If you've been feeling left out because your cable provider decided to start using
Switched Digital Video (SDV) to deliver your favorite channels, don't worry because the FCC has your back. Today the FCC's Enforcement Bureau proposed to fine TWC and Cox's Fairfax County system because they "apparently willfully violated" the requirement to support third party CableCARD devices. Time Warner got slapped with a fine of 40 large, with Cox only getting half that at $20,000 -- this is in addition to the refunds both will be required to issue to affected customers. This is definitely a score for the little guy, and we sure are glad the FCC stepped up on this one, but luckily for all the parties involved, the
Tuning Adapter will solve this problem long term. Now if only more providers would start making them available.
[Disclosure: Engadget is part of the Time Warner family]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
foxb @ Oct 16th 2008 4:51PM
Unfortunately, this time FCC punished those who tried too hard to please their customer by squeze in more HD channels in the limited bandwidth. Cox Fairfax usually is the first to receive new HD channels in the entire Cox markets. We're going to get another batch of about 7 HD channels by the end of Oct. 2008.
If your cable co hasn't pushed SDV service, it must have been sleeping or don't care to offer you any more contents. While over 70% of the cable bandwidth is still reserved for lousy analog transimission, per FCC requirement, I don't blame cable systems try every possible way to deliver more HD contents to majority of its customers. Using SDV technology is better than ComCast's super compressed HD. IMO.
bull3964 @ Oct 16th 2008 5:09PM
The FCC requirement is only to carry the locals in analog until 3 years after the switchover. A half a dozen analog channels doesn't account for 70% of their bandwidth. Most of these cable operators have upward of 60 channels still on analog and that is a huge bandwidth hog that they CAN do something about without having to resort to SDV.
They do SDV because most analog only cable rates are a crime against humanity and are a revenue stream they don't want to upset and they know the people the do upset with SDV are a very small minority. Believe me TWC and Cox are probably thinking to themselves "Suckers, $40k is nothing compared to the subscriber loss we would suffer if we dropped all analogs except the locals."
foxb @ Oct 17th 2008 10:06AM
It's more than half dozen channels. In addition to what FCC requires, local governement has additional channels and requirements. Here in Fairfax county, Cox must carry all Extended Basic analog channels in analog because the county requires Cox to deliver them to customer w/o the need of a cable box. It's about 50 to 60 channels or more. In reality, most cable operators still reserve channels 2- 100 as analog channels.
RedLineTire @ Oct 17th 2008 10:42AM
Are you a professional lobbyist or did you just re-type the talking points they sent you?
Either way, it was a very good spin.
The actual truth is they were fined (cheaply I might add) for willfully ignoring their CableCard customers. They can deploy all the HD and SDV they want - as long as they continue to support their CableCard customers. A simple step they chose to ignore.
cramer @ Oct 18th 2008 3:09AM
Negative. They have plenty of space. Every cable company has been steadily reducing the number of analog channels for many years. Each one is enough space for 2 full rate stations (which no one willingly dedicates to a single station -- they're more or less required to for broadcast stations.) TWC has been shown to place 6+ HD stations on one channel. Sometimes that means there isn't enough bandwidth for realtime delivery.
What *is* eating the overwelming majority of space is all the on-demand, iControl(tm) interactive crap they've been heavily pushing for several years. Across the full RF spectrum -- all 134 carriers -- they have room for 400-1000 stations/channels depending on how much bandwidth is allocated; for the 400 number that's just over 12Mbps for every channel which is way more than most channels need.
However, I do, reluctantly, see SDV as a necessary evil. It's the difference between transmitting *everything* and transmitting what's necessary. If noone is watching Lifetime, there's no need to be filling space with it. Look at it like IP multicast; the switch will not put traffic on the wire if nothing on that port has asked for it.
Larry @ Oct 16th 2008 4:55PM
Cablevision in NY should get fined too. I was so happy when I was able to get FIOS.
Cablevision deploys all new channels on SDV!
mws192 @ Oct 16th 2008 5:17PM
umm CV only uses SDV on Voom, International and seasonal sports packages. I got 5 new HD channels yesterday and none of them are SDV.
FreeRange @ Oct 16th 2008 7:17PM
"parities involved" Spell check strikes again!
FreeRange @ Oct 16th 2008 8:55PM
awww, fixed it without acknowledging. That's fine. We know it was there...
GrammrCheckr @ Oct 16th 2008 7:18PM
$40K? That's it? That's like, what? 2 households' cable bill for a month?!
Holly @ Oct 29th 2008 1:35PM
Cox Communications in Phoenix, AZ sent out a letter in July '08 to TiVo HD and Series 3 owners warning of Cox's plans to upgrade to Switched Digital Video in the near future... as a result, TiVo HD and Series 3 owners would receive only a limited amount of channels... however, Cox indicated a solution would be forthcoming.
Sure enough Cox did upgrade to Switched Digital Video in October '08... consequently, I am only able to receive a limited amount of channels... I have since spoken with 4 different tech support staff at Cox (including the Head of Cox Tech Support for Arizona )... they all said the same thing... they have "not heard anything about a tuning adapter"... and "your only solution is to ditch your TiVo and get a Cox DVR"... in turn, I have contacted TiVo tech support and although they were very simpathetic they simply said "we can't help you... you need to keep pushing Cox Cable to provide you with a Tuning Adapter". Aaaarrgh!
Has anyone else with a TiVo HD or Series 3 and Cox Cable experienced the same issue / response? Any solutions would be greatly appreciated.
Holly