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By Dave Hughes dcrtv@dcrtv.com
Welcome to Dave's Cable Page. My personal musings on my local cable system, Comcast in Reston. I've been a subscriber to the system since about 1973, when it was owned by Warner, and later by Jones. Comcast bought the system in the 1990s. Check out the cable system's Current Channel Line-Up and my Reston Cable History Page, with old channel line-ups. More coming soon. Dave's Cable Page is dedicated to Abe Jennings, the general manager of Comcast Reston and Northern Virginia cable systems. He was the "inspiration" for me to start it.....
Outages/problems/musings noted by DCRTV Dave on Comcast/Reston:
5/11 - Meredith Attwell Baker, one of the two Republican commissioners at the Federal Communications Commission, plans to step down - and right into a top Capitol Hill lobbying job at Comcast-NBC. The news comes after the controversial merger of Comcast and NBC earlier this year. With her vote for the merger, Baker objected to FCC attempts to impose conditions on the deal and argued that the "complex and significant transaction" would "bring exciting benefits to consumers that outweigh potential harms".....
4/22 - From Politico: For all the goodwill being shown to Al Jazeera English in both the government and the press these days, the channel is still having trouble making inroads with US cable providers. Comcast is "not currently in active talks" to carry the Qatar-based news channel, according to a letter acquired by Cliff Kincaid at Accuracy In Media, one of Al Jazeera's most vocal critics. DCRTV adds: Comcast does carry Al Jazeera in the DC area (channel 275) as part of its carriage deal with Fairfax's Channel 30/WNVC, which offers the channel as one of its 10 digitally broadcast foreign news networks.....
3/16 - From ARLnow.com: In a mailing that went out last month, Comcast told Arlington County customers that they would be getting "The World Of More" - the company's phrase for a slew of additional high-definition channels - on March 15. Alas, that date has come and gone and the channels are nowhere to be seen. In fact, the only noticeable change in the past two weeks is that customers can no longer receive basic cable channels without a digital converter. ARLnow has been unable to get in touch with Comcast's PR department, but Arlington County Cable Administrator Rob Billingsley says the company has told him that it will be at least a week until the first batch of new HD channels reaches county television sets.....
3/14 - Now that it has received the blessing of the federal regulators and completed its merger with NBC, area cable TV giant Comcast is raising its cable TV rates. The expanded basic "Standard Service" tier of channels will increase in price by about 5% per month come May 1, going from $61.95 to $64.95 in Reston, for example. "Limited Basic" jumps almost 10% to $22.95 in Reston, with both the "Digital Starter" and "Digital Preferred" packages, including those bundled with premium channels like HBO, also jumping in price by about 5%. Comcast is also hiking the price of its popular "Blast" and "Performance" internet services by $1 each. Prices for many installation services are also being raised.....
2/11 - Comcast flipped many of its DC and Baltimore area cable TV systems to all-digital, with the addition of a batch of high-def channels, in late 2009 and early 2010. And now it's finally getting around to making the Xfinity upgrade at its Arlington system. ARLnow.com has more.....
1/25 - Cable giant Comcast has added Antenna TV to its DC area cable TV line-ups, via channel 201. The newly-launched network, which carries classic TV shows and movies, is available over-the-air via the 50-2 digital subchannel of Tribune-owned Channel 50/WDCW. Cox recently added Antenna TV on channel 809 via its Fairfax County system.....
12/17 - Some local cable TV changes and additions. DCRTV hears that Cox in Fairfax County will be carrying the new Oprah Winfrey Network, OWN, on channel 99 come early January. The new Discovery Communications network will replace the Discovery Health Channel and will be available on other area cable systems as well. Cox will also carry the new classic TV show network Antenna TV on channel 809 starting January 7. It'll be broadcast on a digital subchannel of Channel 50/WDCW. Expect other area cable systems to carry it, too. Also, Comcast is rolling out the Smithsonian Channel on channel 194 of its area systems. And, Comcast is adding Channel 25/WZDC's HD signal, a Telemundo network affiliate, to channel 796. Plus, Comcast is making CBS College Sports, channels 732 and 854, available to subscribers of its "digital preferred" tier, in addition to its "sports entertainment package".....
11/29 - DC and Baltimore area cable TV giant Comcast suffered a major internet outage affecting customers throughout the East Coast, and as far southwest as Texas, on Sunday evening. Here at the DCRTV HQ in Reston, which is served by Comcast, we lost internet connectivity at about 8 PM, with a restoration at least several hours later. When we attempted to call Comcast to report the problem, we repeatedly got a phone message that the line was jammed with other callers. Tech guru Rob Pegoraro at washingtonpost.com reports that Comcast was plagued by a major DNS fault - customers stayed connected to Comcast's service but they could not reach any websites. Internet service was restored to most Comcast customers in the 11 PM hour, reports baltimoresun.com. "Late (Sunday) evening, our engineers identified a server issue that was affecting only internet service in Greater Boston and DC/Beltway areas," a Comcast spokesperson posted, according to IEEE Spectrum. However, he could not say how many customers were affected, nor what the specific problem was with its servers.....
11/9 -
The trade group American Cable Association claims that Comcast's proposed merger with NBC Universal could result in $2.4 billion in extra costs to consumers over nearly a decade. ACA represents small and medium-size cable service providers. With no conditions to the merger, the combined cable and media giant would be able to use its sheer size for "unrestrained pricing power." The commissioned report by former FCC economist William Rogerson said those costs would come from Comcast-NBCU potentially charging cable service rivals such as RCN, Time Warner Cable, and Cablevision higher retransmission and other fees to carry NBCU content. The merger would also allow Comcast to charge higher fees to cable competitors who want its regional sports networks and other Comcast programming.....10/28 - If you plug the Comcast TV cable directly into your digital TV here in Reston you can get Catholic network EWTN. But the channel has not been available on the system's official channel lineup via its converter boxes. In a number of rants via my Dave's Cable Page, I've found that to be kind of strange, considering that there is no shortage of Catholics in Reston, which sports two Catholic churches. Well, imagine my surprise when I examined this week's Fairfax County Times, which features a rather smallish ad from Comcast saying that EWTN will added to Reston's "limited basic" digital service, a la converter boxes, in late November. Coincidence? Hmmm. Oh, in the ad, Comcast also says that it's moving ABC Family and the USA Network from "limited basic" to its "Digital Starter" package, which means that you'll have to pay more to watch them.....
10/5 - WHUT's HD signal on 202/802 here in Reston has been restored.....
10/4 - I sent this to Comcast PR person Alisha Martin and Reston cable TV head Abe Jennings: A couple of things about Comcast/Reston... 1) WHUT has been missing from 202/802 for the past few days. Black screen. It's still in SD on 32..... 2) Would someone please change the channel identifier from FINE on 122. It flipped from Fine Living to the Cooking Channel a few months ago..... 3) I noticed I'm now getting the Tennis Channel SD on 735 even though I don't get the sports tier. Is this an access change or a free preview? By the way - I'm not also getting it in HD on 862.....
9/10 - As advertised, Comcast upgrades its Spanish tier in Reston, with a batch of new Spanish language channels along with the local DC signals clustered in the their.....
9/8 - The video on demand channels at my Reston location via Comcast were not functioning for about a day. After sending a complaint to the techies, the service was fixed.....
There are several major cable companies in the DC/Baltimore area. Most provide digital and internet services in addition to basic cable service. Some also provide phone service.
