Rich Fiscus
16 Sep 2008 19:51
With the US DTV transition just months away and competition from all-digital services like Verizon's FiOS and AT&T's U-verse increasing, one change that's finally coming to the cable industry is the disappearance of analog signals. Although the FCC is requiring cable companies to support analog customers until 2012, that mandate still allows them to do so through the use of digital converter boxes of the type used since digital cable was introduced. Now one cable TV provider in New York, RCN, has decided to go all-digital within the next few months.
The advantage to cable companies is substantial. There's actually been a lot of interest in such a move for years, but the conversion of OTA signals to digital makes it much easier to manage. As long as any analog signal is present, even digital cable and high speed internet signals must also be converted to analog to be transmitted on the same cables.
By switching to pure digital signals cable companies can do a better job of long range transmission since they can be repeated losslessly. Analog signals, on the other hand, must be amplified for transmission across longer distances. The more times a signal is amplified the lower the quality becomes.
"By going all-digital, we can provide the consumers of the great Empire City a superior alternative to the incumbent cable and phone products. We believe we are at the top of the class in going all digital," said RCN CEO and President Peter Aquino. "At launch, we are able to increase our HD channels to more than 75 channels and are positioned to make good on the promise of offering approximately 100 HD channels or more in the future."
This move does mean customers who continue to watch analog TVs will need to use a digital cable receiver.