Verizon Completes Digital Upgrade

said by HarleyYac:

Yes and no. If you are in TW, Comcast, OOL etc etc country you do not need to change a thing BUT use the Companies Digital boxes. If you had "Rabbit ears" you need a digital box........for your OLDER TV. I think

said by WaitWhat :

I thought service providers delivering television directly to the end-users were still going to be transmitting in analog and digital? I thought this entire transition only affected over-the-air broadcasters?

said by Jim Gurd:

I thought cable companies were required to keep sending analog signals for another 3 years after the OTA conversion to digital.

after Feb 2009 all televisions without a digital tuner will require a STB in order to get cable service.

said by tschmidt:

I'm confused. If MSO's have to include Analog in their lineup why would customer need a TV with digital tuner?

said by Jim Gurd:

I thought cable companies were required to keep sending analog signals for another 3 years after the OTA conversion to digital.

said by mleland:

There is no requirement for Cable to switch off all analog TV by Feb 09.

said by ElJay:

OK, who are the petitioners? The formatting of that document doesn't make it obvious, to say the least. I suspect they are a few small cable operators who may indeed operate a fully digital cable network. Great for them, but it means jack squat for everybody who lives elsewhere. I have analog cable through Time Warner and they have made no indication that I will need a box next year. In fact their site advertises the fact that analog cable continues:

»www.timewarnercable.com/NewEngla···-Cable-c
»www.timewarnercable.com/NewEngla···k-after-

said by Pathfinder:

Yes but for BASIC Cable only. According to their channel lineup that is about 20 channels. I have TW in NY and had to get a box for my bedroom in order to receive SciFi and I believe TNT or USA. I called and they told me they are converting 2 or 3 channels a month.

said by swhitney2003:

So when everything and everyone has gone completely digital, will we still have to type in 2.1 or 31.4 to select channels?

said by AVonGauss:

Sorry, but the article and press release are misleading. Verizon wanted to go all digital, the FCC said okay, but you have to bring along the analog users - hence the free converters. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with the broadcast digital transition in 2009.

Now, to those confused that the cable operators must provide analog signals to 2012. In some cases, that is true, but I believe that is ONLY for the local broadcast stations. They could migrate all of the other analog stations (i.e. Discovery, Disney) to digital and require a box if they so wish. Now, if they want to go all digital including the local broadcast stations, they probably can get the same deal as Verizon did but it would be much more expensive for them as they generally have a bigger subscriber base and giving away converter boxes is not entirely cheap.

said by AVonGauss:

Again, no, read the entire document. The attachment you are referencing is where operators are attempting to make a deal to use the existing STBs if they promise to convert to an all digital network theoretically allowing better broadband and digital services - the temptation (carrot) to coax the FCC in to allowing this.

You don't have to take my word for it, read the FAQ, specifically the Cable and Satellite section:

»www.dtv.gov/consumercorner.html

The converters they typically are referring to on that web site are not cable converters, but instead are for OTA broadcasts (aka ATSC tuners).

Now, the fact that cable operators are using this time to also migrate more channels to digital is purely circumstantial and is not related to the "DTV migration" for Feb 2009. If an operator would like to discontinue the analog broadcast of local stations, if they manage the analog customers, the FCC has generally been allowing it as can be seen with this Verizon deal.

said by darcilicious:

Verizon CSRs are notoriously misinformed about the gory technical details. All but a few markets had analog channels (mapped to #2-49) until very recently. Portland, OR, Seattle, WA, and one market in PA (I always forget which one) were all digital from the get go.

said by BSD24:

Yea, everytime I called (few times called without ordering to find out what was offered). We already had Fios Internet for over a year. TV came out it was soo new they didn't even have a bundle (pricing) and everything was a la carte (no discounts - expensive). Everytime you called, they didn't ever ask how many boxes you needed, they would simply ask how many tv's you had or how many you wanted to hook up Fios (cable). I told them 3, they would give me 3 boxes price. I would tell them 1 is cable direct, they said I would not be able to use cable-direct, they told me (i live in Massachusetts) that it is all-digital and requires a digital box to receive any channels from them. I had to have called at least 5-6 times although probably more. I even tried hooking up a small cable-only tv and it didn't work when I connected it to one of the working Fios TV outlets. I ended up getting the Multi-room DVR, which was nice, but pricey..

said by darcilicious:

Because in return, Verizon is providing nearly 100 HD channels in all their markets?

said by disc:

I imagine that Verizon would have plenty of head room in FIOS to support both analog subs and digital subs, even with the latter receiving 100 HD channels. So it still doesn't explain why Verizon needs to switch their analog customers to digital.

said by disc:

I imagine that Verizon would have plenty of head room in FIOS to support both analog subs and digital subs, even with the latter receiving 100 HD channels. So it still doesn't explain why Verizon needs to switch their analog customers to digital.

said by Soniclooking9:

Fios is a fiber based service. IP boxes are in the house and instead of changing the channel within the box you're actually changing the channel in the "headend".

said by Soniclooking9:

Fios is a fiber based service. IP boxes are in the house and instead of changing the channel within the box you're actually changing the channel in the "headend".