EchoStar generally awards equity incentives as of the first day of each calendar quarter and will set exercise prices at not less than the fair market value of Class A Shares on the date of grant or the last trading day prior to the date of grant (if the date of grant is not a trading day).  The Compensation Committee approves all equity award grants to our NEOs on or before the grant date.  The Compensation Committee’s general practice is to grant annual equity awards on October 1st of each year in consultation with management’s review of employee performance.  On occasion, the Compensation Committee may grant equity awards outside of our annual grant cycle for new hires, promotions, recognition, retention or other purposes. While the Compensation Committee has discretionary authority to grant equity awards to our NEOs outside of the cycle described above, it does not have a practice or policy of granting equity awards in anticipation of the release of material non-public information and, in any event, we do not time the release of material non-public information in coordination with grants of equity awards in a manner that intentionally benefits our NEOs.