I know most of you are die-hard satellite people, but...

[thebigjp]

Is anybody else here DirecTV subscribers because Wirless One "Left Town"??

For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about I'll be happy to explain this upon request.

Also... Does anybody here have any earthly (or spacely) clue as to when the next round of Locals will be launched, and where they will be.

[Greg Bimson]

The next round of locals are all slated to go to the 119 slot, after the DirecTV 7-S satellite is launched and in operation at the site. There is not a firm date for the DirecTV 7-S launch, so it is not known exactly when all of this will take place. The local markets listed on channel 999 as "Coming Soon", plus the addition of Topeka, Kansas, are the markets in the next round of locals.

[SouthernSky]

Is anybody else here DirecTV subscribers because Wirless One "Left Town"??

For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about I'll be happy to explain this upon request.

Also... Does anybody here have any earthly (or spacely) clue as to when the next round of Locals will be launched, and where they will be.

Up here around Alexandria, I have moved many subscribers from Wireless One to DirecTV so you are not alone ...

[D Plantz]

What is Wirless One? Wireless cabletv?

[thebigjp]

yes, Wireless One was wireless cable TV, but starting in 2000 and I think ending this year, for whatever reason they would "stop offering services" one market at a time (Lafayette, LA came June/July 2001). At least in this area "Loyal Wireless One Subscribers" were given a very good deal to convert to DirecTV (through a "strategic alliance").

[ChrisPC]

I remember Wireless One really well, their antennas are still stuck in a lot of trees here! It was only $20 a month, so it sold like hotcakes. However, it only had about 20 analog channels, and the long cable runs down trees really made the signal fuzzy. I heard Worldcom bought it out for the wireless licenses, and we all know what happened to them.

[Jacob S]

That sounds like an interesting service. Reminds me of wireless internet.

[Mark Holtz]

I know that there was a wireless cableco in Sacramento a few years ago, but I don't recall either the name or if they were still in operation.

[thebigjp]

The one thing I never understood about Wireless One though, was how they got past the must-carry laws. Because for instance, here we have a UPN that is availible on the "wired" cable but Wirless One never carried it. And does anybody here remember the channel chart in the "TV Host"/"Cable Guide" it had listed like 14 or 15 different systems worth of channels in the same issue and no localized local channel listings.

[thebigjp]

I forgot to put in the last post, when the "service technician" (who was here for 2 weeks from the Biloxi Area (Had an Alabamian accent) because they were switching all customers out at the same time) had switched our service out, he took the 4 receivers we had (we had service on 4 TVs), but left the remotes, and the "antenna". We STILL have the said antenna still up.

[ChrisPC]

Wireless One had just wired a cable system at my local college when they went out of business. Now, the college cable system comes from 40 D* receivers, one for each channel! BTW, their antenna is still up too, the last time I checked.

[Jacob S]

I wonder what that antenna would be good for? Any WISP services?

[ChrisPC]

Wireless cable is on 2.4 GHz, so the antennas would be great for anything in that range, WiFi, video, etc.

[thebigjp]

I just got finished thinking about this, does anybody know if there was a reason why the channels started (in 1994-1998 it was 1) at 24 towards the end?

[pez2002]

In philly we had Wireless tv It was called Popvision

It was Cheap you could get all the premium channels for a small fee

But popvision went out of Biz in 97

[ChrisPC]

IIRC, New Orleans used to have all-digital wireless cable, it was part of a multi-city test project called Americast. Americast was fiber optic in most of its markets, but wireless in New Orleans. Bells usually had the franchises, and Bellsouth had it in the New Orleans area. Around 1999, I saw antennas all over New Orleans, but Americast soon folded and they disappeared with it.

[thebigjp]

this thread had a lot of good discussion before it lost its popularity, so...

[Mike Richardson]

Wireless cable sounds neat. I think you could have a great service using the wireless cable part to deliver locals, internet, maybe even some on-demand type things, and then have transponders in the sky delivering your national programming.

[Tyralak]

I know that there was a wireless cableco in Sacramento a few years ago, but I don't recall either the name or if they were still in operation.


WBS. Was owned by Sprint, and they closed it down last year. Unfortuantly, they sent everyone over to Dish. :( We didn't get much business out of it. I actually had their service when we first moved to West Sacramento in an apartment. It wasn't bad, actually for what it was. IIRC, Showtime HBO and Starz were included. (1 feed each) Of course, it was included in the cost of my rent, so I never found out what it actually cost. :)

[BurgEnder]

Los Angeles had something like this about 3-4 years ago called Pacific Bell digital television service then they sold it to another firm called TeleTV. Then after they folded the customer base was converted to E*. The receivers they used resembled those first-gen D* RCA brand boxes but without the smartcard in the slot. They were very popular for a while because of cost.