Great Rate Debate → Don't include junk

shopping channels, bulletin board channels or public access channels in the pricing package. half of what Charter cable has on here is free to air stations and everytime they supposedly upgrade its garbage you wouldn't watch if it was the only channel on the TV.

said by rid0617:

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shopping channels, bulletin board channels or public access channels in the pricing package. half of what Charter cable has on here is free to air stations and everytime they supposedly upgrade its garbage you wouldn't watch if it was the only channel on the TV.

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The home shopping channels are some of the most demanded channels out there, and certainly cause the most complaints in volume and vehemence when they go off the air. PEG channels are required by the city you live in and are not something the cable company is ever going to be able to take off the basic tier.

The reason you do not see individual a la carte programming is that, until companies force everyone to use digital cable, it is a logistical nightmare.

said by marigolds:

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The reason you do not see individual a la carte programming is that, until companies force everyone to use digital cable, it is a logistical nightmare.

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I think this is what the cable companies what to do. They just don't want to do it at no extra charge. They want to force all us to move up to the digital package.

said by pepperhead:

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said by marigolds:

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The reason you do not see individual a la carte programming is that, until companies force everyone to use digital cable, it is a logistical nightmare.

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I think this is what the cable companies what to do. They just don't want to do it at no extra charge. They want to force all us to move up to the digital package.

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That is what Charter is doing, they took all the PPV's and moved them to digital as part of the plan. Its too bad the digital package has got to be one of the most horrible available, no real extra channels except music and ton of pay channels. No DVR is available so something like TIVO is a must. I would sign up for digital if it would be worth it, but until they give more value well Charter can piss off.

I believe you and ESPN have it correct. Cox wants to protect its margin, the highest in the cable industry.

said by marigolds:

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The reason you do not see individual a la carte programming is that, until companies force everyone to use digital cable, it is a logistical nightmare.

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Cable could easily do this and does not need digital. This technology, one way addressable has been around for awhile. Two way addressable WITHOUT a phone connection ie reverse thru the cable can handle PPV, voting etc.. Warner cable aka 'QUBE when it started did all these neat tricks in the late '70's and 80's. Jerrold/GI even made sidecars to do the reverse via phone line in one way (forward) systems.

Addressable converters are all thats needed and they have been around for quite awhile. All those dinky Jerrold/General Instrument 400 converters, the ones with the fake wood look metal frames and the remote the size of 2 cig packs stuck together.

If I wanted to I could do all kind of neat things with the forward data stream on these systems. I could put in channel maps so even though you punched in 02 on the remote and it displayed 02 and you got KDKA CBS Pittsburgh, the box acutally tuned to channel, say 06, or 98, or what ever. I could put a "barker" channel up so that every time you turned it on it went to some promo channel, public access channel or what have you. I could make it tune to this when you tried to tune to a non sub'd channel. I could zap your box if was stolen, not returned.

The forward data streams on these systems can do quite alot. It would be very easy to create a la carte channels, the problem comes from the pain in the butts who decide they want CBS for 2 days, and then cancel, etc.. Thats why you have fees to prevent this even in DBS, which I use.

As for the fees for ESPN etc. CAN'EM all together, ESPN, HSN, QVC, TBN, any thing sports, shopping or religion dump it.

The thing is, the whole addressable converter box aspect of digital is the major barrier to a system going all digital. If a company decides to go with a la carte through addressable analog convertors, they might as well do a la carte through digital.

Well first of all I wouldn't subscribe to cable tv anyway. My sister has it and it sucks. The picture gets fuzzy interference at times, the channels aren't as good as what I get with directv, and most of them aren't even all digital. Personally I don't understand why people subscribe to it. This may not be true in all cases but it is for this area.