The FCC, ( Federal Communications Commision ), which sets the rules that cable companies must play by has given permission to all cable companies to scramble or encrypt their basic and expanded basic channels. They have set a date of January 1, 2013, some claim December 10, but we have info that cable companies can start doing this after January 1, 2013
Once they scramble basic and expanded basic, all tv sets will require a cable box to unscramble the channels.
Since Heritage Village provides Basic TV to all residents from our own facility, we have no plans to scramble our channels 2-22. 98 and 99 and the FM radio lineup.
This is part of the ultimate goal of cable companies to digitize all of their tv offerings. Once they do this, they recoup more bandwidth to use for other services in the future.
We do not know exactly when Charter will do this but it is definitely in their plans.
This is the FCC announcement concerning this. A little heavy reading but quite informative.
http://www.fcc.gov/document/commission-relaxes-cable-encryption-prohibition
Again, no converter will be required to see the HV Village lineup.
Thanks, Jeff
