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USDTV Announces Low-Cost, Localized Digital TV
pagercam2 writes "According to a CNN story, USDTV is about to roll out a new digital TV service, the difference being that it doesn't use cable or a satellite. They stream the DigitalTV signals on currently idle frequencies to standard UHF/VHF antennas. The service includes 35 channels, including local stations as well as many of the basic cable (Disney, Discovery, ESPN, TLC, FOOD...) with more to come. $19.95/mo is the price point for a basic service, though '...customers must buy a $99.95 set-top device to decode the channels.' Initially to be rolled out in Salt Lake City, Las Vegas and Albuquerque, could USDTV keep prices low and still support local content since they have no cable network to maintain, and no satellites to launch?"
Is this encrypted like satellite TV? Or can I buy a receiver and not pay for the signal? Are these people going to sue all purchasers of smart card IO devices?
My other car is first.
The UK have has a DigitalTV service that broadcasts to standard antenni for a little while now. FreeView
Indeed, the service is a little cheaper than the common cable system, but brings about one major disadvantage: You will need a receiver and subscription for every receiver you own. So if you have 2 TV's and a VCR, you need 3 subscriptions, and this setup is more expensive than cable plus an amplifier and indoor coax cabling.
However, the service can be used on the road, allowing good quality TV reception in vehicles and on, for example, campsites.
I've seen the displays in our local Wal-Marts (Orem ,UT ~30 miles from SLC). The features look really good, but they just didn't have any options for adding other channels that they do NOT mention.
I prefer a lot of channels so I can skip the trash and find the good shows... I just don't see that as an option for this service. The HDTV aspect is attractive, but I don't have the money for the TV! (I know, I know, I am a bad bad bad geek)
With thier $19 price structure it looks like they are going after customers that want basic with some premium channels but not the high price, I think that is the same market that does NOT have HDTV's.
My brother is thinking about signing up so to add HDTV to his big screen, but he will still keep his dish.
~Z
Also, .50/channel :)
I want a system where I can pick each and every channel individually. I'd only want about 12-15 of them and I'd be willing to pay
A friend of mine found out about this awhile back and has been documenting his research into the matter. You can read what he has found here. Basically: "While surfing the web I have found out that USDTV is renting space for 3 of its 11 channels from KULC. While I am no lawyer I think that this is illegal as KULC is licenesed as an educational station."
In a previous comment I wondered about how they would go about protecting the digital stream from piracy.
I went ahead and did some reading and it seems that when you purchase the unit, you have to call customer service and read them the UID number and the serial number from the receiver.
I'm sort of disappointed in their engineering department. I give it 3 months of mass market exposure before you see a hack (perhaps opening the unit and being able to serial into it?) that will let you change the UID and Serial Number to perhaps an existing subscription. or even a universal unlock code (like region 0), who knows.
Its what we've been doing in the EU for several years now. And as the previous post says it is not without cost or limitations (less bandwith than satellite for example).
In fact our big pay-to-view digital terrestrial tv company went spectacularly boom and nearly took out half of the soccer world with it, so that we had only free-to-air digital for a while, although a new player is now attempting to make pay to view digital terrestrial work again.
And if they hit the target for analogue switch over (unlikely as lots of voters have analogue only tv's still) then there will be lots more room to grow the digital tv space.
Dang straight. I was talking to a Verizon field technician today and he says he and about a hundred and forty other techs are being trained to install fiber. Verizon is trying to push fiber out to the last mile to compete with cable companies. He said they already have one "test neighborhood" in Cerritos where they've been stringing fiber from the pole to the POD on every house they service. It is Verizon, though, so for internet connectivity they'll probably still only give you the option of $50/mo for a 1500/256 async, or $300/mo for a 3000/3000, offering absolutely nothing in between, the way they do with DSL. I can see them spending a crapload putting in fiber, then selling it like it's cable TV and DSL. "Yeah, we have the bandwidth to offer you a 10GBps connection, but since we charge $300 for 3MBps, that'll cost you $10,000 per month".
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Some research has been about USDTV's operation in Utah and they appear to be using channels that have been allocated to the "Utah State Board of Regents", which is the state board responsible for overseeing education in Utah.
IANAL, but according to FCC regulations (47CFR73) "noncommercial educational broadcast stations will be licensed only to nonprofit educational organizations upon a showing that the proposed stations will be used primarily to serve the educational needs of the community; for the advancement of educational programs; and to furnish a nonprofit and noncommercial television broadcast service."
We feel USDTV might be in violation of these regulations and we've been searching for answers as to the nature of the agreement between the two entities. So far our efforts to contact them have not yeilded results. Does anyone have any understanding of how they are able to license this "non-commercial" bandwidth?
Credit for most of the research goes to Luke Jenkins. There's a complete history of the research he's been doing to get to the bottom of this matter here: http://a.zzq.org/kulc/
The service is not using "idle frequencies", it is using active frequencies but spare bandwidth. I.e., it is including its scrambled signal in with the standard digital broadcast signal of one or more other stations.
If these stations have the spare bandwidth, this is a win/win for both the station and USDTV, since they get the cost of a tower and transmitter underwritten by USDTV, and USDTV gets a medium they don't have to worry about licenses for.
This will be a benefit to those areas where the local stations are hard-pressed to come up with the funds to go digital (even though they must). It will also be a big help in areas currently served by translators, since those are sometimes operated by small groups within the community they serve. They can still translate, and sell the excess space to USDTV, who pays for the hardware.