Digital Television Through Your Local Phone Company?

[Bael]

Something I just heard about today that's really interesting in theory. It looks like some of the crazier alternative phone companies are looking to expand into new markets. There's a Verizon alternative in Virginia (and other states too) called Cavalier Telephone... who are apparently offering an interesting new bundle deal, Home Telephone, DSL *AND* digital television, all from them, and all cheaper than going with both Comcast & Verizon. It'll be interesting to see how well this works, and if and how much it catches on. It looks like the only things it really lacks at the moment are HBO/Cinemax, and it's working to expand. I wonder if this really will turn into an alternative to Comcast's bullshit stranglehold on Cable TV. Interesting it sends the TV signal digitally through your DSL line, so it should make HD feeds cheaper/easier. It'll be neat to see, personally I'd like to see this spark competition and lower prices all around, since the price of Cable/DSL/Phone/etc are all insane. Anyway, here's a link for more info.

http://www.cavtel.com/broadbandtv/index.shtml

[Marnis]

Heh, at least one thing at which we are ahead of the states.

Our ISPs are offering the 'Triple play' (that's what they call it). Internet phone/TV/aDSL (or VDSL, depends on the tech. they are using) for a few years now, and I must say that now that all the birth troubles have ended, it's actually useful.

Few downsides: You can only watch one TV at a time (okay, if the ISP uses ADSL2+ standard or VDSL, it can go up to 3, but def. just ONE HDTV signal). Occasional packet losses, that result in bad, screwy picture. It takes a second or three to switch channels.

Otherwise it's pretty neat.

[Aristotle]

Verizon does this in a lot of markets as well.

This is actually getting pretty common, and has been in various locations for a few years now.

Cable companies are also doing all three in some markets.

It is a neat thing to see them all dipping into each other's backyard.

[Pae]

See up where I am, the trouble is the phone company (MTS) did not have enough foresight to think about other markets (ie internet & cable) when they first installed their system.

While our phone company has for awhile offered TV and Internet services, you MUST have their phone service to utilize these services.

Which has not been an issue really until IP phones started coming out. So while our phone company has by far the best TV services their phone/internet plan is atrociously expensive. So I'm forced to use a different internet provider, different phone service provider and have shoddy cable. To save $50 / month.