Dish blames outage on 'human error'

Dish Network (Nasdaq: DISH) late Wednesday blamed an outage that hit satellite provider Tuesday on "human error" in the ground operation of its Ciel2 satellite, which is operated by SES Americom.

"SES has attributed the anomaly to human error in its ground operation of the spacecraft.  According to SES, there is no issue with the health of the satellite," Dish said in a prepared statement.

The DBS provider said the service interruption--which saw subscribers loses HDTV channels--began at about 5:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday. The company said standard definition channels "were largely unaffected" by the service interruption. Dish had announced late Tuesday morning that the service to subscribers that had lost national HD cable networks, in addition to local broadcast channels, had been restored.

Dish said the Ciel2 satelilte is operated by a Canadian subcontractor and leased to the DBS provider.

"We've provided updates to our customers through our customer service centers, our website, our retailers, and social media," Dish said in the statement.

Officials at SES Americom didn't respond to requests for comment.

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