiVo patent and DISH wants a judge to confirm that it does not. TiVo hasn’t commented on the lawsuit.

I'm generally entertained by TV marketing battles, from companies including everything but the blue setup screen in their total channel counts, to companies attacking others for false advertising while engaging in false advertising. This week it's Dish Network playing PR patty cake.

When Echostar snagged over $700 million in the FCC’s recent spectrum auction, analysts started speculating what the company’s plans were. All predictions pointed to the belief that the company was planning to use the spectrum to develop its mobile TV service. It now appears that these predictions are confirmed after the company has announced a new partnership with Alcatel-Lucent to test DVB-SH mobile TV technology here in the U.S. The licenses acquired in the spectrum auction would be compatible with this testing. Many analysts maintain that it’s a bad business move due to the cost of initiating such a service and the existing competition in the market.

Google has announced that its TV Ads service, which has been in closed beta testing since last June, is going to be available to everyone with an Internet connection in just a few weeks. The service makes it so that anyone with a broadband connection can buy a 15-second or 30-second television ad that will air on Dish Network.