 JeepMattC'mon the UPremium
join:2001-12-28
Wilmington, DE
kudos:2
 ·Verizon FiOS
| Service Electric Cablevision - Part #2 Since the original SECV thread is too old - starting this one up.
I noticed on www.secv.com this week that it appears they acquired the TV system in Mahanoy City - and will be working on integrating it into the overall SECV network servicing Sunbury, Birdsboro, and Hazelton to bring it in line with offerings.
Kinda cool to see SECV expanding its footprint and offerings HD channels above and beyond those offered by Verizon FIOS.
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"ONE team - ONE city - ONE dream!!" |
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| This has been in motion since early this year. All that Ed Walson is left with now is us here in NW NJ.
The other system (Wilkes-Barre) is now owned by John Walson Jr. |
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Reviews:
 ·ProLog
 ·DIRECTV
| reply to JeepMatt
I noticed that as well on their website. The lineup still has some of the old ch. locations on it, but I suspect that will eventually change.
The other thing is when you choose Mahanoy City, on the main page the ad changes from "Over 100 HD channels and growing" to "Over 60 HD channels and growing".
I'm sure some day they will be all getting their signals from the same place. The Birdsboro headend did a nice addition onto their building and they added a second floor. Theres huge satellite dishes there still, so it's a major aggregation point. Does it handle ALL SECV territories? That I do not know. From a cost efficiency standpoint, it's more economical to house all your "national" content gathering in one facility, with a perhaps a backup somewhere else. That's how the big guys do it... but we know SECV is not as big. |
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| They have separate headends, however they back up each other, IIRC. I don't know if SECV and SECTV&C back up SE Broadband Cable but I believe when Ed Walson owned all three (Mahanoy, Wilkes-Barre, Sparta) the three headends were interconnected. This is what a tech told me. Not sure how true it is but it sounds credible.
Our headend in NJ is located on hamburg mountain, NJ. I was told it also supplies some feeds for Cablevision, and vice-versa.
For some stations like FOX the HD is received OTA but the SD comes directly via fiber from master control. The bug is different from the OTA version too.
Here is a picture of the NJ headend. It's the big tower to the right. The towers to the left are NJTV and I believe a few others including WSUS radio and NOAA weather radio. It's a crop from a much larger photo I took when I went flying in early fall so excuse the graininess.
I should be back up in the air sometime soon, weather and time permitting so maybe I'll get a closer shot with a telephoto lens.  |
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| reply to JeepMatt
btw, there's a lot of interesting stuff around here, namely sat uplinks. SES Americom for one. SiriusXM also has an uplink facility nearby. I have aerial pictures of those too. |
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| reply to fifty nine
Wow that's pretty cool. Thanks for posting!
You guys have a Windows Update Services Radio? Wow!
WSUS |
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| said by cypherstream:Wow that's pretty cool. Thanks for posting!
You guys have a Windows Update Services Radio? Wow!
WSUS
LOL
No, WSUS is a local FM radio station. |
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JeepMattC'mon the UPremium
join:2001-12-28
Wilmington, DE
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Verizon FiOS
1 edit | SECV Wideband Now Available Looks like Docsis 3.0 SECV "Wideband" is now available in Sunbury!
50/5 package - looks like $105/mo standalone, but they've also created some bundles. Plus - FREE rental of Docsis 3 modems.
»www.secv.com/wideband/
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"ONE team - ONE city - ONE dream!!" |
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Reviews:
·ProLog
·DIRECTV
| Wow cool... But a $59 increase over my current access pack for an upgrade. No thanks, out of my budget.
For my internet 12mbps is fine. Just the upload at 1mb sucks. Wish the packages were more like:
15 / 5 - default
30 / 10 - bronze upgrade
50 / 15 - silver upgrade
100 / 20 - gold upgrade
They have 8 downstream bonded channels and 3 upstream bonded channels so it should be possible. They would just have to change the modulation rate to 64QAM on the upstream to handle the new speed balance. |
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| reply to JeepMatt
There's 50/5 available in Sparta NJ too but I don't think it's $105. For that price I think you can get 100/10. |
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2 edits | reply to JeepMatt
Re: Service Electric Cablevision - Part #2 I just thought I would add a couple pictures of what I think is the Service Electric Lehigh Valley Headend. It doesn't have any dishes but it looks like microwave receivers on the tower. The second picture is of the WFMZ studios which you can make out some dishes on top of the building. Maybe Service Electric partners with them for content.
Btw, whats interesting is on trace routes my 3rd hop is "bigrockcmtsfeed.sm.ptd.net" I assume that big rock is where that first tower is on South Mountain in Center Valley hence "sm" in the DNS name. After that the internet feed comes from PenTeleData in Palmerton. |
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| It looks like Sparta does get some feeds from Pennsylvania. They had a problem with the plant (posted on their facebook page) out that way and some HD channels were off air.
The first pic doesn't look like a cable TV installation sorry to say but I could be wrong. It looks more like something belonging to a phone company. We have something similar up here close to high point. |
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| reply to JeepMatt
When John Walson owned an appliance shop in Allentown and needed a way to demonstrate good reception on the TVs he sold I believe that this tower on this mountain is where it all started and is still in use today.
Btw, those are observatories right next to the building on the right if no one has figured that out. Sorry for leaving that out.  |
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Jed1
join:2012-01-14
Frackville, PA
4 edits | reply to JeepMatt
Update on the Mahanoy City System It looks like the transition is going to finally happen. The date set is February 29th.
But first a little history behind this. I want to correct the post above me as John Walson started in Mahanoy City in the 1940s. Also what is not known is his brother and sisters also had a cable company in the Danville area called CATV Services. Rosalie also purchased this system in February of 2011. CATV probably will be rolled into the Sunbury System.
»www.catvservice.com/
The sale of the Mahanoy City system was in the works for about 4 years. We got an indication that Edward was going to sell in about 2008 when he was asked if he would sell the system in an interveiw on WVIA. He danced around the answer but did not say no.
The second tip off was when they rolled out the 30 meg internet in Sparta and Wilkes Barre but not in the Mahanoy City system. I think that that was in 2009.
I knew of the sale in August of 2010 but it was not known what system would go to John and Rosalie. Ironically the last channel we got in the Mahanoy City system was ION HD in July of 2010.
The sale was made official in January of 2011 and up until a few weeks ago they did not inform the customers that the company changed hands. The only indication was they finally changed the name on our bill in august of last year. The only thing that happened so far was they removed TVG channel 120 from our line up in October, moved FMC to channel 222 from analog 44 in november, and eliminated the FM radio service in the second week of December.
Most of the activity in 2011 was Cable Services did sweep tests on the entire Mahanoy system and repaired and replaced a lot of damaged lines and hardware. They were in my home town of
Frackville all of October.
Last Tuesday, January 31st, We received a packet from SECV about the changes to our system. As mentioned this will happen on the 29th of February. On that day Mahanoy City will be moved out of the Wilkes Barre headend and moved to the Hazleton headend.
This is what changes on that day:
Billing Impacts:
Billing Statement, Online Bill Pay, Packages and Pricing
Channel Lineups:
The lineup will change to closely match Hazletons and those who are receiving their channels in the clear will have to rescan for the channels.
There will be about 65 analog channels yet and we will not get an increase in HD channels. In fact I will lose some HD channels and gain a couple of new ones.
I will lose all the Philly HD channels, Wealth HD, Travel HD, Science HD, and Planet Green HD. I will gain WPIX HD, ABC Family HD, Cartoon HD, Lifetime HD, TruTV HD, and PBS Kids Sprout HD.
Also for me since I have all the channels with triple play my internet speed will increase from 6 meg to 20 meg.
The only thing I can not get an answer on is How they will handle my cablecards since I own them and TV Guide on Screen data. Also since I have two cablecard tv and no boxes they are not sure which package they will put me in. I might end up with a HD DVR at no extra cost since that is the closest package to my cuurent one. The HD DVR they are now using is the Pace RNG 200 with a 500 Gb hard drive.
IPG impacts:
We will go from the Rovi passport guide to the Rovi I Guide and all recordings and settings on the DVRs will be wiped out.
Here is what we will be getting in the very near future:
Over 100 HD channels, Wideband 50, Caller ID on TV (possibly in march), IOS/Android/Windows Mobile Apllications, And 3D TV.
Here is what they have on SECV.com for Mahanoy City currently:
»www.secv.com/mahanoy/index_mah.html
»www.secv.com/cdocs/rate_card_mah.pdf
»www.secv.com/cdocs/channel_mah.pdf
On the 29th we will begin to look like Hazleton:
»www.secv.com/hazleton/index_hazl.html
»www.secv.com/cdocs/rate_card_hazl.pdf
»www.secv.com/cdocs/channel_hazl.pdf |
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1 edit | said by Jed1:The only thing I can not get an answer on is How they will handle my cablecards since I own them and TV Guide on Screen data. Also since I have two cablecard tv and no boxes they are not sure which package they will put me in. I might end up with a HD DVR at no extra cost since that is the closest package to my cuurent one. The HD DVR they are now using is the Pace RNG 200 with a 500 Gb hard drive.
They're supposed to support your cablecards. They can't just tell you that you can't use them anymore and that you have to use a box, I would think the FCC would have a problem with that.
Besides, if they are using Pace boxes they probably have a motorola headend. |
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Jed1
join:2012-01-14
Frackville, PA | said by fifty nine:They're supposed to support your cablecards. They can't just tell you that you can't use them anymore and that you have to use a box, I would think the FCC would have a problem with that.
Besides, if they are using Pace boxes they probably have a motorola headend.
Yes they have indicated that they have taken in consideration of the cablecards, but they didn't say that they will support customer owned cablecards.
I specifically asked if they would support my two cards that I own but they won't say yes or no. Also they gave me no answer if they still have the analog TVGOS inserter that Rovi gave them and if the analog host channel is mapped into the cablecard line up.
I asked the district manager the same questions but she sent me back the office manager.
If they do support my two cards, but there is no TVGOS data, then the cards will be useless since I won't have any guide data.
My Pioneer TVs has a version 9 guide and is capable of using digital TVGOS data but there is no digital TVGOS inserter in the Wilkes Barre DMA.
One thing is certain, in 23 days my questions will be answered.
As for SECV using motorola equipment in their headends I would assume yes since the other two Service Electrics are using motorola equipment.
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| Pretty sure they will have a mess on her hands if they decide to stop supporting cablecards. I'm sure the FCC won't like it if they did that. You can always complain. If they don't support it, they're at least supposed to give you the option of leasing one. But since it's the same company and all, I don't think they can just abandon you. They may like to think that they can so they can lock you into that $10-$13 per month box rental.
TVGOS could be your roadblock though.
I'm quite surprised the set won't work without TVGOS. I'm sure it will be able to tune channels but just no EPG... so then you'll have to just do it the old fashioned way.
There's no way in hell I'm going to use a company owned cable box ever again. Last time I did was in 2001, then I got DirecTV and UltimateTV then TiVo. Moved and had to use a cablevision DVR (SA 8300HD) and it was the worst. Switched to a series 3 tivo when we bought the house and now I have a whole house DVR based on windows media center. |
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Jed1
join:2012-01-14
Frackville, PA | I honestly think that the employees at the Mahanoy office don't know how things are going to pan out. They are in the dark about the billing and equipment issues as much as I am. Because of this they do not want to promise something and then it doesn't happen.
Some of these employees have been there for decades. I myself have been a lifetime customer (almost 46 years) of SECO. My elderly mother has been a continuous customer since the early 1950s. A lot of the customers here have been with SECO for many decades so this change is going to be a big shock.
As for TVGOS, I have been using this service since it first started around 1997. Every tv I owned since that time had TVGOS embedded in it. So if I lose guide service I am going to be lost with out the guide. Yes the two cablecards in the Pioneers will work with out the guide, but as I have stated it will be difficult not to have it available.
I agree with you about the STBs that's why I am using cablecards. My Motorola S Card has been in service for almost seven years and my Motorola M Card has been in service for almost 4 years. In fact I was the first customer to use the card in this division.
If my cards make it through the transition but the guide data stops I might get a Tivo Elite and put the M Card in it. I am also waiting to see if Ceton releases that STB the showed at CES. |
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Reviews:
·Time Warner Cable
| said by Jed1:I honestly think that the employees at the Mahanoy office don't know how things are going to pan out. They are in the dark about the billing and equipment issues as much as I am. Because of this they do not want to promise something and then it doesn't happen.
Some of these employees have been there for decades. I myself have been a lifetime customer (almost 46 years) of SECO. My elderly mother has been a continuous customer since the early 1950s. A lot of the customers here have been with SECO for many decades so this change is going to be a big shock.
As for TVGOS, I have been using this service since it first started around 1997. Every tv I owned since that time had TVGOS embedded in it. So if I lose guide service I am going to be lost with out the guide. Yes the two cablecards in the Pioneers will work with out the guide, but as I have stated it will be difficult not to have it available.
I agree with you about the STBs that's why I am using cablecards. My Motorola S Card has been in service for almost seven years and my Motorola M Card has been in service for almost 4 years. In fact I was the first customer to use the card in this division.
If my cards make it through the transition but the guide data stops I might get a Tivo Elite and put the M Card in it. I am also waiting to see if Ceton releases that STB the showed at CES.
your likely not going to see a disruption in the TVGOS data unless the hazelton headend doesnt send it out and they probrably do and the person you were talking to didn't have a clue that would be something that engineering would know not the front office desk people would know. The engineers don't tell the front office about QAM so why would they bother about TVGOS?
I am sure that you are staying motorola as SECV uses motorola and PACE boxes in Birdsboro, Hazelton and Sunbury. You would have gotten a notice to replace your motorola cable card if they were swap out the cable boxes in your area and it takes time to do that and an overlay system which only a few cable cos have done. |
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| reply to Jed1
said by Jed1:I am also waiting to see if Ceton releases that STB the showed at CES.
I am using a HTPC based on the CEton InfiniTV. I like it a lot. |
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