Inside Insight → [CATV] analog service area - Columbus, Oh

Hello,

My new house is current in a non-digital service area. They say the infrastructure is too old, and I cannot get anything but basic cable w/out a cable box at the address (analog service only). I'm wondering if it's worth the effort to petition Insight into upgrading the boxes or whatever it takes? Right outside my neighborhood (only about 25 houses) they have digital cable. I'm sure I could get everyone on our street to sign a petition as our only other option is satellite. But would Insight care? Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get this heard and looked into? Anyone been in a similar situation? What would it take for them to upgrade? Would they just have to upgrade some junction boxes on the poles or would they have to upgrade all the lines as well? I could see it be a problem if they had to upgrade the lines since our neighborhood has all buried lines (but above ground/poles outside of it).

Thanks

I can't speak directly to your situation, but I know some people who live just outside of Insight serviced areas, literally a couple blocks. They petitioned Insight and inquired as to the costs to expand that short distance. They were told that expanding even a couple blocks would cost anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000. They were invited to petition neighbors to pool together to pay the fee, but I can only imagine the person that they spoke to was laughing to themselves when they made the suggestion. Regardless, I can only imagine that when expansion makes monetary sense that Insight/TWC will make it on their own. In most cases where it has not happened, I would imagine the costs of expansion far outweighs the potential revenue from newly covered customers.

Were they in an analog area or had no service at all? Does TWC have any intentions of updating analog areas? They dont have a current analog plans available anyways right? I'm in the central ohio service area btw.

Thanks

No, analog vs digital had nothing to do with this situation. As I mentioned, I can't speak directly to your situation. I can only say that expansion of any kind is expensive. Generally, areas are serviced by nodes that are distributed geographically throughout a service area. I can only speculate that the node that services your area is either currently overloaded (too many users) or is maybe too far away from your location to offer full functionality. So, again pure speculation, my suspicion would be that a new node would need to be built in order to receive full services.

That said, regardless of the situation, the only way that Insight/TWC would care would be if you could convince them that they could make money by upgrading your area. It wouldn't hurt to attempt to talk to someone. It would help if you could give them some numbers, i.e. how many of your neighbors would switch to Insight if full services were offered, what subscription levels and services they would sign up for, etc. The current contract status of those currently on satellite service would be crucial as well.

As I mentioned before, though, I would imagine that if Insight felt that expansion would earn them money that they would have done so already. If anything, I would see TWC taking an even harder line on such things.

I'm curious what area your in that is on the old 330MHZ plant, you can post it here, you may be near a TWC area and when they integrate us all, they may just tap into that, I cant say for sure as both sides are being very mum on combining systems.

Canal Winchester off of Waterloo Rd. There are small patches around there that have TW from what I can tell, and most people on adjoining streets have digital Insight.

Interesting, perhaps here soon they will either tie you into TWC or upgrade the plant for you.

I live in the country and can only get analog cable as well.

What exactly is this service? Is it standard def only?
I remember when I moved into a new house a few years ago, we had analog cable only (time warner).
We did a scan and it found numerous "over-the-air" HD channels that were being broadcast over the wire. It was nice because you didn't have to have an external antenna and all of the channels were perfect without antenna adjustment.

If the analog Insight also offers local HD channels, that might be worth it for me.