Over 2 million satellite tv pirates in North America
A recent report from The Carmel Group entitled "Getting a Free Bird" estimates that more than 2 million homes in North America are now pirating Bell ExpressVu and Dish Network Direct-to-Home (DTH) satellite television signals.
Digital Home reviewed the findings of the report and believes them to be accurate thanks to the novel approach the research company took to derive the numbers.
Rather than relying on crude industry estimates, which are typically inflated by satellite providers hoping for government largesse, the Carmel Group derived its estimates by tallying up the number of free-to-air (FTA) set-top boxes that have been sold in North America.
At this point the uninitiated reader may be asking what the sales of FTA set top boxes have to do with satellite piracy. To answer that, we must take a step back to April 2004.
