I don't know how things are for other companies, but I know the largest cable provider here in Alaska is pulling out it's proverbial hair because it still needs to broadcast digitial *and* analog signals through it's network as somewhere close to 30% of it's subscribers won't turn in their analog boxes. There is no reason what-so-ever for this, as they would get new boxes for free, some kind of bonus like free cable for a month, or free HBO for six months, and they would even send a courier out with the new box to exchange it for you if you can't do it for some reason (elderly, disabled, just plain lazy, whatever) Common sense would say to give these people a few months to comply, then shut off the analog network completely. Unfortunately, the FCC forbids that sort of thing, and we are still more then a year away from the official analog cut off. As a sort of compromise, starting this September, the company is going to begin making certain networks only available over digital channels, one by one starting with Home and Garder, QVC, and Lifetime, which also happen to be three of the most watched ones by analog subscribers. They have been running a little ticker across all analog channels for the last two months announcing this, but there is still going to be a bunch of pissed of people come September first.
On the upside, it means more bandwidth for HD content and digital cable.
“An engineer explained to us that hundreds of ear impressions were gathered in the name of research, and while each one obviously boasted its own unique shape and size, one single characteristic remained uniform across the board: the entrance into the ear canal is not a perfect circle, it's an oval.”
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
I don't know how things are for other companies, but I know the largest cable provider here in Alaska is pulling out it's proverbial hair because it still needs to broadcast digitial *and* analog signals through it's network as somewhere close to 30% of it's subscribers won't turn in their analog boxes. There is no reason what-so-ever for this, as they would get new boxes for free, some kind of bonus like free cable for a month, or free HBO for six months, and they would even send a courier out with the new box to exchange it for you if you can't do it for some reason (elderly, disabled, just plain lazy, whatever) Common sense would say to give these people a few months to comply, then shut off the analog network completely. Unfortunately, the FCC forbids that sort of thing, and we are still more then a year away from the official analog cut off. As a sort of compromise, starting this September, the company is going to begin making certain networks only available over digital channels, one by one starting with Home and Garder, QVC, and Lifetime, which also happen to be three of the most watched ones by analog subscribers. They have been running a little ticker across all analog channels for the last two months announcing this, but there is still going to be a bunch of pissed of people come September first.
On the upside, it means more bandwidth for HD content and digital cable.