View Full Version : My local cable company responds
Directvlover
10-15-07, 09:17 AM
I was over at my parents house last night (whom get their cable/HD through Cox) and i was flipping through their HD tier and noticed that they added a bunch of National HD...bringing their total now to 15. (it's funny a month ago i'd have been jealous) :lol:
I asked my dad when they started getting the new channels that include TBSHD, CNN HD, Animal Planet HD, Discovery HD, and TLC HD...and he said just within the last week or so. So it's interesting to see Cox responding by bumping it's HD up, when for the last year, they haven't really done much of anything new with their HD tier. I wonder how much bandwidth they actually have to work with for expanding HD.
LarryFlowers
10-15-07, 09:25 AM
Its panic time for the cable companies! :lol:
JDubbs413
10-15-07, 09:34 AM
They are all going to have to go fiber optic to get more bandwith lol. I'd hate to be their technicians.
Directvlover
10-15-07, 09:42 AM
They are all going to have to go fiber optic to get more bandwith lol. I'd hate to be their technicians.
I wonder which is more expensive. Wiring an entire city with new cable, or launching a satellite?
JeffTex42
10-15-07, 09:48 AM
I wonder which is more expensive. Wiring an entire city with new cable, or launching a satellite?
You'd have to compare it to running fiber all of the country if you wanted a good comparison ... and I think we all know which of those would make the most sense! :D
RandybinSC
10-15-07, 09:48 AM
I wonder which is more expensive. Wiring an entire city with new cable, or launching a satellite?
I wonder which one is easier?
Directvlover
10-15-07, 09:50 AM
I wonder which one is easier?
I'd say launching a satellite. I mean wouldn't it be?
RandybinSC
10-15-07, 09:52 AM
I'd say launching a satellite. I mean wouldn't it be?
That is what I was thinking, I mean figure the man hours just to install the cables. Then you have all the crap you have to deal with to even start the work.
joe diamond
10-15-07, 11:20 AM
This is the same conversation American railroads messed up on. With them they just wanted to pound more rail and move more freight. They were even given large tracts of land for....wait for it........tracks. They never knew they could be a national transportation company with boats and planes and trucks.
And so, boys and girls, the cable and television and satellite and internet and telephone companies p%#$ in each other's boots. Customers do not care how the picture arrives or who brings it. (Sorry installer buds) What is needed is an integrated telecommunication system.
Who is going to serve the NLOS (No Line of Sight) half of the nation?
When you fly over the various market areas you can't see the lines that the FCC insists are there.
Finally, why can't the same company that brings communication services also pump cold beer out of the phones?
Joe
JMCecil
10-15-07, 01:07 PM
Finally, why can't the same company that brings communication services also pump cold beer out of the phones?
Joe
I want to subscribe to a scotch dispenser. But, I'm so far in the sticks I'll probably have to keep pooring my own for years.
joe diamond
10-15-07, 01:27 PM
JM,
I'll work on it. With scotch, living in the sticks is not a bad thing. We just need a long slooooooow line. Which is unlike the clear stuff they have made in Alabama and here in Maryland; cornfield to Mason jar in about a week.
How much for a beer / scotch diplexer?
Joe
wingrider01
10-15-07, 05:35 PM
That is what I was thinking, I mean figure the man hours just to install the cables. Then you have all the crap you have to deal with to even start the work.
Not to mention right of way discussions, since fiber needs to be under ground
Not to mention right of way discussions, since fiber needs to be under ground
There's plenty of fiber on poles. Both telephone & cable TV.
Not to mention right of way discussions, since fiber needs to be under ground
Who told you that. My company has lots of fiber and at some point it is all overhead. If you are going to post something at lease know what you are talking about.
techrep
10-15-07, 07:08 PM
Maybe he meant the service drop. At least in my county the service drop has to be under ground.
VodGod69
10-15-07, 08:08 PM
They are all going to have to go fiber optic to get more bandwith lol. I'd hate to be their technicians.
Cable operators do already use fiber optic distribution to each node on their plant, coax is beyond that to the home and in itself is not the entire bottleneck though may need some upgrade. The nodes themselves that support frequencies higher than 870MHz reliably are only just showing up so additional bandwidth is potentially available.
The bigger issues are going to be a very large population of set tops that can not tune above 870MHz and the lack of set tops that support MPEG4 or h.264.
The large number of analog services that cable operators provide for cable ready set tops is the largest waste of their bandwidth. A combination of moving to all digital and switched broadcast will give cable a real competitive option to satellite hd. Expect cable to make widespread in roads in to providing dozens of hd services next year.
Earlier this year I was a customer of our local cable company ( Charter ). I called to find out what there plans were for providing HD here and was told they don't have any plans. Damn I love my DirecTV.
I'd say launching a satellite. I mean wouldn't it be?
What about the possibility that the satellite blows up during launch?
techrep
10-15-07, 09:32 PM
Cable companies do have a few options. The ones which I am aware of are:
SDV. I think that is switched digital video
Fiber Optics as already discussed here
Go all digital eliminating analog
MPEG4
Ext 721
10-15-07, 10:26 PM
if it's 5 cents a foot for fiber....(it's more) and there are 3,995,635 miles of highway in the USA (not counting residential streets here) and we don't count the drops to the homes...
to simply cover people living on those highways, that's 10.5 billion dollars in cabling alone.
yowsa.
techrep
10-15-07, 10:38 PM
if it's 5 cents a foot for fiber....(it's more) and there are 3,995,635 miles of highway in the USA (not counting residential streets here) and we don't count the drops to the homes...
to simply cover people living on those highways, that's 10.5 billion dollars in cabling alone.
yowsa.
I don't know what it costs but fiber optic cable is being installed underground in my neighborhood now.
Switched video isn't that far away. That's the obvious one. They'll basically turn everything into On Demand or sort of like IPTV, but I'm sure there'll be tons of problems with people who are used to having 6 or 7 TVs in their house and stuff like that, and you can bet the rollout will be really awkward.
Once everything turns into IPTV though, I have trouble imagining satellite surviving. IPTV basically means new channels don't need more bandwidth because you only serve one or two channels to a house at a time. Of course, that's ten or fifteen years from now, and right now, Directv has everything else absolutely beat.
techntrek
10-16-07, 06:20 AM
Once everything turns into IPTV though, I have trouble imagining satellite surviving.
Satellite companies will still have the lock on the rural customers and special situations, as long as they have a southern view. DTV won't start sweating until there is high-bandwidth wireless web (WiFi, EDGE, etc) covering rural customers. That won't be for another decade, though.
Wanted to address some of the items in this thread. First, no, fiber does not need to be installed underground. I have fios, and the fiber runs from the pole directly to my house. Second, while I agree that many cable companies are hitting a bandwidth crunch, I do think it's overplayed a bit. I'll give an example for this area. Around here Comcast (and no, I'm no fan of Comcast) has about 70 analog channels. From what I understand, the math works out this way for QAM:
1 QAM channel can carry:
- 1 analog SD channel
- 9+ digital SD channels
- 2 HD channels
Short term, what Comcast is doing around here is getting rid of their analog feeds. To do THAT, they're offering a very pared down STB to customers dirt cheap, so they can still feed all those TVs that they currently have set up. What happens when they move those analogs over? Well, they free up ~62 QAM channels. They save about 70 because they get rid of their analogs... and they add ~8 because they're adding those channels to their digital tier.
Those 62 QAMs gives them enough space to carry 124 HD channels - uncompressed. Now, add mpeg4 to the mix (which is where many of these systems are going) and you have enough bandwidth to rival what directv has done.
Also, realize that no cable company currently uses every QAM channel that's available. There are 135 out there, and most use somewhere around 105. Add those 30 QAMs, and you create enough space to add another 60 HD channels. Granted, that would take a hell of an upgrade to their system, so this addition is somewhat unlikely.
My point in all this is that cable is not dead. DBS is not dead. They each have their markets that they cater to.
Finally as siguy rightly said, switched video isn't all that far away. And IP is right around the corner. Verizon has already stated their desire to go full IP (they're partly IP now) in 3 years. Where I disagree in that DBS will be dead by that point. That I don't agree with. There's just too much area in the country where fiber, or even standard cable, can't go - it's too cost-prohibitive.
I think you may see the two DBS companies attempt another merger. You may even see one go belly-up (way down the road), but the industry won't go away. I think DirecTV is the smarter of the two right now. They've made their motto: "content is king". For Verizon, e.g., it's clear that the network is king (they've said as much). This is a smart play by DirecTV. Also, I think DBS has a real future in hitting the 'mobile' user market.
JeffBowser
10-16-07, 06:30 AM
JPL has some very good points. Also note that bandwidth issues are only temporary. I've been in computer networking since the 80's - I can attest to the fact that bandwidth issues will continue to be solved in very clever ways.
The other advantage that cable has is that people don't want to put up a dish - "it is ugly" and what happens when it rains. I have to agree with both in a sense. The dish is ugly and getting worse everytime they make it bigger. And my signal does go out when it rains.
Personally I wouldn't have gotten D* if the cable offered to me at the time had some real content (I think they had 20 channels then). Every time I have to upgrade or deal with D* technical support I think about switching.
JeffBowser
10-16-07, 09:23 AM
Rainfade can be an issue. However, I live in one of the rainiest parts of the US, and I have lost my signal for extended periods of time only during hurricanes, and only for very brief periods of time otherwise. Maybe it's a function of our kind of weather - it rains every day during the summer, but we rarely get all day soakers.
joe diamond
10-16-07, 09:23 AM
if it's 5 cents a foot for fiber....(it's more) and there are 3,995,635 miles of highway in the USA (not counting residential streets here) and we don't count the drops to the homes...
to simply cover people living on those highways, that's 10.5 billion dollars in cabling alone.
yowsa.
Rural cable gave rise to Primestar. Cable companies won't go much beyond 200 ft down farm lanes.
Joe
Doug Brott
10-16-07, 09:28 AM
I don't know what it costs but fiber optic cable is being installed underground in my neighborhood now.
Fiber is being installed above ground in my neighborhood .. They were in and out in a couple of days :). I think FioS will be available in the next 12 months .. I might consider that option for my Internet as long as I don't have to get TV along with it.
Doug Brott
10-16-07, 09:31 AM
What about the possibility that the satellite blows up during launch?
This is what insurance is for .. thankfully, most satellites don't blow up on launch .. each has insurance, though.
Rural cable gave rise to Primestar. Cable companies won't go much beyond 200 ft down farm lanes.
Joe
Around 1994, I moved to the country, the cable company wanted to charge me about $1000 to run cable because I was more than 300 feet off the right of way.
Luckily, DBS was just starting up and I got the dish and receiver installed for about $800. The difference was phenominal though. Digital S-video and an on-screen guide. I never looked back.
Switched video isn't that far away. That's the obvious one. They'll basically turn everything into On Demand or sort of like IPTV, but I'm sure there'll be tons of problems with people who are used to having 6 or 7 TVs in their house and stuff like that, and you can bet the rollout will be really awkward.
Once everything turns into IPTV though, I have trouble imagining satellite surviving. IPTV basically means new channels don't need more bandwidth because you only serve one or two channels to a house at a time. Of course, that's ten or fifteen years from now, and right now, Directv has everything else absolutely beat.
If I have 3 DVRs and want 6 HD channels at the same time; I have a neighbor who wants 3 HD channels; another neighbor that wants 4 HD channels; etc. This leads to 70-80 channels being requested in a sub-division. Add on to this Internet traffic, and the bandwidth gets used.
While switching is an improvement, it is only part. Better media (fiber) and better compression are also critical.
Fiber is being installed above ground in my neighborhood .. They were in and out in a couple of days :). I think FioS will be available in the next 12 months .. I might consider that option for my Internet as long as I don't have to get TV along with it.
I know this is off-topic, but no you don't need to sign up for the TV service. You don't even need to switch your phone to fiber if you don't want - although you do need to tell them that right up front (and tell the installer that too), or they're going to pull the copper. In fact, by the time they work out the franchise agreements in your area, and get the TV equipment for your cable office, chances are pretty good that internet will be available to you months before TV service is. That's what happened with us - it was about an 11 month lag between the time internet became available, and TV did.
Also, fios works just fine with DirecTV service. I had fiber for phone and internet while a DirecTV customer, and the fiber phone service works just fine with things like the DirecTV receivers.
PCampbell
10-16-07, 09:48 AM
U-Verse uses IPTV here but they can only supply ONE HD channel at a time. You can not watch one and record at the same time. If you have more than one HD set and this will happen in the near future your out of luck. ATT says they will get up to two HD feeds some time next year but with D* and a multiswitch you get eight.
JeffTex42
10-16-07, 09:52 AM
U-Verse uses IPTV here but they can only supply ONE HD channel at a time. You can not watch one and record at the same time. If you have more than one HD set and this will happen in the near future your out of luck. ATT says they will get up to two HD feeds some time next year but with D* and a multiswitch you get eight.
More than 8 right? It's really limited only by the $ you want to spend, unlike Uverse where it'll always only be 1 (or 2 maybe next year).
U-Verse uses IPTV here but they can only supply ONE HD channel at a time. You can not watch one and record at the same time. If you have more than one HD set and this will happen in the near future your out of luck. ATT says they will get up to two HD feeds some time next year but with D* and a multiswitch you get eight.
I agree - the U-Verse design was just asinine. They opted for a mixed approach - fiber to a switching station, and coax to the home. They did it to save money (it costs Verizon 3 times as much to sign up a subscriber as it does AT&T), but they created a hell of a limitation for themselves. Currently fios runs QAM, just like cable, so they too are currently limited by the same bandwidth crunch that traditional cable has (the fiber runs to the home, but is converted to coax at that point). The main difference is that fios runs part of their service over IP (guide data and VOD, e.g.), freeing up that coax bandwidth for just pure tv programming. They can do this because the pipeline offered by that fiber is just monstrous. When they go full IP they won't have the same limitation that AT&T does, because the pipe going to the home is orders of magnitude larger than what AT&T has.
I can understand traditional cable companies having this type of issue, but U-Verse is a new system. Many cable outfits are still trying to upgrade parts of the country out of 70's technology. Why the hell would you start a new system, and adopt that type of limitation out of the box? Just blows my mind.
I've read here about cable, dbs and fiber. What about the talk a while back regarding sending signals through the electrical system. I suppose it would be on the ground or neutral wires. Is this really possible? And if so, why hasn't it happened quicker?
I've read here about cable, dbs and fiber. What about the talk a while back regarding sending signals through the electrical system. I suppose it would be on the ground or neutral wires. Is this really possible? And if so, why hasn't it happened quicker?
BPL...discussed in other threads (http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=94862)has been slow to expand, and their bandwidth is limited currently, although expanding.
OTOH, the Homeplug devices (http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=96194&highlight=BPL)would seem to gain popularity by making your home network easy to setup.
techrep
10-16-07, 10:45 AM
Fiber is being installed above ground in my neighborhood .. They were in and out in a couple of days :). I think FioS will be available in the next 12 months .. I might consider that option for my Internet as long as I don't have to get TV along with it.
The crew in my neighborhood is just doing the cable pulls at this time. The subdivision developer ran pvc conduit from transformer pad to transformer pad, at each lot, and they are pulling the cable from pad to pad. This part is going pretty fast but I don't know when it will all be hooked up. Don't worry, my TV service isn't going anywhere. ;)
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