| Service Electric LV This post is about the internet packages on Service Electric Lehigh Valley. Why is Service electrics highest tier at 10Mbps while their competitor in some areas with RCN is way over their highest tier at 15, 25 and 60Mbps?
Is it because Service Electric knows that in areas that it shares territory with RCN is a relatively small subscriber base?
I have read others post on here that the other affiliates of service electric have upgraded their networks to the new DOCSIS 3.0. Doesn't seem like they are planning to upgrade Lehigh Valley anytime soon.
I thought that SEC originated in LV or Manahoy City so why would SEC LV be the last to be upgraded to the faster D3? |
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| exactly the same question i wanted to ask, can anyone give us any insight as to when we might get an upgrade in speed? what about a better looking TV Guide like RCN's.. HELP! |
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rody_44Premium
join:2004-02-20
Quakertown, PA | reply to TechGeek191
You will be seeing changes early next year 2012. you are not going to like what comes with it tho. Hint, Hint Boxes and nothing but boxes. Be carefull what you wish for. all joking aside after the holidays changes will start. No firm date yet tho just after the holidays. They are trying to figure out how to do it and not upset people with needing boxes. Initial plans are just give free boxes out. |
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rody_44Premium
join:2004-02-20
Quakertown, PA | reply to TechGeek191
All the service electrics were once one. The dad retired and broke it up and gave it to the three kids. Thats how it ended up three. With the third pretty well selling out to the other two. He held back on the improvements because he thinks most people want all them analog stations over the super high internet speeds. For the most part he is correct but he knows he has to make the changes. He just wants to do it without pissing people off. |
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Reviews:
 ·ProLog
 ·DIRECTV
| Rosalie's system deployed DTA's just like the big boys (Comcast). Plus they leave the normal lineup unencrypted QAM. We even have 8 channel DOCSIS 3.0 downstream bonding and 3 channel upstream bonding. There's well over 100 HD channels now and they even renovated their Birdsboro office. It looks real nice and they added a second story to it.
The only issue is the old TVGuide software and lack of frills like HBOGo, iphone/ipad app, MR-DVR. They say it's coming.
But for a small shop it's an example of Service Electric done right. I'm hoping they will consider partnering with Tivo or Arris for a better DVR solution. Perhaps Tivo Premiere Q or Arris Moxi. |
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Reviews:
·Time Warner Cable
| said by cypherstream:Rosalie's system deployed DTA's just like the big boys (Comcast). Plus they leave the normal lineup unencrypted QAM. We even have 8 channel DOCSIS 3.0 downstream bonding and 3 channel upstream bonding. There's well over 100 HD channels now and they even renovated their Birdsboro office. It looks real nice and they added a second story to it.
The only issue is the old TVGuide software and lack of frills like HBOGo, iphone/ipad app, MR-DVR. They say it's coming.
But for a small shop it's an example of Service Electric done right. I'm hoping they will consider partnering with Tivo or Arris for a better DVR solution. Perhaps Tivo Premiere Q or Arris Moxi.
I think your cable company has done a lot for guys with adding over 100 HD channels and 8 downstream bonding with 3 upstream bonding, and lastly analog reclaims. I would have thought from the look of the channel lineup that you have a big name provider with all of the content that they have especially in HD. My cable company TWC does not have 8 channel bonding or upstream bonding yet but we are getting some of the HD channels that SECV has that most cable cos do not have:
GSN HD
Ovation HD
Reelz Channel HD
Bloomberg HD
Hub HD
I already have:
COOKING CHANNEL HD
DIY HD
I am also getting:
Sportsman channel HD
Style HD
E! HD
Fox Deportes HD
Halogen HD
OWN HD
Oxygen HD
GAME 2 HD
Showtime Beyond HD
Showtime Extreme HD
Showtime Next HD
Showtime Women HD
ThrillerMax HD
MoreMaX HD
TMC Xtra HD
IFC HD
Cypherstream does the Birdsboro system still have analog bandwidth still open from the analog reclaims? I know that you guys are at 860MHz with some 1GHz passives but is there still room for more HD without having to reclaim limited basic. Also how many HD channels does birdsboro get? I am going to be at 134 after most likely 12/22 and I was wondering since Birdsboro has more than 100 HD channels. |
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| reply to rody_44
said by rody_44:All the service electrics were once one. The dad retired and broke it up and gave it to the three kids. Thats how it ended up three. With the third pretty well selling out to the other two. He held back on the improvements because he thinks most people want all them analog stations over the super high internet speeds. For the most part he is correct but he knows he has to make the changes. He just wants to do it without pissing people off.
There are four walson kids from what I understand but one had some issues and pretty much didn't have what it takes to run the business.
Ed Walson sold his two Pennsylvania systems. However I believe that he still owns and operates the system I am on in NJ. |
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Reviews:
·ProLog
·DIRECTV
1 edit | reply to motorola870
Yes there's still analog, not much but it's there.
Channels 2 through 28. Channel 70 is a grey screen but it's for amplifier AGC. Channel 135 is a duplicate of channel 2 but it's really there to look at levels at the top edge of the spectrum.
They have a lot of HD stuff DirecTV doesn't carry. »www.secv.com/cdocs/channel_birds.pdf
And with DirecTV "scaling back", I might have to switch next fall when my contract is up. I just need to come up with a better solution for a DVR than their piece of garbage I-Guide. Media Center or Tivo... whichever one I can completely hide or remap the SD channels to HD. I don't want to run into that argument again where the woman puts on or sets a recording on an SD channel!! |
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Reviews:
·Time Warner Cable
| said by cypherstream:Yes there's still analog, not much but it's there.
Channels 2 through 28. Channel 70 is a grey screen but it's for amplifier AGC. Channel 135 is a duplicate of channel 2 but it's really there to look at levels at the top edge of the spectrum.
They have a lot of HD stuff DirecTV doesn't carry. »www.secv.com/cdocs/channel_birds.pdf
And with DirecTV "scaling back", I might have to switch next fall when my contract is up. I just need to come up with a better solution for a DVR than their piece of garbage I-Guide. Media Center or Tivo... whichever one I can completely hide or remap the SD channels to HD. I don't want to run into that argument again where the woman puts on or sets a recording on an SD channel!!
hey cypherstream does SECV in birdsboro still have open QAM slots or have they filled everything up with niche HD channel adds.
I know that my cable system still has a lot of open QAMs that are just sitting there in reserve on:
85MHz no QAM is present but is analog snow
93MHz no QAM is present but is analog snow
99MHz no QAM is present but is analog snow
105MHz no QAM is present but is analog snow
153MHz no QAM is present but is analog snow
303MHz no QAM is present but is analog snow
363MHz blank QAM
381MHz blank QAM
447MHz blank QAM
459MHz blank QAM
519MHz blank QAM
603MHz blank QAM
609MHz blank QAM
615MHz blank QAM
621MHz blank QAM
Thanks to SDV these QAMs can be left for future use while we have 134 HD channels most sent via SDV. |
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| As far as I can tell there's open slots for more yet. |
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| reply to motorola870
said by motorola870:I know that my cable system still has a lot of open QAMs that are just sitting there in reserve on:
85MHz no QAM is present but is analog snow
93MHz no QAM is present but is analog snow
99MHz no QAM is present but is analog snow
105MHz no QAM is present but is analog snow They may be using that for FM radio. My service electric system has FM in that frequency range. They carry most of the NYC stations. You can hook up a regular FM tuner and get crystal clear reception. |
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Reviews:
·Time Warner Cable
| said by fifty nine:said by motorola870:I know that my cable system still has a lot of open QAMs that are just sitting there in reserve on:
85MHz no QAM is present but is analog snow
93MHz no QAM is present but is analog snow
99MHz no QAM is present but is analog snow
105MHz no QAM is present but is analog snow They may be using that for FM radio. My service electric system has FM in that frequency range. They carry most of the NYC stations. You can hook up a regular FM tuner and get crystal clear reception. nope no FM stations I have never seen them even in the late 1990s on cable here. These channels used to carry:
CSPAN3 analog on 85MHz
Public Access on 93MHz
Government Access(really local church channel for services from various churches in the city and shared with INSP(low quality) for the rest of the week) on 99MHz
Educational channel on 105MHz
Those channels were made only available with a box or QAM tuner on 100-10 for CSPAN3 or 15-2 public access,15-3 church channel/INSP part time, 15-4 for education access.
I can get INSP full time (better quality) on channel 142 with a Digital box as well but it is part of the digital tier instead of the limited basic tier oh and it is switched (SDV). |
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rody_44Premium
join:2004-02-20
Quakertown, PA | reply to fifty nine
Yea Ed still owns the jersey system. But word is he wont for long. I hate to tell you guys but the rates have to be raised. Fox really hammered Service electric. They dont really have a choice. letters go out dec 1. for the lehigh valley |
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| said by rody_44: Yea Ed still owns the jersey system. But word is he wont for long. I hate to tell you guys but the rates have to be raised. Fox really hammered Service electric. They dont really have a choice. letters go out dec 1. for the lehigh valley
In Jersey they've been raising rates every year by about $5 or so steadily. This is nothing new for us. |
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| reply to rody_44
I seem to recall about a year ago Service Electric was tooting its horn with ads that you didn't need a converter box like their competitor RCN did since they went with the new MP4 encryption.
I'm surprised SE doesn't want to piss of its customers. Any other cable company would sweep their previous advertisements under the carpet and implement converter box only reception without a thought of their customers. |
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| reply to TechGeek191
Well it appears Service Electric just announced they are increasing their 10Mbps down option (which is their highest package) to 15Mbps. All remaining packages will be increased to 1Mbps upstream from 800Kbps.
They may offer the most in HD but they still are behind the times with regard to internet bandwidth. They upped the downstream cap but the network is still strained. Getting speeds of 700Kbps during the busiest times of the evening when everyone is online.
They can up their speeds all they want but unless they split up the nodes or add more bandwidth nothing is going to matter. |
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| reply to rody_44
***Update***
Well PTD was doing some maintenance last night. Modems were offline after midnight for 2 hours and full internet browsing wasn't restored until 2 hours after that. They changed the downstream frequency from 117MHz to 111MHz and the Upstream Frequency from 26Mhz to 22Mhz.
Looks like they split the nodes up and added additional bandwidth to the upstream channel.
I guess this is the process of gearing up for Docsis 3.0.
Stay tuned... |
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Reviews:
·Time Warner Cable
| not neccesarily a node split but more like downstream and upstream loadbalancing by adding an additonal carriers 111MHz and 22MHz. Here my cable company uses 4x4 downstream and upstream for DOCSIS 3.0 per node:
Downstreams:
783MHz
789MHz
795MHz
801MHz
Upstreams:
36.5MHZ
33MHZ I am always locked onto this upstream
29.5MHz
24.5MHz
I was moved to a NEW Arris C4 CMTS sometime last year from a Cisco 10k CMTs. |
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Reviews:
·Service Electric..
·Service Electric..
1 edit | reply to TechGeek191
SECTV Lehigh Valley is in the process of upgrading to DOCSIS 3.0 I questioned them about this about 2 months ago they actually have a schedule of what head ends are getting upgraded call and ask them. Im in Palisades area in Northern Bucks county. they are supposed to upgrade us this month. Its amazing how behind they are with speeds with RCN still blowing them away!!!! in all their products what i cant comprehend is why just wont ax those 80 analog channels since they are now giving everyone a free standard digital box. this would free up so much more bandwidth. Hopefully all these new features will be coming soon but i doubt it. |
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rody_44Premium
join:2004-02-20
Quakertown, PA
1 edit | reply to TechGeek191
I can assure you splitting the nodes isnt the issue. The fact is service electric has the smallest nodes of any cable company. Nodes were designed averaging 75 subs per node or less. When Service electric is ready to turn the speeds up. The size of the nodes wont be a issue at all. the first step is getting rid of all them analog channels. Something most subs in the lehigh valley really dont want. But like it or not they are going to get it. Your whole plant was just put in like three years ago. At least if you live where your tag is from. (center valley) |
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