NEW Rogers digital box offer

[B_roo]

Got another call from the marketers at Rogers Co. Still trying to get me with the digital upgrade program but this offer is different (or so it appears). Here's the gist of the offer:

IF you are a ViP member (offer only for ViP members) - (I am). They are offering the digital box for 4.50$/month. They claim no additional rental fees or charges. I hounded them on this point and they guaranteed - I will not be charged a rental fee for the box apart from the $4.50 and there is no obligation to subscribe to the additional channels.

When I pressed the point they admitted that Rogers game plan is to have all subscribers on digital ASAP and I suspect they will offer whatever they have to to acheive this. Reading between the lines I think Rogers analog service is going to be phased out. They guarantee better picture quality but I think the real reasons are 3 fold:

-> Rogers can easily put 100x the number of subscribers on the same backbone as they have now with no degradation if all are digital (analog takes a lot more bandwidth).

-> They can control your services a lot more easily. Big Brother. I know lots of people (well - a handful anyway) that have circumvented the filter taps on their analog service for full service while paying only for Tier 1. This isn't going to happen with Digital Service where every box is tracked and if you don't pay for it - you don't get it. Plus they can really push pay-per-view which anyone with analog only is out of the loop on.

-> HDTV switchover is coming and analog service isn't suited for it.

I suspect as time goes on resisting digital service will become impossible.

Thoughts ?

 

[torex]

I don't really know much about HDTV but Starchoice is one of our clients and they offer HDTV at a far less price than Rogers!
Starchoice also has 2 satellites in orbit now.Last year they spent 55 million on a new satellite so reception is alot better now and they have added many HD channels to their selection.
There's another company we deal with called "Lincsat" who are breaking into the wireless internet.they are designing a mini dish you can hook to your laptop and surf from anywhere in the world!

 

[B_roo]

FS & Tiers

Analog FS is basically all the channels available on analog (that are not digital only). YMV by area but I receive about 75-80 channels all told with the 3 tiers.

Tier 3 also went by the name ME TV when it was introduced and gave us Space, Family, Golf, Spirt, Much More Music etc etc. Tier 1 is the basic set of channels and Tier 2 adds such stuff as Much Music and Telelatino. Its quite confusing and more so if you were a Shaw customer before the Rogers swap as they packaged it quite differently.

If you don't add any digital channels, but take the digital box what you get, (supposedly) is all the analog channels with better picture quality.

As for some of the comments above, I envy those with satellites, but as a condo townhouse owner, condo bylaws state I am not allowed to place a dish on the outside of my house. Neighbors of mine who did so had them taken down by the maintenance folks and received a bill for the work!

So - I'm stuck with Rogers for TV reception. I might go for the box - but am planning to switch to one of the DSL providers for my internet service.