 jmn1207Premium
join:2000-07-19
Ashburn, VA
kudos:1 | Capacity Issue Great, now that contracts are no longer required, Verizon is free to start dropping channels in an attempt to try and recover capacity without having to worry about consumer legal retaliation. If you were paying $X amount for a particular channel package, when they take away some channels to make more room for something in the future that may not be included in your current package, you have the option to cancel service with no strings attached.
It works both ways. |
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| said by jmn1207:If you were paying $X amount for a particular channel package, when they take away some channels to make more room for something in the future that may not be included in your current package, you have the option to cancel service with no strings attached. It works both ways. You can now cancel without even having to wonder if it's a contract invalidating change that Verizon made? |
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Make more room for what...? Since when is fiber a limited capacity transfer medium? |
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jmn1207Premium
join:2000-07-19
Ashburn, VA
kudos:1 | said by sonicmerlin:Make more room for what...? Since when is fiber a limited capacity transfer medium? Verizon chose to use existing broadcasting methods to save money. The set-top-boxes and the head-end equipment have a limited amounted of QAM channels over an 870MHz frequency range for TV delivery. Since they went with a 2 HD channel per QAM build, they have now run out of space and are unable to add any new HD channels to the lineup.
Just today Verizon dropped 4 West Coast feeds to some premium HD movie channels that were largely duplicates in order to allow room to add some new channels. |
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Sammer
join:2005-12-22
Canonsburg, PA | reply to jmn1207
said by jmn1207:Great, now that contracts are no longer required, Verizon is free to start dropping channels in an attempt to try and recover capacity without having to worry about consumer legal retaliation. Nope, Verizon still has lots of FiOS customers under existing contracts and they still offer contracts to new customers who want the two year price guarantee. BTW, why do you think they need to recover capacity in first place? |
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iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 | reply to jmn1207
Wait...you're saying that there' 870MHz worth of digital, interesting TV out there? |
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jmn1207Premium
join:2000-07-19
Ashburn, VA
kudos:1 | Amazing huh?
At 6Mhz per channel, there are about 140-150 QAM channels. FiOS uses up to 10 for SD stations per QAM and 2 HD stations per QAM. With all of the rules requiring them to make so much room for local stuff, they really have run out of space to add some HD channels that the cable competitors are now offering.
A rumor going around is that many of the SD channels might be moved to an IPTV system to recover some more space, although this would cripple those of us with CableCard devices, as these channels would no longer be available. |
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iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 | Why can't they just upgrade the system to 1GHz? |
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jmn1207Premium
join:2000-07-19
Ashburn, VA
kudos:1 | said by iansltx:Why can't they just upgrade the system to 1GHz? They need equipment that can work at this extended frequency. None of their set-top-boxes currently in circulation are capable of handling 1 GHz. It's an expensive update, as Cox Cable can agree.
It's possible to only add premium channels in the upper spectrum and distribute new DVR's with 1 GHz tuners to these customers, but that is still quite a complicated endeavor and makes for very restricted limitations on channel lineups. |
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MisterBillVerizon FiOS
join:2002-06-05
Yorktown Heights, NY | reply to jmn1207
said by jmn1207  Just today Verizon dropped 4 West Coast feeds to some premium HD movie channels that were largely duplicates in order to allow room to add some new channels. [/BQUOTE :I thought they did it to answer the TWC commercial accusing them of inflating the # of HD channels they had when some were just time-shifted duplicates (which I thought was stupid because if I want to watch something NOW, I don't care that it's 3 hours off from another channel that I have). |
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bicker
join:2007-05-10
Burlington, MA | reply to jmn1207
The specific channels provided were never part of the obligation to provide service. They could have dropped a few channels any time they wanted, without any legitimate legal exposure regarding contracts with subscribers. |
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jmn1207Premium
join:2000-07-19
Ashburn, VA
kudos:1
1 edit | Sure, but we don't know what type of potentially sweeping changes may be coming in an effort to address the issue with channel space, and despite how cleverly worded Verizon's terms are, Florida, where this began, is known to have tough consumer protection laws, and often comes to the aid of the customer despite what might be included in a footnote of section IX, title C, subset ii, clause 3.b(2). |
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bicker
join:2007-05-10
Burlington, MA | Those laws pertain to practices that are unusual for the specific industry. Customary provisions aren't affected. |
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jmn1207Premium
join:2000-07-19
Ashburn, VA
kudos:1 | I am simply skeptical of the motivation behind this decision to initially abandon contracts. Now, after the fact, it makes sense to continue with this practice as they have seen success with it.
Sprint probably thought they had an airtight contract in place with their ETF, but it was Florida that forced them to change this policy. |
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