[Discuss] Comcast goes all encrypted video in Cambridge

[tmetro+blu at gmail.com (Tom Metro)]

Richard Pieri wrote:
> It's because their physical infrastructure is completely insecure.
> Anyone can tap the lines without Comcast knowing it.

This is true, but that's Comcast's problem, not their customers', yet
they push the burden of implementing a more secure system - both in
terms of cost (box rental fees) and inconvenience (needing to use boxes)
- onto their customers.


Bill Bogstad wrote:
> Anyone who bought a TV in the last five years probably got a flat screen
> (LCD, etc.) with a perfectly good ATSC/clear QAM digital tuner which has
> now been made worthless as far as Comcast is concerned.

Right.

There are other ways to do this. The old-school solution required
rolling a truck to the house to disconnect the cable or install a
band-stop filter for partial service. Obviously they want to avoid those
labor costs.

And there is technology to do that. They're called addressable taps, and
they date back to the 1990s or earlier. I'm sure there are modern versions.

Take the FIOS optical network terminator (ONT), which acts like a
miniature cable head-end, and is capable of providing analog video for
NTSC devices. It's easy to conceive how cable companies could use a
digital equivalent that has an addressable controller that outputs clear
QAM for the channels you are authorized to receive.

Why wouldn't a cable company prefer this? It might cost more to build.
They won't be able to charge rent for it. And it eliminates a major
motivation for having a full-size, clunky cable box, which is required
for various add-on services, like pay-per-view. (Though conceivably they
could replace that with a much nicer UI in the form of an Android/iOS
app that lets you order PPV, which then sends a signal to your ONT to
activate the programming.)


> If I want to watch a local City Council meeting on a second TV in my 
> house while the kids watch their shows on the main one, I will have to 
> pay $2 a month for the privilege. Since those channels are not 
> broadcast, I can't even try to use an antenna to bypass Comcast. So I
> get to pay Comcast $24 a year to be a civically engaged citizen.

A few years ago I had a conversation with the guy that heads up the
community access TV system on Newton about providing greater access to
the content online. His response was why would he do that, as all his
funding comes from the cable companies, and making content available
online would be bypassing the cable providers.

Community TV has a broken funding model.

But despite that, I have seen signs lately that they are making more
content available online. Eventually towns will wise up and fix the
funding model, and then you'll be able to stream that content.


Jerry Feldman wrote:
> AFAIK: Comcast will provide you with 2 DTAs at no cost.

No, that was apparently a limited time deal. About 6 months ago a charge
showed up on my bill for the DTAs. I think $2 each.

I'm now due for my annual call to the cable company to renegotiate my
bill. I plan to see if I can get the cost of the DTAs thrown into the
package price.

Basically cable companies have come to the realization that a large
percentage of their customers aren't price sensitive, and they'll just
blindly pay whatever is on the bill, as long as the service keeps
working. For everyone else, you either have to trade your time to
negotiate a reasonable price, or you cut the cord.

It does feel like cable companies are still operating with the
assumption that cord cutting is not a viable alternative, and thus they
see no restraints on their increasing prices. You'd think massive
corporations with teams of marketers and analysis on the payroll would
know better, but they seem destined to price themselves out of the video
delivery business.

 -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/