Posted on 04/13/2008 10:47:38 PM PDT by Santa Fe_Conservative
WASHINGTON (AP) - For months, TV viewers have been told by government, by industry and by the media that if they already subscribe to cable, there's no need to worry about the coming transition to digital broadcasting.
So cable customer Doris Spurk was surprised to learn that thanks to the transition, she would have to rent a converter box for $5.95 per month, per television set, plus pay for a $60 service call to install it. With five televisions in her home, the conversion would increase her bill by 75 percent.
"It really ticks us off," the 63-year-old central Florida resident said. "If they are in the right and can do this - charge these prices - then the educational effort that the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) is doing is really misleading everybody."
Thus far, government and the broadcast industry have focused their consumer-education efforts regarding the transition on viewers of over-the-air television programming. But information about how the transition will affect cable subscribers has been scant.
The congressionally mandated transition requires all full-power television stations to broadcast only in a digital format starting in mid-February. Anyone with a non-digital television who uses an antenna will need a converter box. The government is giving out two $40 coupons per household to subsidize the cost of the boxes, and about 10 million coupons have been requested so far.
What hasn't been widely publicized is that the transition also will affect some cable subscribers.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.myway.com ...
My provider, Time Warner - San Diego, has already told us we don’t have to do anything. I have cable TV, cable internet and cable phone service. They told me nothing will change.
I dropped my cable a year or more ago.. and I have really not missed it... most of the shows are available on line now, or wait a half hr and one can see a re run of most of them.. so I figured I have saved 600.00 a year.. and got my 40 dollars for the converter whatever I will need in feb.
There is no government mandate that cable switch to digital. In fact, there is an FCC mandate that cable companies maintain analog service for several years.
Cable companies want to get rid of analog channels because they can transmit several digital channels in the same space as one analog channel.
The woman in this article is one of a few who subscribe to small cable operators who are able to exempt themselves from the FCC mandate.
She can always get converter boxes and use over the air service on some of her TVs.
Has nothing to do with the federal directives; has everything to do with the choices of the local cable company and the town who oversees the contract. Angry customers should immediately call their city hall and complain.
The cable company loves these things - extra six bucks a month per set? Of course they’re going to try to squeeze these into the cable contracts. Now it would be very nice if the Feds required cable companies to open their networks to consumer converter boxes - $6 a month per set, or $99 at your local Circuit City with no more fees.
Exactly. Her problem is with the cable company, not the FCC. They’re not only not misleading everybody, they’re not even misleading her... although, somehow, I get the feeling that would be one and the same thing to her.
Same here and I have Cox.
I doubt they will mention these extra fees in those cable anti-satellite commericals lol. Looks like I will be buying direct tv after all
60 dollar service call? man that is nice. hook a cable in and a pwr cord. they probably dont allow self install. but then I dont blame them. I know customers request a self install kit for dsl or cable internet, first thing they do is call the helpdesk becuase they cant figure out how to plug it into the wall.
Evidently,some cable companies are blaming their requirement that subscribers get digital cable service on the over-the-air transistion to digital.
This, however, is a canard. In truth, the cable companies can choose to cut their services over to digital at whatever pace they choose. Every cable system I have heard of receives the DTV signal over the air (or on a direct feed from each TV station) and then reformats it to a cable-industry digital standard unrelated to the digital broadcast standard. In other words, the cable company’s reception of TV station signals, whether digital or analog, is a technically independent act from their recoding the signals for transmission to their subscribers.
[In the old days, this was not true; before digital cable, cable operators would take off-the-air signals (or direct analog feeds from local stations), translate or remodulate them to channels convenient for the cable system, and send them to subscribers. The format and modulation of the signal would be unchanged; only its frequency would be affected.]
Now, cable providers are hot to capture the additional revenue from digital cable operations by (1) Squeezing more channels, in digital form, down that coax cable; (2) Hyping “how much better digital is,” and (3) Forcing subscribers into the extra monthly cost of set-top cable boxes.
They’re using the FCC over-the-air cutover to digital as an excuse; a transparent one to somebody who knows what’s going on.
Naturally, you might have other issues with them that I am not speaking to.
Heh-heh.
Whan I first had my DSL installed, the Telco crew didn't know how to do it! (It turned out that my installation involved a modem/router and not just a modem, and my configuration was one of the first to be installed in my city.) They installed some Telco junk S/W on my computer that turned out to be unnecessary. They finally got it going after getting on the phone to a more experienced crew and being coached through it.
This article is misleading. Everyone uses a cable box per television unless they are daisy chained. A new digital box would replace the analog box, but there would only be an additional fee on top of the old box charge. Ex: Old box costs $6 per month, the new box costs $8 per month.
The article makes it seem like the full $8 fee would be an increase per box, not simply an increased fee per box.
There will be increased fees. There will also be a vastly improved picture.
Seems to me that we now pay extra for digital TV.
This woman pays extra to use her analog TV.
The only common denominator is “pays extra”.
Most cable systems don’t require a cable box if you go with basic or expanded basic service.
The bottom line is this woman needs to get some newer TVs and she still won’t need a cable box.
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