Locals get up in arms over Charter's digital push, ignore that 2009 is almost here

by Darren Murph posted Aug 2nd 2008 at 6:47PM

Charter doesn't have a flawless track record when it comes to customer service, but we can't help but share a little sympathy here. Reportedly, a number of locals in Wisconsin are perturbed by the carrier's decision to push public access channels into slots that require a digital TV tuner or set-top-box. According to Mary Bennin Cardona, executive director of the Wisconsin Association of PEG Access Channels, she "thinks it's discriminatory and really harmful to our communities." Meanwhile, the February 2009 analog shutoff is drawing ever closer, meaning that these very consumers who continue to rely on analog OTA signals will soon be cut off from everything, whether they like it or not. It's reported that Charter is considering handing out STBs for free to those negatively affected, which we suppose would be the best solution here. Still, if it hasn't been made clear yet: you should probably start preparing for the DTV transition. It's coming, and it's coming fast.

[Image courtesy of SimpleSystems]

Filed under: Industry, Regulatory, Cable

Tags: 2009, argument, charter, cutover, digital, digital tv, DigitalTv, public, public-access, Public-access channels, Public-accessChannels, switchover

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Highest Ranked

LoadStar @ Aug 3rd 2008 7:18PM

Uh, Darren - I think you're very confused there. The February 2009 deadline is strictly for cutoff of OTA full-power analog television stations. There is at this point _no_ requirement that cable television systems convert to digital. (The only requirement imposed upon cable systems is that they retransmit digital OTA television stations in analog until 2012, or until they convert fully to digital, whichever comes first.)

This article is all about a cable provider. Therefore, the bit about "2009 is almost here" is wholly irrelevant. Frankly, I would've expected this sort of confused reporting from the general press, not a technology-oriented blog such as Engadget.

Neutral

johnvretis @ Aug 3rd 2008 8:00PM

Make sure I understand this in regards to Cable providers, I have 3 TV's non Digital with Cable connected direct for basic and extended package. These TVs will need some sort of converter from my Cable provider February 2009?

Highest Ranked

keith @ Aug 3rd 2008 9:30PM

If you have cable you will NOT need any converter.

Neutral

Rob @ Aug 3rd 2008 8:13PM

Ditto LoadStar.

I was really confused for a second.

Neutral

Spiza @ Aug 3rd 2008 8:27PM

I always love your links to crap.

Neutral

Rob @ Aug 3rd 2008 8:17PM

John you will not need to do anything. You should be fine. The only thing that might eventually need done is some re-wiring. If you have old "59" outlets you may need to update to the "6" coax cable.used these days.

I work for a cable provider, at first they told us to tell everyone they would have to have a box. Six months later they said they no longer need boxes for the switch. So who knows. As of now though you shouldn't need a box.

Neutral

jaye @ Aug 5th 2008 12:51PM

This already happened in a much larger urban area...the Tampa Bay DMA did this back in early 2008 and requires a US dollar to get public access and local school system education channels which shows anything from movies to totally almost adult content that should never be shown in any school district(and i am liberal) channels for a digital converter to rent by the month if you don't want anything else...its called more like limited bandwidth for other services pretty much mandated by competition called HD channels, the system is going totally SD and HD with SDV thrown in, really the channels movement to digital had more to do with the Road Runner 15 and 20Mbps TURBO speeds and free upgrades for a few hundred thousand customers...this is the second largest cable cluster behind NYC and also has Verizon, Comcast, DirecTV, Dish Network, and Knology to compete in this area, yet Brighthouse(Time Warner/Newhouse) still has over 1 million customers. Verizon Fiber FIOS is eating into their market share like crazy as they expand into this service region of over 4 million residents.

Neutral

awaspaas @ Aug 3rd 2008 8:43PM

Cable systems are not bound to the February 09 cutoff date for analog programming, but many *will* be switching off analog programming in the next year or two to save bandwidth for more HD channels. This will most likely require a converter box, which will most likely be provided by the cable company. This may vary from system to system, but one would hope there will be some new regulation similar to the old cable-ready regulations, where the QAM tuner in most digital TVs could be used instead of a box for channels beyond the locals.

Neutral

David S @ Aug 3rd 2008 10:44PM

People should be mad at Charter forcing STBs down customer throats. Will they always hand out free STBs to every customer, or will they start push everyone to higher priced digital packages and rent them equipment for a monthly fee?

I smell a trap.

Neutral

Unknown @ Aug 4th 2008 3:46AM

Not really. Analog is going away, digital is in, and you need some way to get that signal. It's not some kind of conspiracy to make you lease a STB. That's why the tru2way standard is gaining momentum, to enable any TV/DVR/etc to receive the digital signal and run the guide software without the need of a STB. Consumers will still have a choice, it's just going to take time to transition.

Neutral

Rich @ Aug 4th 2008 4:39AM

Paranoia will destroya

If you get OTA signals, you will need a STB unless you have a digital tuner in your television.

If you subscribe to cable, you won't be affected until the cable company shifts the bandwidth hogging analog stations to the digital tiers....which in all readlity they HAVE to do to be able to compete effectively with other providers. At which point the cable company shifts the analog stations to the digital tier, you will need a STB. It's a fact of life. Time to quit bitching about, accept it, and move on. Analog is a dying breed.

Neutral

Ken @ Aug 3rd 2008 11:05PM

Heh dare mama, da guberment is mennin wiff da teea vee consol...

Neutral

bigglare @ Aug 3rd 2008 11:46PM

I think the point of this article is that in 2009 Analog broadcasts are going BYE BYE. Cable providers have to continue to carry Local channels either in Analog or All Digital. Charter, Cox, TimeWarner or Comcast can choose to make their systems all digital withno analog as long as they provide STBS for customers.

Complaining that youre loosing your analog on cable, when you're going to lose it broadcast is obsurd if you ask me. The NAB and retailers are the one's confusing people saying theres nothing to worry about if you have cable. You could find yourself with cable and no analog channels if your cable provider contracted with local 'casters to only offer a digital version for an all digital cable system.

People are better off being told they have to upgrade than told something that my not be true. Telling someone they have to upgrade to DTV by Feb 17th to receive Digital broadcasts is true 99.99999% of the time unless someone lives in boonies relying on repeaters. Someone being told that since they are on cable they have nothing to worry about is wrong all the time. The local cable provider could be planning a Switched Digital Video system or just a 100% digital service, or a Digital service with analog of just the local channels.

Theres more to worry about if youre still a DTV dinosaur dragging your feet now 10 years after the start of the transition. It's 11:30, do you know where your Digital Television carriage is Cinderella?

Neutral

LoadStar @ Aug 4th 2008 12:07AM

"I think the point of this article is that in 2009 Analog broadcasts are going BYE BYE."

No, not really. The point of the article was a cable provider bumping public access cable channels from analog cable to digital cable, to make room on the system. It has absolutely nothing to do with the full-power over-the-air analog cutoff next year. Why the Engadget blogger chose to mix it in and confuse matters is not clear.

"Someone being told that since they are on cable they have nothing to worry about is wrong all the time. The local cable provider could be planning a Switched Digital Video system or just a 100% digital service, or a Digital service with analog of just the local channels."

SDV doesn't affect analog customers, only digital cable card customers. As for cable providers going 100% digital, that's possible, but it's not something consumers have to necessarily "worry" about. If that happens, you will likely get plenty of advanced notice, and you just go and pick up a cable converter. It's not anything that consumers have to take any proactive action on, unlike those who depend on OTA transmissions.

Neutral

Tantric @ Aug 4th 2008 11:01PM

To try and clear up some things that are going through the comments section, according to Charter, all of their customers are fine at this point.

"Our message is consistent and quite simple," Charter spokesman John Miller said in an e-mail statement. "Any TV, whether analog or digital, will operate when connected to Charter's service, without the need for a converter box. Charter will be 'downconverting' the new digital broadcast signals back to analog so analog TVs can view them without the use of any converter box or digital receiver." (from: http://www.madison.com/tct/business/298744).

The issue at hand is that the community broadcast channels (gov't, schoo, etc) are being pushed to the digital tier channels. Meaning, without a converter box, you stand no chance of being able to watch the local gov't pretending that they actually still have any control over their populus.

These decision stem from the January ruling by the state that all cable and other telecomm contracts are now going to be controlled by the state rather than the local municipalities. This was pushed through by the fine folks at AT&T to create more "competition" and variety for local municipalities who traditionally stuck with one provider. U-Verse is slowly making its way out of the greater Milwaukee area and is now trudging toward Madison. Supposedly, it should be here by the end of 2008. But if they're like Verizon and their FIOS, it may very well be for more affluent neighborhoods first and then decide neighborhood by neighborhood.

Neutral

pedantic @ Aug 4th 2008 1:27AM

Charter wants to move all those public access channels to QAM. You either need a STB, CableCard, or tv that supports Clear QAM. Makes sense since they want to free up that analog bandwidth, and public access is very, very low demand. Does anyone know the difference in bandwidth usage between analog and digital for SD?

They should be happy that Charter isn't moving those channels to SDV and force everyone to use their STB or an OCAP CableCard.

Neutral

pedantic @ Aug 4th 2008 1:35AM

According to this: http://www.gsnyder.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=151395

An analog channel is 6Hz of bandwidth. A digital HD signal is 2.4Hz, and a digital SD signal is 0.6Hz. If they had 10 "public access channels", like my local TWC does, That would be 54Hz (6*10 - 0.6*10) of additional bandwidth. This would yield 22.5 HD channels without needing to resort to SDV. Think how many HD channels we could have if you didn't have all those useless analog channels.

Neutral

rantanamo @ Aug 4th 2008 3:32AM

I work for Verizon, and we are doing the same thing. Cutting off the analog signal area by area. But we are giving away small digital converters for those that don't use STBs for free. Its funny, we're sending out emails and paper letters in envelopes labeled IMPORTANT and people still ignore this

Neutral

rantanamo @ Aug 4th 2008 3:33AM

and there is lots of confusion because many expect a digital tv to convert the digital signal.

Neutral

Aaron @ Aug 4th 2008 6:45PM

There are a lot of small shops near my house that have TVs with rabbit ears. Not a single one of them that I've talked to knows about the digital transition.

The government is not making everyday people aware of this transition. We, people that read tech blogs, etc., are aware and it seems clear to us, just as it makes sense to us to clean out our TEMP directory and back up our computers. (You ARE doing that, right?) Everyday people aren't so savvy.

Neutral

John Foust @ Aug 4th 2008 10:51PM

Apart from the technical issues, this is also an issue of Wisconsin law. The law made these special provisions for public access channels because it's the way the public keeps track of government meetings, school districts, community events, etc. If you like openness and accountability in government, you should appreciate public access.

As another commenter pointed out, we got a new cable law last year courtesy of AT&T. One provision says that these public access channels need to be delivered on a "tier" (a set of channels you pay a price for) that reaches at least 50% of the video service provider's subscribers. Charter claims that statewide, they've got slightly more than 50% who buy a digital tier and therefore get one STB. The law wasn't clear whether it meant 50% per community or statewide, and WAPC believes there are plenty of communities who have, say, 35% on digital and a majority still on "basic" and "expanded basic" analog cable.

Similarly, the 50% provision doesn't account for the average household where the living room TV has one rented converter box but there's still three other TVs in the house that are watching on analog cable.

It also harms institutions such as schools, where the typical classroom watches on analog, not digital cable. Many of these PEG channels are produced by school districts. Come the first day of school, they won't be able to watch the very channels that the students are themselves producing!

Yes, this Charter transition has nothing to do with the Feb. 2009 off-air transition. Yes, Charter's marketing materials, in an effort to assure everyone that everything will be OK if you keep sending Charter a check every month, have confused the two issues. One set of materials says you need do nothing, the other says you'll need a box if you want to receive the PEG channels you could see before. They're also moving C-SPAN 2 and 3 to digital, too.

Charter isn't actually reclaiming the lower-channel spaces where these PEG channels now reside. For example, Madison's city channel 12 has been at that spot for almost 35 years. They're being replaced by ONTV4U, an informercial channel. What they're really doing is redesigning their head-ends and performing a little digital orthodontia in order to make room for a bunch of HD channels they'll sell soon.

Analog uses a slot 6 MHz wide per channel. Yes, it's confusing to tell people about clear QAM. I've met plenty of otherwise tech geeks who don't really know what is is, either. Yes, it's confusing that the OTA transition is happening at almost the same time. Yes, it's a pain that you can find ATSC converter boxes for cheap but third-party QAM tuners are rare if not non-existent outside of a DVD recorder or new mid-range TV.

Neutral

Unknown @ Aug 5th 2008 12:07PM

Again, Tantric, the news story was about an analog-cable-to-digital-cable transition for Wisconsin's public access channels. It had nothing to do with the OTA transition in February, so Miller's PR about "everything's OK if you're on Charter" is arguably deliberately misleading in the context of the issue in the news story. I would argue that if you counted all the televisions (not households) connected to Charter, the majority are still on analog cable, not digital.

U-Verse is barely rolled out in a few place in Milwaukee, and even fewer in Madison. Yes, they're now allowed to cherry-pick neighborhoods. Yes, it's spelled populace. :-)

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