Seriously I was at a convention this week and the speaker that did a techie update said that the FCC commercial that says if you get your T.V. via cable no conversion is necessary is not completely true. If you have an older T.V. you will need a converter box once the cable company stops sending analog signal through their system. The FCC does not have a requirement of how long cable companies must provide analog signal so you might need a converter box within a month or two.

I work in the Cable TV field. Some cable companies will shut down the analog channels and use the bandwidth to pump in extra services and these are the companies that require you to have a converter no matter what level of service you have. But there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of TV's that recieve basic cable TV service without a converter. Should a cable company remove the analog channels from their system they would be forced to buy hundreds of thousands of converters and pay the cost of having them installed,,,not to mention a lot of pissed off customers. More than likely whatever your cable company is doing now will remain unchanged.

smn1256 Wrote:I work in the Cable TV field. Some cable companies will shut down the analog channels and use the bandwidth to pump in extra services and these are the companies that require you to have a converter no matter what level of service you have. But there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of TV's that recieve basic cable TV service without a converter. Should a cable company remove the analog channels from their system they would be forced to buy hundreds of thousands of converters and pay the cost of having them installed,,,not to mention a lot of pissed off customers. More than likely whatever your cable company is doing now will remain unchanged.

What pisses me off is the lack of media coverage of this giant ripoff of the taxpayer. We have to pay for a damn box(and the socialist subsidy)...so the damn FCC can sell more bandwidth for millions of dollars?..and of course expand it's bureaucracy... WTF??...and Why is this NEVER mentioned?

I live in SENC where the Wilmington NBC channel was the first in the nation to go to this system.
They bombarded us for months taking about how much better the picture would be...blah..blah..blah. People rushed to get the government subsidy to buy these boxes..(even if they didn't need them). The local Walmart was sold out constantly. You would have thought that these boxes would heal cancer or something.
All the while the little FCC scheme to bilk the taxpayer came off without a hitch...Not a peep of this "real conspiracy" is being talked about. The sheer ignorance of the American public is really sad.

Does anyone think that the FCC will start talking about the money it is going to receive from selling the additional bandwidth?...not likely

Fo Shizzle Wrote:

smn1256 Wrote:I work in the Cable TV field. Some cable companies will shut down the analog channels and use the bandwidth to pump in extra services and these are the companies that require you to have a converter no matter what level of service you have. But there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of TV's that recieve basic cable TV service without a converter. Should a cable company remove the analog channels from their system they would be forced to buy hundreds of thousands of converters and pay the cost of having them installed,,,not to mention a lot of pissed off customers. More than likely whatever your cable company is doing now will remain unchanged.

What pisses me off is the lack of media coverage of this giant ripoff of the taxpayer. We have to pay for a damn box(and the socialist subsidy)...so the damn FCC can sell more bandwidth for millions of dollars?..and of course expand it's bureaucracy... WTF??...and Why is this NEVER mentioned?

Because what's being said is that these frequencies will be used for emergency services.

Whether that's true or not remains to be seen. It ain't like radio and TV stations are going to tell you different.

But, Americans did get an answer to this concern. (And the switch to HDTV has been delayed for several years b/c of resistence)

My portable battery powered TV that I take to the Football Games (6 inch screen).... how do you "convert" that?

WMD Owl Wrote:My portable battery powered TV that I take to the Football Games (6 inch screen).... how do you "convert" that?

You can't.

But, you also should not throw this into the waste stream becuase you will simply be adding to the content of a landfill that will take over 1000 years to breakdown, except for the toxic heavy metals in the electronics, those will leech into the groundwater and poison our children for the next millennium.

Instead you need to take the time and money to dispose of this properly. Find an electronics recylcing company or station that will accept your set. Make sure that it is one that does not use volatile solvents which poison the air and add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. And it can't use harsh acids or caustics which kill fish in the water and add to erosion of soil. And it can't use inceneration which pollutes the air. And it can't use detergents that contain phosophorous which contributes to algae blooms. Drive your defunct TV there. Pay them to accept your set and dispose of the glass, plastics, metals and silicon properly. And please purchase the appropriate carbon offsets for this endeavor.

smn1256 Wrote:I work in the Cable TV field. Some cable companies will shut down the analog channels and use the bandwidth to pump in extra services and these are the companies that require you to have a converter no matter what level of service you have. But there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of TV's that recieve basic cable TV service without a converter. Should a cable company remove the analog channels from their system they would be forced to buy hundreds of thousands of converters and pay the cost of having them installed,,,not to mention a lot of pissed off customers. More than likely whatever your cable company is doing now will remain unchanged.

Explain to me why you arse clowns only roll out DOCSIS 3.0 when FiOS from Verizon is killing you? And even DOCSIS 3.0 isn't even close to the bandwidth you get out of FiOS. Why is it that in most of Europe, Japan, and even friggin Korea 100 Mbit Down and 20 Mbit Up is ho-hum and commonplace, and relatively cheap. Whereas here 15 Mbit Down and 2 Mbit Up is about the fastest you can get ... and you'll end up paying over $150/mo for it. I remember one of the Tulsa fans that was on these boards was living in France, and she got unlimited local telephone, full basic TV + some sports tiers, and 100 Mbit internet for $30 USD/mo. WTF!!!

georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:Explain to me ... I remember one of the Tulsa fans that was on these boards was living in France, and she got unlimited local telephone, full basic TV + some sports tiers, and 100 Mbit internet for $30 USD/mo. WTF!!!

Socialism obviously works. Welcome aboard, comrade.

DrTorch Wrote:

Fo Shizzle Wrote:

smn1256 Wrote:I work in the Cable TV field. Some cable companies will shut down the analog channels and use the bandwidth to pump in extra services and these are the companies that require you to have a converter no matter what level of service you have. But there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of TV's that recieve basic cable TV service without a converter. Should a cable company remove the analog channels from their system they would be forced to buy hundreds of thousands of converters and pay the cost of having them installed,,,not to mention a lot of pissed off customers. More than likely whatever your cable company is doing now will remain unchanged.

What pisses me off is the lack of media coverage of this giant ripoff of the taxpayer. We have to pay for a damn box(and the socialist subsidy)...so the damn FCC can sell more bandwidth for millions of dollars?..and of course expand it's bureaucracy... WTF??...and Why is this NEVER mentioned?

Because what's being said is that these frequencies will be used for emergency services.

Whether that's true or not remains to be seen. It ain't like radio and TV stations are going to tell you different.

But, Americans did get an answer to this concern. (And the switch to HDTV has been delayed for several years b/c of resistence)

This will end up as ALL govt. programs do...going way beyond their original focus or intent. The graft potential of this is extremely high.

georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:Explain to me why you arse clowns only roll out DOCSIS 3.0 when FiOS from Verizon is killing you? And even DOCSIS 3.0 isn't even close to the bandwidth you get out of FiOS. Why is it that in most of Europe, Japan, and even friggin Korea 100 Mbit Down and 20 Mbit Up is ho-hum and commonplace, and relatively cheap. Whereas here 15 Mbit Down and 2 Mbit Up is about the fastest you can get ... and you'll end up paying over $150/mo for it. I remember one of the Tulsa fans that was on these boards was living in France, and she got unlimited local telephone, full basic TV + some sports tiers, and 100 Mbit internet for $30 USD/mo. WTF!!!

The cable TV industry is extremely regulated to the point of disbelief - much more than the phone and dish companies. You wouldn't believe the technical standards we're required to meet and have proof of it - it's call the FCC Proof-Of-Performance tests. And there's lots more.

Modem speed is decided by, believe it or not, by an .ini file placed on the your computer when you start it and connect. You can't edit this file when it's in use and if you disconnect your modem you have to restart your computer and as soon as you get connectivity the file is replaced.

If any of you remember the old Surf Board modems the technology used with them didn't update the .ini file every time it got connected. So with the computer disconnected from the modem the .ini was able to be edited and the speed increased. About 5 years ago we detected a single modem operating with RX (recieve) speeds of almost 500mbs. We polled every modem in our system and not one modem provisioned by us was operating that high meaning someone had hacked into the network. We never found out what was happening because it didn't last too long.

Anyway, my point is that cable networks are capable of higher speeds and I've often wondered why we didn't take advantage of it. Possible reasons could be that the high speeds could be used to broadcast HD content that isn't supposed to appear in that particular market. Or maybe that with the high speeds there would be too much sharing of very large files which might cause network congestion. Or maybe, the FCC in all its wisdom, has placed limitations on modem speed for reasons only they know about. All I know is that the cable companies are in it to make money and if they thought higher speeds would sell they'd probably sell it.