atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General Telecom News Free TV Converter Box Coupons Available

People don't understand that these boxes will only allow digital signal to your set. This will not get you HD. As stated if you have cable or satelite you will already get digital. My questions is when the conversion is complete will we still pay extra for the digital signals or wil they just rename it to the standard package???

It is important to understand that the DTV transition is a transition from analog broadcasting to digital broadcasting. It is not a transition from analog broadcasting to High Definition broadcasting. Digital broadcasting allows for High Definition broadcasts, but High Definition is not required, and you do not need to buy a HDTV to watch digital TV. A Standard Definition DTV (which is simply a TV with an internal digital tuner), or a digital-to-analog converter box hooked to an analog TV, is all that is required to continue watching over-the-air broadcast television. Digital broadcast television includes Standard Definition (SD) and High Definition (HD) formats. You can watch High Definition programming on a Standard Definition DTV (or on an analog TV hooked to a digital-to-analog converter box), but it won’t be in full High Definition quality.

rustynails-
Google came out on it's home page and said they were not planning a wireless cell service, it was a word of mouth rumour.

More on the story here- https://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15700344/

My company is doing a BIG wiring job in the Bronx. Fiber everywhere, feeding wireless transmitting stations on telephone poles and street lights.

Supposedly, when they're done with the Bronx, it's on to Brooklyn. And then the world.

I was told the name of the outfit we're wiring for, but it didn't register (They just might be a shill for someone). Supposedly they'll be buying up the bandwidth from the TV stations and offering wireless everything.

This is very reminiscent of 10-12 years ago. We did a lot of work for Winstar, ART & Telergy. They bought up bandwidth in the 38Ghz (Microwave) spectrum that had supposedly been previously owned by the CIA. We pulled fiber to centrally located "Hub" sites and then set up towers to supply bandwidth (internet access, tie lines and dial tone to local users over short haul (< 2 miles) microwave.

It worked real well for a couple of years until all these outfits overextended themselves during the dot-com feeding frenzy. When the bottom fell out, so did they.

I however, made a ton of money during those years, so I can't complain.


Sam

Well, my family does a bit of camping (city style) and I do plenty of football tailgating. I ordered my converter coupons so we can continue to take a TV with us on these outings. What about those kid's soccer playoff days where you have to sit there and wait for three games to end before you know if your kid's team will play again?

Hey, it's practically free, so why not?

Rusty I use rabbit ears and external antennas with a satellite connection thats the only way to get local channels.

Metelcom, I thought the FCC required Satelite providers to air local channels awhile ago. Of course you are "Up North".

I use rabbit ears on my TV in the gargage/woodshop and portable TVs for camping and when the wife goes shopping. (I sit in the car and watch Law and Order).

I'm glad to see a good explanation of the difference in HDTV and DTV. There is a lot of confusion about that.

That's true from what I understand, they have to "offer" the local channels, but customers do not have to buy them as part of their programming package.

I used to work for Winstar in the Houston area, I can honestly say that the concept of what they were doing was a great idea, but the technology running it was not up with the idea.... We had problems all the time, and customers were jumping ship after only a month with us.. No wonder that company is not longer in business.

We did very well and most customers seemed happy. What nailed Winstar was a commitment from Lucent to supply them with a Billion dollars worth of switching equipment. They had expanded at breakneck speed and when Lucent renegged they were left holding the bag.

Personally, I don't think that microwave should be your primary feed for Dial Tone. As a backup it's perfect. Of course sometime that's all you can get.

We had one job - a US government agency that took over 4 HUGE floors in an empty factory building in a NYC neighborhood that was pretty well empty - all former factories and warehouses.

They were moving in and ordered 500+ lines of Centrx from NY Tel. The Phone company came back with the shamefaced acknowledgement that thay only had 4 working pairs in the building and 11 in the immediate area! They had no plans to pull any more cable in for the next several years.

They went to TCG for fiber, but they couldn't deliver it in time. We ran in a DS3 from Metrotech over Microwave. Installed the muxes and delivered 672 DT's in under a week.

It worked real well. I think they're still using it.

Sam