tims@infidel.lanl.gov (Tim Sullivan) (10/08/90)
Our local cable board was presented with the following argument from our local cable TV supplier and need some help in separating fact from BS. Cable company proposes to add the service called Showtime. However, to do that they say they must remove a currently offered premium service, and the one they pick is Playboy (which has only achieved a 2% market "penetration".) Wait says cable board, we don't want to defend Playboy, but what is going to happen when we want to add some other premium service? Issue revolves around following problem according to cable company. We do not have black boxes in our area, so the cable company sends out premium services they expect more than 50% subscriptions to in the clear and send scrambled versions of services they expect less that 50% subscriptions to. Then on top of the telephone pole with the cable leading to your house, they install filters (supposedly passive) that block or pass the services that each subscriber is paying for. Each filter is a cylinder approximately 1in in diameter and 2in long. The problem, says the cable company, is that each filter degrades the signal and depending on what is being subscribed to now, as many as five of these filters are required. Thus, to add another service (and its filter) will lead to poor-signal-quality problems. Besides, these filters only work in channels 2-22 (above 22 are higher frequencies and nobody makes ones that will work with the higher frequencies) and if we add another premium channel in this range we will have to deal with the "storm of protest" over loss of channels in Basic Service (such much watched channels as LIFETIME "fitness, health, hobbies, and more!") So what are the technical facts? More than 5 filters a problem? No filters for use above channel 22? (Is there somewhere I can get catalogs of companies that supply to the CATV market, so I know what is available to these guys?) Thanks for any help, Tim Sullivan (tims@infidel.lanl.gov)