Merrill Lynch is boosting estimates for EchoStar Communications‘ [Nasdaq: DISH] fourth-quarter subscriber growth by 15,000 due to lower subscriber churn than anticipated.

The change brings subscriber estimates for the direct broadcast satellite operator to 345,000 new customers in the October-December period and 8.125 million subscribers overall at the end of 2002, according to a research note by Marc Nabi, a satellite analyst at Merrill Lynch.