Their may be no more qam

Yes, they'll probably guarantee us reasonably priced bandwidth for sending and reading text emails, and for the "poor", they'll subsidize free high speed unlimited service.

 

I think the internet service cross subsidies are already happening in some parts of the country voluntarily, without regulation, perhaps to head off regulation. It has been compared to the telecom national universal service fund, which takes taxes/fees from paying subscribers to provide free or near-free service for "low-income" customers. Likewise now for wireless phone service.

Somehow I think you already knew this stuff.

 

Right... because it wouldn't be a television if it didn't.

Are you arguing that monitors should now be allowed to be sold as "TV"s? Really?

 

Advertisements

Well my understanding is that monitors are actually not legally allowed to be sold as a TV/Television, for a device to legally be called a TV/Television it has to have an OTA tuner. All this means is that if a company is selling a 42 inch LCD without any OTA tuner they call it a 42 inch LCD monitor instead of a 42 inch LCD television. I think some companies also used the term "HDTV Ready" when they left out the tuners.

In the post I was commenting on you made several statements my response was directed at the first 2, your statement was:

I was agreeing with your second line "You can leave out any tuners and sell it as a monitor." While at the same time stating what I thought the actual requirement was which allows others to determine for themselves if they agree your first statement that was: "There are no currently meaningful tuner requirements."

The reason I thought it was worth mentioning at all was for the benefit of people who use the words TV or Television as a generic term to mean anything they view on a "TV/monitor", instead of the specific meaning used by the FCC/Gov. which is a device that we can receive and view what we refer to as OTA broadcast TV signals.

 

Back when the writing was on the wall for NTSC, VCRs and DVD/VCR combos were being marketed as "Tuner Free".

 

Or better yet, impose common carrier status on ISPs so that all comers can use the lines at true wholesale rates (i.e., create competition where none exists today). That's what Europe and Asia have done to great success - they are far ahead of us now.

But the problem is that both the FCC and Congress have been bought and paid for by the cable and telcos, even though taxpayer money and protected monopoly status paid for the infrastructure (in large part) in the first place.

Ain't capitalism great? You get to have an HSI monopoly (or duopoly) and charge whatever you want while the gov't is asleep at the wheel. I just got my latest Comcast bill and internet is going up from $43.95 to $48.95 a month, with no speed or cap increases. And it actually costs them LESS to provide that same bandwidth than it did just a few years ago.

It's obvious by now that as cable subs decline, they'll just get their money from higher ISP or usage-based billing charges, and the FCC and Congress are going to look the other way when all that lobbyist money (or revolving door jobs) is coming to them.

 

Don't forget to include the NAB in that list.

 

Not necessarily. Cable operators, among others, are after antennas too, and may get their way. See this link: www.thefutureoftv.org

 

Just a small correction/observation, not an argument:

Over six months ago, Cox Communications in my area, went to full 1GHz. They now stock their trucks with splitters & other items rated for 5-1002MHz, whereas they used to use 5-1000MHz. 900MHz splitters never worked well, even if you bought the very best ones. They have not, and claim they never will, implement SDV, or Tuning Adapters. Cox Las Vegas is more of a maverick franchise of the original Cox, so they get around a few regulations and innovate/change things as they please.

Also, currently, my SBG6580 Cable Modem/Gateway is locked onto 8 downstream channels (frequencies), the maximum number my CM/G supports, which are bonded together. I still only have 1 upstream channel/frequency, which would become 4, bonded together, if I upgraded to their highest Tier of service.

For the curious: With the Cox "Premier" Tier, I get download speeds to 80Mbps w/powerboost & up to 40Mbps sustained (usually 22-30Mbps during peak hours) and upload speeds of up to 10Mbps w/PowerBoost & up to 4Mbps sustained (usually 2-3Mbps during peak hours). There are 2 higher Tiers than what I have. I'm sure glad I went all-out and bought the DOCSIS 3.0 CM/G with the most channels supported!

As far as the TV service part goes, they still support analog channels 3-67, and 96-99. They recently made it so that ALL channels are digital if you use their STB/DVR and/or use their CableCard. Here and there, they have been moving channels like 2 & 4 to digital only. They have Clear QAM for local OTA only, and don't shuffle the frequencies around, but I can only use them on non-TiVo devices (the channel scan feature that I would have to use to add them adds ALL frequencies as if they are working channels/sub-channels, and it makes my TiVos slow to a crawl and crash irrecoverably, hard drive re-image required, within a month). This happens with My Tivo HD units and my Premieres as well. My TVs don't add every frequency and sub-channel, and/or the ones that do have an option to "remove unused/scrambled/encrypted channels". Why TiVo doesn't have such a feature, is beyond me. Lacking the guide data, I really don't mind not being able to use them. On the TVs the local OTA, available on Clear-QAM, channels are the only ones that have guide data available...

Regarding theft of service: Very easy here, pop the cover off the sidewalk box, which has no anti-tamper lock, crimp an end on the cable that they will have cut the end off of, then use the correct, or improvised, tool to remove a terminator from a tap port, and connect. Pretty much the same deal, just easier, to remove a "cable modem only" or "basic service only" filter/signal trap. However, Cox has trucks roaming all night that detect houses getting illegal service, either way, and on the second time they catch it, they will rip the entire line out from between your house and the sidewalk. The longest time anybody here can expect to get away with it is 1-2 months. I know all this because I know one of the Cox guys that works my area. I talked to him one late night when I saw him ripping out an illegal hookup for the second time. He said that two houses were going to get fined for the 2nd infraction, but I know the people, and they didn't even get any notices, or a fine. They know I could hook them back up, and always ask, but I ALWAYS decline. I'm more inclined to report them to Cox when they find somebody else who will hook them back up, and I see it being done. The damage I have seen done to Cox's taps/ports by people who are complete idiots, causes ingress & outgress on the network, which can degrade services for legitimate customers.

 

Did you know that Cox Las Vegas will be merged with Cox Arizona in the coming future. That could change things up. I would also bet that Cox Las Vegas will see SDV deployed before or after the markets combine.

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=212907

 

The issue isn't the cable companies per se - the issue is broadcasters moving from must-carry (the old rule) to charging fees for their *valuable* (and normally carried OTA, at that) content to be carried by local cable companies (and telcos - VZ doesn't get off free, and neither do the satellite providers). It started with the independents and affiliates (LIN Broadcasting, Sinclair Broadcasting, etc.); the networks themselves and their O&Os only got in on the action after seeing how well their own affiliates were at their *extortion racket*. The NAB is silent because its their membership that's doing the extortion! By using the backdoor, it forces the NCTA and NAMST (National Association of Maximum Service Telecasters - the satellite and telco-TV providers, along with munis ineligible for NCTA membership, belong to this trade group) to be the *bad guy*, while the real *villains* - the NAB's membership - can play angel.

 

The NAB are certainly no angels, the original version was "must carry, must pay".

That's right, in return for being allowed to hire the cable companies to act as our antenna to receive what we have a legal right to get for free because the broadcasters are using our airwaves, they wanted to get paid, by us, for having larger audiences to whom they could show commercials for which they charge more to advertisers.

 

The cable companies aren't doing the screwing.

If anything, the cable companies (same with telco-TV, such as FIOS and AT&T U-verse, and the satellite providers) are actually the screwees.

Does anyone remember the original *must-carry* rule?

The original rule (mandated by the FCC, and applied equally to all CATV and MATV systems) specifically required that systems covered by the rulemaking (an FCC regulation) HAD to carry all locally broadcast channels available within the system's footprint by an average-priced antenna - contrariwise, the broadcaster was prohibited from charging the affected provider any fee.

The change in the rule was *not* at the request of the NCTA or any of its membership - the change in the rule was not even during the administration of Bush the Younger. This Proposed Change in Rulemaking actually dates back to the second term of the *Clinton Administration* (this gives you an idea of how long it takes things to filter through the labyrinth that is the national bureaucracy portion of the Federal Communications Commission), and originated with two multi-license broadcasting companies - LIN Broadcasting and Sinclair Broadcasting. These two companies led the charge to *monetize* their content (which they paid expensive *rights fees* for) by charging cable companies that retransmitted that content (often under the original *must-carry rule*). The NCTA (naturally) howled over this; it protested vigorously (and also resisted contract negotiations that have basically become a form of extortion - the broadcast companies - first these two, and then the broadcast networks and their O&Os - first with cable companies, and have since expanded to satellite providers and telco-TV providers) are using their leverage like old-fashioned, but legal, extortion - pay us what we want, or you don't get this content to retransmit. The membership of the NCTA is basically stuck.

Let's be honest - the NAB *hates* the cable companies (even the old MATV outfits that were their direct ancestors - Comcast itself began with an SMATV operation in Mississippi) - this has not changed with the NBC deal. (Why do you think that the NAB has *still* not recognized Brian Roberts - despite his being CEO of NBC Universal, as a member of the NAB, and is still looking for some way of ejecting NBC from the NAB altogether?) CBS and Disney (though both own both content and broadcast concerns) has stayed far away from owning any part of a cable company (despite, in the case of CBS, not exactly being profitable in their core broadcast operations - the reason CBS is profitable is their *advertising* businesses, led by billboard monster CBS Outdoor); they are, honestly, quite worried that the hate toward Comcast and NBC may well be turned on them!

 

The cable companies and the NAB take turns screwing us, but we're always getting screwed.

 

That's exactly it.

While unaffected directly, I had nearly a worm's eye view of the last retransmission battle between Sinclair Broadcasting and Comcast in the Greater Baltimore SMSA (the Greater Washington SMSA, where I am located, and the Greater Baltimore SMSA are not just next to each other, but partially overlap - Comcast is the dominant, by far, cable provider in both areas). That nastiness led *directly* to the skirmish between Fox O&O WTTG and Comcast in the Greater Washington SMSA - Comcast, naturally, quickly settled. (Sinclair has a duopoly in Greater Baltimore with Fox and TheCW - FOX itself has a similar duopoly with MyTV in Greater Washington, DC.)

 

I went through about 6-7 pages on this link and all I got was how great OTA TV is, nothing about a threat to it, other than generalization. I'm sure that somewhere down in the links there was info on the threat, but I gave up looking for it.

 

Well it took me 5 seconds to figure out they were talking about the possibility of the GOV reallocating current OTA spectrum to some other use.

 

Yeah, I agree the site is too general right now. When it was first started there was a specific bill they were lobbying against and the site and particularly the home page was much more informative. The threat level has dropped a bit now and they have pulled most of that stuff.

 

I'm kind of torn on this issue. I think if the cable companies were allowed to do this, it'd help "innovation" (yeah, I know, I sound like a cable marketing guy) in that most companies would quickly, very quickly, speed up their conversion to all-digital systems. Overall I think that's a good thing. Analog is taking up a TON of useful space on cable and needs to die sooner rather than later. With SDV cable is catching up with satellite, but if they could dump analog that'd help. Maybe some system operators would even be forward-thinking enough to drop SD feeds for channels they have in HD, saving even more room.

I get the argument by a lot of people here and on other forums that use clear QAM, but in reality there's not a whole lot of customers this would affect. If the FCC puts in some reasonable rules (no equipment fees + outlet fees, or X number of free outlets, no equipment fees for basic tier, etc) this probably isn't that terrible of an idea.

Reduces truck rolls because they can turn you on/off with an addressable receiver instead of having to come out and put a filter on your tap. If they get to do this, every house will be connected to the tap when built/first subscribed and no filters will ever be used again.

Most cable companies have local offices that allow drop off and pickup of equipment. Even rolling a truck at the initial installation, later changes/disconnects/reconnects would not require a cable company employee to come out.

Maybe a compromise would be in exchange for permission to encrypt the entire system, the cable companies don't charge rent on the boxes. Or, if they do, they don't charge outlet fees. With this change they'll be basically the same as satellite companies. DirecTV doesn't charge rent on their boxes, and only charge 'outlet fees' (mirroring fees in their world) on the 2nd and any additional boxes (the first TV is included in the package cost)

Cable ready usually just meant that it had a screw-on type connector, but I think eventually there were rules about what the tuner would support in order to be able to market it as cable-ready.

Well, since the trend is to deregulate even old utilities like the phone and electrical companies, don't hold your breath on this one.