If you haven’t noticed, Dish Network’s abrupt suspension of service to nimbleTV customers has reached the tech news mainstream. Peter Kafka at All Things Digital ran the story yesterday, including quoted statements from Dish and nimbleTV. He also included a reference and link back to FTABlog. (Thanks!) If this is your first time here, welcome, and feel free to read more about nimbleTV and other stuff.

Kafka posted his story about 2 pm Eastern Time. About a half hour before that, I got the latest customer update from nimbleTV, this one signed by CEO Anand Subramanian. He asked nimbleTV customers to “stand with us” to defend the right to purchase and watch TV from anywhere. “By being an early customer of nimbleTV, you are helping pave the way for the TV of tomorrow,” Subramanian wrote, adding “we promise you’ll have (service) back soon.”

What we still don’t know is the reason why Dish shut down nimbleTV’s programming. According to the statements in Kafka’s article, it might have something to do with being erroneously considered an official Dish reseller. “While we have been upfront with our customers that nimbleTV has no direct relationship with any TV provider, Dish did not want our Web site to mislead others into thinking that we have a direct affiliation with Dish,” Subramanian told Kafka. Dish’s terse statement was, “NimbleTV is not an authorized Dish retailer, and is not authorized by Dish to market or promote our services.”

Even if that’s what Dish told nimbleTV, I’ve got a hard time believing that’s the real reason for pulling the plug. Dish is not oblivious enough to miss nimbleTV as it went through its lengthy beta and public launch, only to notice it two weeks ago. I’m still guessing that something changed, either with different personnel within Dish or because of a suggestion by an outside party. I wonder if we’ll ever know.

Meanwhile, nimbleTV endures. I’ve always thought it’ll be easier for nimbleTV to import programming to the US than the other way around, mainly because I don’t know how hard it’ll be to line up pay-TV subscriptions in other countries. The statement that nimbleTV gave me today lines up with that idea. After noting that it doesn’t plan to partner, per se, with any pay-TV provider, the statement concludes, “In addition to doing everything possible to have nimbleTV service up as soon as possible for the customers who have grown to love their nimbleTV, the company is expanding the business and will soon be adding new provider options from the U.S. and abroad.”

And that’s where we’ll leave it until nimbleTV starts serving up programming again. Coming up next on FTABlog, the over-the-air DVR that you already have but don’t know about.