Local Cable Companies

[bmxcookie]

I have a wierd one. I went to a house today and noticed they have a Charter Cable "Satellite Dish" on their home, I also noticed a billboard stating Charter is better than Satellite. If this is true, Then why are they using what looks to me to be old Primestar dish's to provide service? Isn't that false advertising? They Bash Dish Network and DirecTV and every other Sat provider and say "does your dish weather the storm?" and "dump the dish".

 

[earth station]

Every cable company receives television signals by satellite transmission. DISH & DIRECTV are an extension of what traditional cable is. To better explain here are a couple of attachments.

One shows how a typical cable company distributes tv. the next one shows how we do the same thing, but make one more satellite hop to the home instead of using cable.

It is no surprise that Charter is using a dish. Though it may seem bizarre rather than using their headend, it's obviously there for a reason.

If you look hard enough, I'm sure you can drive right past your local cable company's HQ and see plenty of dishes. As well as your local affiliate stations of ABC, NBC, etc...

http://www.comcastmediacenter.com/ is a great website!

 

[bmxcookie]

I realize the Cable company uses dish's at the headend. This dish was in the Customers backyard and running to an STB in the customers home. My point is how can the Cable companies use the marketing ploy of Dish Network and DirecTV not being as reliable as traditional cable, and then go and put in dish's of their own. When I first saw it I thought it was a form of RuralNet, Pointing to a tower, upon further investigation while I was installing the SuperDish, I noticed the Azimuth and Elevation that it looked to be pointed at the 119 or 110.

 

[earth station]

That does seem strange, but hey this is America ... anything goes!

 

[bmxcookie]

Strange doesn't begin to explain it. I think I am going to go to My local Charter office on Monday morning and ask some questions.

 

[bmxcookie]

Check it out, I did some poking around, I found an interesting web site
I think The Cable companies need to revise all the comercials and advertisements.

http://www.hits.com/

 

[nywani44]

921 receiver

just got the 921 receiver and 34" hdtv.my question is,can you hook up the 522 receiver also to record programs to the new tv,the installers left before helping me with this

thanks

nywani44

 

[rcbridge]

That Hits was set up for small cable companies that did not or could not upgrade the plant it only provides the digital stations, this feed is joined with the local cable (analog).

 

[charper1]

Every cable company receives television signals by satellite transmission. DISH & DIRECTV are an extension of what traditional cable is.

Actually your cable company is more an extension of what satellite does. Cable brings in the satellite signal and redistributes them to their customers for a fee. DBS is similar to this business model as they too redistribute satellite signals they gather and send to their customers.

 

[dishrich]

THIS is the system that Charter & some other cable co. used in lieu of upgrading their plant:

http://www.hits.com/default.asp?path=products/hits2home.htm

(click on product architecture to see a pictorial)

 

[Stargazer]

I remember when a lot of people started getting the "Charter Anywhere" satellite service and didnt have to pay all that much for installation and just leased the hardware. Some of the customers told me that they were promised locals in the near future. It looked like a PrimeStar dish (also looks similar to a SuperDish) with two lnbf's that went to a switch and receiver on the inside.

They went out of business a while back, they didnt last very long. It reminded me of PrimeStar.

 

[bw820]

I used to contract for Charter and because they didn't have fiber ran or new digital equipment tie ins for the retro, they had to use a satellite to obtain the digital for their DAC 2000 boxes with a phone line ran for return line. This would tie in to their analog lines. By doing this their crappy cable was still crappy on the low band and the only digital part was on the high band. You are right about them being hypocrites. Bashing satellite companies' technology when they use the same thing. Actually, in some areas, they still use those Charter dishes. I guess the customers haven't heard about Dish or DTV or haven't done any research on it. If they had there is noway they would choose Charter "Digital Cable" over satellite.

 

[Stargazer]

I think some people went with the "Charter Anywhere" service because of the low upfront cost (I think $50 or something like that) and they would come out and fix anything that would go wrong with it with a full warranty. It would be like a lease so it was like PrimeStar that I remember was very popular around here.

 

[mhking]

HITS (Headend In The Sky) was designed originally for TCI (later MediaOne, later AT&T Broadband, now Comcast) to get digital cable programming to their plants, and had a secondary benefit of being able to provide digital cable programming to smaller cable systems (for a fee, of course).

Time-Warner has a similar system called Indigo which does the same thing for their subscribers (as well as some other smaller systems for a fee).

I'm sure Charter has their own similar distribution vehicle.