FCC: Continue analog cable until 2012

[navychop]

From this article:

"The FCC says approximately 40 million households are analog-only cable subscribers. Tuesday's ruling will require cable operators to guarantee analog cable customers will receive broadcast channels until February 2012."


The question remains: How would this affect satcos, if at all? Presumably either OTA stations provide cablecos with an analog feed, or the cableco converts the OTA digital feed to analog. Same for satcos? And which digital feeds, or all, must the cableco/satco pass on?

Leaves many questions unanswered.

 

[TuxCoder]

My guess would be for the simplest (in my opinion) solution, convert the digital feed to analog - nothing to it. Cable companies would receive the broadcast station's digital content (via an ATSC tuner box and antenna, or via fibre, or whatever) and use the receiver's analog outputs (I don't think those will go away any time soon).

Satellite companies shouldn't be affected. As far as I know, there is no subscription based delivery of local channels to households over analog satellite service. In other words, DBS is the only way I know of to get "your" local channels over satellite, and all DBS is digital.

 

[navychop]

No, for satcos the problem is what feed they get from the stations, in what format and how many of the feeds if digital do they have to carry.

 

[digiblur]

Shouldn't be a problem for the cable co's as a lot of them get their SD & HD signals via fiber from the stations already.

 

[stogie5150]

Shouldn't be a problem for the cable co's as a lot of them get their SD & HD signals via fiber from the stations already.

Well since D* is out of my house I can tell you a pure OTA Digital feed off my CM4228 looks much better than the locals D* was giving us..

 

[SatelliteGAL]

Not a problem for TimeWarner in our area since their channels 2 thru 99 are still analog anyway. That's probably how so many people only subscribe to analog. It's where all the channels they really want to watch are.

 

[navychop]

I'll bet over the next 5 years there will be fewer of them, then none. But that's a lot of boxes to replace. Cablecos might actually have to start charging more for them.

 

[Claude Greiner]

This is good and bad for the satellite companies.

Analog cable means less channels for Digital Service, however Analog service can be hooked to many televisions requiring no additional equipment rental.

If the cable company went 100% digital they would have to rent boxes to all their customers giving the satellite companies a competitive price advantage!

 

[tftc22]

I think this will be good for satellite companies. If cable companies were allowed to remove their analog channels, then they could use that bandwidth for more HD channel capacity.

 

[Jamey K]

Idiots.

 

[navychop]

Analog cable means less channels for Digital Service, however Analog service can be hooked to many televisions requiring no additional equipment rental.

If the cable company went 100% digital they would have to rent boxes to all their customers giving the satellite companies a competitive price advantage!

What, you have no faith in cablecard or cablecard 2?

 

[GaryPen]

It ain't so bad. If the reg is only limited to local channels, that could mean only a handful of analog channels in some cities, leaving the majority of bandwidth for digital.

All of those currently analog national channels can still move to digital, such as Animal Planet, CNN, etc. There will be plenty of bandwidth for HD.

 

[Bob Haller]

It ain't so bad. If the reg is only limited to local channels, that could mean only a handful of analog channels in some cities, leaving the majority of bandwidth for digital.

All of those currently analog national channels can still move to digital, such as Animal Planet, CNN, etc. There will be plenty of bandwidth for HD.

would that end a single cable providing many channels without a converter?

cable would see big churn from such a major change

 

[vurbano]

All I can say is I told you so. If you want to end analog, stop making the TV sets.

 

[GaryPen]

would that end a single cable providing many channels without a converter?

It would be an end to all but the local channels without a converter, yes.

It is a perfectly acceptable compromise.

 

[Peter Parker]

I had started a thread on this in the general cable and satellite forum. Mods feel free to merge them or delete mine.

 

[Peter Parker]

It ain't so bad. If the reg is only limited to local channels, that could mean only a handful of analog channels in some cities, leaving the majority of bandwidth for digital.

All of those currently analog national channels can still move to digital, such as Animal Planet, CNN, etc. There will be plenty of bandwidth for HD.

It apaprently allows the cable companies to provide a dgiital to analog converter box. So it may nots top any company from going all digital.

 

[Derwin0]

It would be an end to all but the local channels without a converter, yes.

It is a perfectly acceptable compromise.

Except that it's a big plus for cable, and an advantage they have over Satellite. No extra fee for additional tv's is a big draw they have.

Anyway, they're not required now to have anything but over the air channels (and local public interest) put out analogly, they do it now as a business decision. I don't see that changing any time soon.

 

[GaryPen]

Do they have to provide it for free? I know some cableco's are currently offering a minimalist digital box for free now.