Time Warner: Sorry, dude, we had to take away your channels

To his credit, Time Warner Cable's Damon Porter spokesmanned up. He didn't sugar-coat the news. As much as I might gripe about having 44 channels taken off my TiVo — and having no access to the dozen new HD channels that went online in KC overnight — Porter told me there would be no relief for months, and exactly why.

As I told you on Tuesday, Time Warner is effectively shutting off its customers who use CableCARDs from future channel upgrades and taking away some of their existing ones. That's because TWC is moving to a switched digital video or SDV platform, and it requires compatible CableCARDs ... which it currently doesn't have.

CableCARDs have been a major PR issue for the cable industry, as it presents a classic confrontation between consumers' desire for choice and a media giant's intuition to control. Welcome to my world! Anyway, I was really hacked that TWC's customer rep had sold me so effusively on CableCARDs — I was proactive enough to call before making a decision to buy a Series 3 HD TiVo — and now, mere months later, I find myself paying for crippled technology.

So here's what Damon Porter told me today.

"We're totally out of bandwidth," he said, "and the only way we can reclaim more bandwidth is to go to switched digital. "The overwhelming number of our customers want more HD programming, so to stay in the game when all our competitors are adding more HD programmning, we've got to do that." Thanks to the move to SDV, Time Warner can offer the following channels beginning now:

* TBS HD – Channel 1014
* TLC HD – Channel 1040
* Science Channel – Channel 1023
* CNN HD – Channel 1044
* Travel Channel HD – Channel 1050
* Versus/Golf HD – Channel 1055
* Animal Planet HD – Channel 1057
* Fox News HD – Channel 1060
* Outdoor Channel – Channel 1202
* ESPN News HD – Channel 1204
* Biography HD – Channel 1217
* Planet Green HD – Channel 1226

Well, that is true, I have nagged TWC about being behind in the number of HD offerings it's had on its system. Unfortunately, this doesn't help me, because I checked and I get none of these on my TiVo.

"We only have 1200 CableCARDS out in the field," Porter informed me. That's out of about 275,000 homes served in Kansas City. "It's a very small number of people affected, and there is an option for them [me], which is go back to the old set-top boxes."

I'll think about that. Personally, I prefer to go forwards instead of backwards, but I appreciate Porter's candor and I will hold Time Warner to their promise to have the new CableCARDS out to the 1200 of us who need them by "early Q4," which sounds like mid-October to me.

Comments

[the Kansas Citian]

Ridiculous. No bandwidth, expanded outsourcing... why do Kansas Citians continue to do business with this monopoly?

Oh, I think I just answered my own question.

[The D]

You Crime Warner customers are really getting the shaft. They told you they were "out of bandwidth" that is completely FALSE!

Switch to Direct TV a.s.a.p!

[Marty]

"Switch to DirectTV," because the cable card will get all of their channels? You seem to be pretty sure of your knowledge of network bandwidth, are you an engineer?

[SirReal]

Here in Nothern NJ, the fun has already started. We went from over 80 analog channels to less than 60 (continuing to drop as we speak). They also claimed "lack of bandwith" issues. Out here people with CableCards are getting hosed and those with no boxes are being told they'll have to get one as more analog channels are moved to digital to open up bandwith for more HD. Yes, they'll give you a free box for one year but after that the box and the digital navigator cost $12. A secret price hike? You tell me.

[Xeno]

The article incorrectly says SDV doesn't work with CableCards. I have a TWC CableCard box and it works great. Am glad to see the new HD channels.

[Marty]

I don't understand why so many seem so doubtful of a bandwidth crunch, it's very real and it's everywhere. Every new service takes up bandwidth: video on demand, high speed internet, and especially HD channels that consume far more space than their SD counterparts. There is intense competitive pressure to expand HD offerings while not alienating the millions of people who still have analog TVs in their kitchens, bedrooms, garages, kid's playrooms, nursing homes, etc., by shutting down the most popular analog channels. And yet I sense that the feeling some people have is that the "evil monopoly" cable company is trying to rip them off in some way by trying to be competitive against all of the competitors that it supposedly doesn't have, because as we all know cable does not compete against DirectTV and Dish Network (which nearly anyone can get) for eyeballs and the telcos for internet. I don't understand the hate - except that some people must be just so filled with it that it blinds them from thinking about anyone else. Like their own grandmother in the nursing home who wants her news and soaps.

[CableTechTalk]

Hey, Xeno. I think you're missing the point.

With analog or digital cable, all channels are sent to all households. As you might imagine, this can be pretty inefficient in terms of bandwidth. Contrary to all the scoffing about bandwidth, if you deliver video, Internet and phone service over the same pipeline, and add new channels, and add new hi-def channels, then you run out of space.

With switched digital, you tune to a channel, a request is sent to the cable headend and then the channel is sent to you. It's much like the way you request a web page.

But it means the device which is receiving the video needs to be able to send a signal upstream to request the video. CableCARD devices, like a Digital Cable Ready TV or a TiVo series 3, are unidirectional. They cannot send a signal upstream.

But a digital set-top box can. The FCC required the cable industry last year to deploy set-tops with CableCARDs, so that's why you have one. But it's a two-way device, so it handles switched digital video just fine.

[James]

Time Warner cable is the only cable/satellite company not to offer GolTV - an all soccer channel.

[MrJeff2000]

I have found that one-third of Time Warner Cable's support staff is untrained and ignorant.

One-third of TWC staff is untrained, but attempt to be helpful even though they don't know what they're doing.

Finally, one-third of their staff are fully trained, but will give you inconsistent responses from person to person. That makes them as useless as the untrained and ignorant.

[Dennis]

This is really disappointing. After having just moved back to the KC area from a Comcast-served area, our CableCards showed up today and I'm forced to learn of switched digital video the hard way.

Are there any other options for us in the Kansas City area, or is TWC the only company to offer cablecards?

The sad part is that if STB's were worth a damn anymore, I wouldn't be such a nazi about using my Tivo.