{"id":5192,"date":"2008-12-09T14:34:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-09T22:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/?p=5192"},"modified":"2019-12-23T13:28:01","modified_gmt":"2019-12-23T21:28:01","slug":"comcast-confusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2008\/12\/09\/comcast-confusion\/","title":{"rendered":"Comcast Confusion"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:4711,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\\\/html\\\/brierdudley\\\/2008480563_brier08.html?syndication=rss&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\\\/html\\\/brierdudley\\\/2008480563_brier08.html?syndication=rss&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:4712,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\\\/html\\\/brierdudley\\\/2008484428_brier09.html?syndication=rss&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\\\/html\\\/brierdudley\\\/2008484428_brier09.html?syndication=rss&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:4713,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/twitter.com\\\/ShaunaCausey\\\/status\\\/1046448208&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>Well, maybe <a href=\"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2008\/12\/09\/maybe-comcastcares-after-all\/\" title=\"eclecticism: Maybe @comcastcares after all!\">this transition thing<\/a> isn&#8217;t as cleared up as I thought.<\/p>\n<p>An update to the <a href=\"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/brierdudley\/2008480563_brier08.html?syndication=rss\" title=\"Seattle Times: A digital switch on way for some cable customers, too\">earlier article<\/a> about Comcast&#8217;s transition to (nearly) all-digital broadcasting went online, and <a href=\"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/brierdudley\/2008484428_brier09.html?syndication=rss\" title=\"Seattle Times: Comcast digital switch stirs more questions\">it seems to be contradicting<\/a> what I was told earlier. Here&#8217;s the relevant part of the new article (added emphasis is mine):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  Comcast is switching channels higher than 29 to digital format and requiring all televisions to have some sort of cable box to receive those channels. For &#8220;expanded basic&#8221; customers who don&#8217;t have cable boxes, the company will provide a free box. It also will provide two free adapters that expanded and digital customers can use on additional TVs that don&#8217;t have a box. <strong>Limited basic customers \u2014 who only receive channels 2 to 29 \u2014 won&#8217;t be affected.<\/strong>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This seems to agree with my initial interpretation from the first article: that there will be no change in service for Limited Basic subscribers, and it&#8217;s only Expanded Basic customers that will be receiving cable boxes and\/or DTAs. Looking again at the tweets I received yesterday from Shauna, I wonder about the wording of this one (again with added emphasis):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  @djwudi Hi,Re:Comcast\u2014You will not lose channels, you will actually get more. If you have <strong>basic cable<\/strong>, we\u2019ll give you very small conver \u2026 <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/ShaunaCausey\/status\/1046448208\" title=\"ShaunaCausey: Hi,Re:Comcast...\">#<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The problem I&#8217;m seeing, and the potential breakdown in communication, is that &#8220;basic cable&#8221; could be interpreted two ways: Limited Basic (the package I have), and Expanded Basic (the package planned to get the new boxes).<\/p>\n<p>Under Comcast&#8217;s current channel line up (which I can&#8217;t link to, given the joys of Comcast&#8217;s website), Limited Basic customers get channels 2-29 as stated in the article, but they <em>also<\/em> get 75-79, 99, a run of HD channels (which you would need a $6.50\/mo HD box to receive: 104-107, 109-111 and 113), and four high-digit channels (115-117 and 119) that I&#8217;ve never seen, so I don&#8217;t know if they&#8217;re HD or if my TV just doesn&#8217;t pick them up. Based on the information provided so far, I can&#8217;t find a situation where Limited Basic subscribers &#8220;won&#8217;t be affected,&#8221; as stated in both articles from the Seattle Times. There appear to be two possible situations:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>As implied in my conversations on Twitter, Limited Basic customers will receive DTA boxes that will allow them to receive the current channel lineup, or<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>After the transition, Limited Basic service will actually be <em>reduced<\/em> to only channels 2-29.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>I&#8217;m going to continue poking at Comcast to see if I can get a solid answer to this, but at the moment it&#8217;s a little confusing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, maybe this transition thing isn&#8217;t as cleared up as I thought. An update to the earlier article about Comcast&#8217;s transition to (nearly) all-digital broadcasting went online, and it seems to be contradicting what I was told earlier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2043,2037],"tags":[65,8],"class_list":["post-5192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","category-tv-and-films","tag-technology","tag-television"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5192\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}