DishPro 111 Set Top Box Teardown

Main Features

• Barebones low-end box
• DishNetwork subscriber box - aimed at being secondary receiver
• Smart card reader
• On-screen electronic programming guide

Marketing / Positioning - The Echostar DISH 111 is a bare-bones entry-level satellite receiver for DishNetwork subscribers. It is promoted as an inexpensive solution as secondary receivers in multi-receiver households. As a result, it is barebones in many respects - not just from a features point of view, (for example no separate video / audio out connections), but also the electronic and physical design keep this box very cheap to make from both material cost and manufacturing related costs.

Cost Notes - This box is among the least expensive boxes historically analyzed from a material cost perspective. We are applying some new and more aggressive pricing assumptions on a number of components, based on recent feedback from industry - and it is possible that there is still room for downward movement in many of the components - but we are continuously seeking out new evidence of worldwide low prices on any of the components in order to present lowest likely achieved material costs to our customers.

The manufacturing costs are not as low as they could be if this box were produced in China - but we are confident that the estimations of cost used based on the Made in Mexico assumption are close to current market reality. When compared with the DirecTV D10 box recently analyzed - the overall cost of manufacturing is lower due to overall lower component counts and reduced complexity of this box.

Although we decided to go with a total production volume assumption of 5Mpcs - a significant increase or decrease in production volume assumption typically bears little effect on the total costs in our analyses, as most tooling and other amortized setup costs become very low in the 1Mps+ quantity assumptions.

Major cost drivers - representing ~63% of total materials costs of ~$46.

• Main MPEG decoder / core processor (Conexant CX24154) - $10.85
• Front-End Receiver / Tuner Combination (Broadcom BCM4500 and BCM3440) - $8.40
• Memory - (ST Micro, Flash - 32M & Samsung SDRAM 64M) - $4.90
• Main PCB (substrate) - $2.60
• Interface - (Conexant - DAA Line Side IC) - $2.20
  

Design - Very simple construction - only a main PCB (no front panel PCB) - with integrated power supply on main PCB. The enclosure consists of injected molded plastics - no formed metals. The low costs in this box are a reflection of a low-end box with very few features - no extra connectors and limited user interface (3 buttons) keep it simple. Low component counts keep the overall manufacturing and material costs low.