Well, maybe this transition thing isn’t as cleared up as I thought.
An update to the earlier article about Comcast’s transition to (nearly) all-digital broadcasting went online, and it seems to be contradicting what I was told earlier. Here’s the relevant part of the new article (added emphasis is mine):
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 “expanded basic” customers who don’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’t have a box. Limited basic customers — who only receive channels 2 to 29 — won’t be affected.
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’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):
@djwudi Hi,Re:Comcast—You will not lose channels, you will actually get more. If you have basic cable, we’ll give you very small conver … #
The problem I’m seeing, and the potential breakdown in communication, is that “basic cable” could be interpreted two ways: Limited Basic (the package I have), and Expanded Basic (the package planned to get the new boxes).
Under Comcast’s current channel line up (which I can’t link to, given the joys of Comcast’s website), Limited Basic customers get channels 2-29 as stated in the article, but they also 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’ve never seen, so I don’t know if they’re HD or if my TV just doesn’t pick them up. Based on the information provided so far, I can’t find a situation where Limited Basic subscribers “won’t be affected,” as stated in both articles from the Seattle Times. There appear to be two possible situations:
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
After the transition, Limited Basic service will actually be reduced to only channels 2-29.
I’m going to continue poking at Comcast to see if I can get a solid answer to this, but at the moment it’s a little confusing.
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OK, I think I know where part of the confusion’s coming from.
Seattle required Comcast (nee AT&T nee TCI nee someone else) to provide a cable package for lower-income people, especially those who don’t have line-of-sight to the towers on the hills. The answer was what we now call the “limited basic” package. Other local governments followed suit, so now Comcast pretty much offers it to everyone.
What the REST of the country calls “basic” is the 2-99 stretch. Here, it’s “expanded basic.”
Given how Comcast wants to convert everyone to digital, my guess is that everyone WILL get the digital boxes. It’s just that “limited basic” won’t get 30-74. 75 on up is pretty spare — KCTS arts, SCAN, Weather Channel, shopping stuff, CBC. There’s also some other municipal stuff you can’t see unless you have a digital tuner on your HDTV like I do; I think it’s on channel 76.
So, my thought is a) you will get the box and b) you won’t be charged extra for it and c) you will not be forced to upgrade. Which is not what the article is saying, of course, but my instincts are suggesting that. Do you get 99 now?
Oh, and those HD channels above 113 are the local station’s subchannels, like 7-2 (with the reruns) and the channel 9 subchannels with cooking and Spanish language programming.
(It’s so much easier to do this in a comment than on Twitter with its 140 character limit.)