Cable operators need the flexibility to convert digital local TV signals to analog to help keep consumer bills in check after analog local TV signals are turned off in early 2009, Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt said in testimony to be delivered Wednesday before a House subcommittee.
If cable operators can’t downconvert digital signals at the headend or central office, they would need to lease set-top boxes to millions consumers. The National Cable & Telecommunications Association estimated that cable homes currently have 134 million TV sets that would need set-tops to receive digital signals from cable operators. Comcast, the largest U.S. cable company, charges $3.50 per month for digital set-tops.
“A cable operator may decide to convert the digital-broadcast signal to analog format at the headend. Under this option, cable customers who receive service on an analog television without the use a set-top box will receive the same high-quality service the day after the transition as they did the day before with no requirement for new equipment and at no additional cost to the consumer,” Britt said, according to copy of his testimony obtained by Multichannel News.
Britt, along with broadcasting and consumer-electronics representatives, is scheduled to appear before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet regarding the government-mandated analog-TV cutoff Feb. 17, 2009.
In his statement, Britt didn’t address whether cable operators had legal authority to downconvert at the headend after local TV stations go all-digital. Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin has suggested that cable’s legal authority to do so was an open regulatory question.
Nearly 50% of cable homes have only analog-TV equipment, which means they can’t view a digital local TV signal sent by the cable operator without a set-top box.
Britt indicated that cable operators with particularly high digital-set-top penetration -- Cablevision Systems, for example, reported 76% penetration -- might forgo downconversion and rely on a purely set-top solution as the 2009 deadline nears.
“This option, however, would require these customers to change out equipment or add a set-top box where they did not have one before,” he added.
