Stop the Cap! reader Danielle spent last Monday night screaming at Comcast when she discovered the vast majority of cable channels she was paying for disappeared off the Dale City, Va. cable system after what she says was “no warning.”

“All I wanted to do was sit down and watch some television, and almost all of my channels were gone, replaced either with snowy nothing or a message telling me I had to upgrade to a set top box to receive the channel,” she writes.  “It was like Comcast conquered the world and took over almost every station.”

Danielle was left with just over a dozen channels, mostly local stations and channels dedicated to public access and her local government.

“Nobody told me they were doing this,” Danielle claims.  “The Comcast lady kept telling me it was on my bill but I don’t get a bill from them in the mail, so how should I know?”

The Comcast system in question, along with many others, has begun the progression to digital to conserve channel space, offer more services and networks, and increase broadband speed for customers.  But when Comcast converted so many channels to a digital platform all at once, it created the potential for chaos and confusion among subscribers.

The News & Messenger newspaper heard from their readers last Monday, and quickly noticed the dramatic change in Comcast’s lineup themselves in the newspaper break room.  Just 17 channels remained untouched after the digital conversion, but Comcast spokeswoman Alisha Martin made it clear customers shouldn’t get too comfortable watching them either.  Those 17 channels are scheduled to be switched to digital as well at a future undetermined date.

News & Messenger reader Stephanie Crenshaw, also in Dale City, was shocked to find her favorite stations gone, and she is an example of a subscriber that may be left in limbo by Comcast’s digital upgrade program.

Dale City, Va.

Comcast is offering impacted subscribers in Prince William, Manassas and Manassas Park digital converters and set top boxes at no additional charge, at least for now, to help customers adjust to the changes.

But Crenshaw isn’t a Comcast subscriber — her homeowner’s association is, providing Comcast Cable to every home in the development, included in the homeowner association fee.  So far, Crenshaw cannot obtain the free equipment because she technically isn’t a recognized customer, and the homeowner’s association has yet to provide access either.

Our reader Danielle was in better shape after Comcast calmed her down.  Her level of service allowed her to get one digital set-top box and two digital adapters for free.  She now uses the set top box in her living room and the two digital-to-analog adapters on her televisions in the bedroom and kitchen.  But she wonders how long “free” will remain “free.”

“There is no guarantee I can find that says they cannot turn around and charge us for these later on,” Danielle complains.  “It also messes up my VCR — an excuse for Comcast to try and upgrade me to a set top DVR box I don’t want to spend that much on.”

“What really irritates me is the only mailings I get from Comcast lately are about their new electronic guide they are launching today — a guide I couldn’t get until I got their box, and one I don’t think I am ever going to use,” she says. “That and those cards trying to get me to cut over my phone line to them.  If the phone company treated me like Comcast, they would have turned off dial phone service on me and told me I had to buy a new push-button phone.”

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Residents peeved as Comcast removes scores of channels 6-21-11.flv[/flv]

A reporter at the News & Messenger flips through channels on the television in the newspaper’s break room and discovers there is very little left to see.  (1 minute)

Du Quoin, Ill.

Remember when your cable system delivered 60 basic cable channels with a handful of premium services, none in High Definition?  The people of Du Quoin, Ill. do — to this day.

They, along with several other small southern Illinois communities served by Comcast, are living a wired life free from HD programming, cable networks many take for granted, and a quality of service that has diminished as an aging cable system outlives its useful life.

Now the commissioner of Du Quoin has put Comcast’s franchise “on hold” until the cable company updates service for the town’s 6,500 residents.

Commissioner Rex Duncan told the city council last week he’s fed up with Comcast’s lack of interest in delivering even a handful of HD channels to subscribers, even as the company moves channels that used to be part of the basic cable lineup to a new tier that requires the rental of a digital converter box.

Until Comcast decides to invest in upgrades in the area, De Quoin joins the cities of Pinckneyville, Benton and Christopher and the villages of Tamaroa and Buckner in refusing franchise renewal requests from the cable operator.

Reviewing the lineup in Du Quoin shows subscribers confined to receiving the same number of channels most cities had more than 15 years ago.  Not a single HD channel is included.  Broadband customers can choose from two promoted packages, one promising “up to” 15Mbps and the other claiming 20Mbps with the PowerBoost feature.  But few residents actually see those speeds according to one of our readers.

Sid, a lifelong resident of De Quoin, says speeds approaching 7Mbps are more typical, except at night when they drop.

“I don’t think Comcast has changed a thing in southern Illnois in over a decade,” Sid shares.  “The company’s cable TV lineup still thinks it’s 1992 — we are lucky we even have broadband.”

Residents have complained regularly to local officials about Comcast’s performance in the region, especially when they compare the service they receive with what residents in nearby Carbondale, the self-styled “capital of southern Illinois” receive.

“I realize southern Illinois is between nothing and nowhere, with large cities like St. Louis and Evansville whole states away, but considering how many people depend on Comcast to get reasonable reception of local stations pretty far out, they do a good business here,” Sid says.

Sid does not expect many upgrades in the near future, either to his cable or broadband service.

“DOCSIS 3?  What is that?”

Sezmi set top DVR box, antenna, and remote control

While most of the pay television industry forces huge basic cable packages on subscribers containing dozens of channels never watched, an innovative California company thinks it has the perfect solution for those who want to cut cable’s cord but still keep some of their favorite cable channels.

Sezmi combines a super-sized 1 terabyte DVR set-top box ($149.99) with a digital broadcast receiver to deliver every local television signals, 23 popular cable channels, on-demand movies, video podcasts, and YouTube content for $19.99 per month.  Don’t care about the cable channels or live outside of Los Angeles?  The price drops to $4.99 per month.

Sezmi’s inventors believe the marketplace is ripe for a compromise between paying enormous cable bills or simply going without popular cable series and 24/7 news.

Besides, Sezmi’s founders argue, with free digital television stations increasing the amount of programming they offer and Americans wanting to watch more of their favorite shows on-demand, Sezmi’s super-sized DVR may provide enough live and recorded programs to more than satisfy average viewers.  If not, a budget-priced package of two dozen popular cable channels could give people enough courage to cut cable’s cord forever.

At its core, Sezmi’s set top box offers an enormous capacity hard drive that can store up to 1400 hours of SD (standard definition) and 340 hours of HD (high definition) programming.  It can also record one channel while watching another, and its software gives each member of a viewing family their own personal menu to access, record, and view the programming they want.

[flv width=”446″ height=”270″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Sezmi All-In-One Personal TV Service.mp4[/flv]

A promotional reel introducing shoppers to Sezmi and its services.  (3 minutes)

Sezmi’s founders future-proofed their technology to be immune from broadband providers with Internet Overcharging schemes in mind.  Unlike other cord-cutting alternative set top technology that relies on broadband to access programming, Sezmi receives its live TV and cable network programming entirely over the air.  That keeps your local cable or phone company from stopping all the fun by imposing broadband usage limitations or charging steep penalties for watching too much of a competitor’s service.

Sezmi’s unique way of bypassing the local broadband provider is both innovative and challenging at the same time.  In the Los Angeles market, currently the only city where Sezmi provides cable networks, it leases leftover capacity from local stations to transmit the encrypted cable networks over the air to Sezmi receivers.  As long as you get a signal from a local station, the cable signals come along for the ride.

While that can work in Los Angeles, which has at least 26 full powered broadcast stations in the market from whom it can potentially lease capacity, most American cities have fewer than eight full power local channels.  If those stations can’t or won’t lease out their extra bandwidth, the cable programming service simply won’t work.

Part of the original business plan for Sezmi was to provide the set top box as a solution for phone companies like Frontier and other independents who want to deliver a video package without improving their current copper-based networks to deliver it.  Because the box will work reasonably well with a broadband connection of 3.1Mbps or higher, companies selling DSL broadband packages to customers could use Sezmi to deliver video content to subscribers.  In rural areas, relying on broadband delivery may prove more effective than over-the-air reception, and since the provider offers the service themselves, there is little chance they’d limit their own customers’ use of Sezmi.

Now Sezmi is directly being sold to consumers on Amazon.com and in Best Buy stores in the 35 U.S. cities Sezmi serves.

Sezmi's cable channel lineup is currently only available in Los Angeles.

Buyers are pre-qualified before purchase to determine if they’ll be able to receive a suitable broadcast TV signal required for Sezmi to operate.

A lengthy beta test in Los Angeles revealed many consumers loved the concept of Sezmi, but definitely discovered some flaws:

• There is no wireless connection supported for broadband.  You must use a supplied Ethernet cable to connect to a router;
• The remote control and its functionality was frequently reviewed as unintuitive and slow to respond to commands;
• Cable networks arrived only in standard definition video;
• Reception varied considerably depending on where one lives in relation to local broadcast transmitters.  Where TV stations use different transmitting locations, reception problems for one or more stations can be an issue unless you regularly reposition the antenna;
• Sezmi’s antenna module looks like a small bookshelf speaker and was more obtrusive than many thought necessary;
• Sezmi’s online viewing options are limited to YouTube and Sezmi-partnered content.  No Hulu or Netflix access is supported.
• Some reviewers felt charging $5 a month for a Sezmi package that only included free, over the air broadcast stations was unjustified when they also had to purchase the required set top box.  Many of these comments came when the box was priced at $299, however.  Sezmi has reduced the price of the set top box by half, so it’s likely the monthly fee includes some hardware cost recovery;
• The cable networks chosen do not include a lot of sports, although the company is currently negotiating with ESPN;
• Love it or hate it, one of America’s favorite cable channels – Fox News, is not included in the lineup although CNN and MSNBC are.  Their asking price may have been too high.

Sezmi’s co-founder probably expects that detailed level of critique considering the company’s business plan targets technology-minded “early adopters” who are well versed on technology and very opinionated about how it works.  They also feature prominently in the group of consumers that are now spending less time watching live television and less-willing to pay the asking price for it.

“The Sezmi offering is geared toward the next wave of consumers who want a very high-quality experience and the latest technology features, but are not willing to overpay for that,” said Phil Wiser, co-founder and president. “We’ve limited ourselves to really focus on that segment who are value-oriented and tech-oriented.”

Those who are value-oriented have responded positively to Sezmi.  Stop the Cap! reader John in Sherman Oaks, Calif., who notified us about Sezmi’s local media blitz says it’s exactly what he was looking for, and he’s enjoying some shows he missed from USA, TNT and Discovery.  But his wife misses her favorite HGTV and Food Network shows, which Sezmi doesn’t carry.

“I told cable to take a hike,” he writes. “I only watch perhaps a dozen channels and Sezmi has most of them covered for about 1/3rd of the cost the cable company charges, not including the fees, taxes, and renting cable’s set top boxes.”

John adds 24/7 access to live news programming was the one thing that held him back from dropping cable before Sezmi arrived.

Sezmi's Los Angeles Coverage Map (click to enlarge)

“I wasn’t going to give up CNN and MSNBC for breaking news,” he said.

Wiser’s comments to the San Francisco Chronicle seem to match John’s perceptions about the service.

“The key thing we realized with Sezmi is that consumers would not be ready to drop a paid TV experience purely for Internet offerings,” he said. “You need a bridge that includes a traditional cable experience with a more on-demand interactivity.”

Although John says he has few problems getting good broadcast signals from Mt. Wilson, where most Los Angeles-area broadcasters maintain their transmitters, some  residents further east in Riverside say their experiences were considerably worse.

“If you walked in front of the antenna, reception would drop out,” wrote one reviewer.  “A rooftop antenna is really a smart idea if you need reliable reception to make sure your shows get recorded,” wrote another.

The potential impact Sezmi could have on cable and phone company pay television packages varies depending on which analyst you choose.

Mike Jude, with Frost & Sullivan, told the Chronicle devices like Sezmi will probably remain niche products that will have trouble attracting interest from traditional cable subscribers.

But Gerry Kaufhold, an analyst at In-Stat, said Sezmi’s innovative approach could find a significant audience especially with more casual TV viewers. He said 15 percent of viewers don’t pay for TV while 35 to 40 percent of cable users pay about $40 for basic cable. Both could find a lot of utility in a product like Sezmi, he said.

“Anyone that gets a big digital cable (package) is unlikely to leave, but people who get basic cable may be willing to make that jump and cut some 20 bucks off their bill,” Kaufhold said. “They can also get people who don’t pay for TV to try it.”

With a Yankee Group study looming that estimates one in eight Americans will disconnect or downgrade their paid TV services by April, devices like Sezmi could threaten industry profits even sooner than some analysts think.

Service Coverage – Click links for respective channel lineups

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Sezmi Explained: This series of videos walks you through all of Sezmi’s features and services.  (12 minutes)

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Sezmi Setup.flv[/flv]

Sezmi’s setup is explained in this video, guiding you through the process of hooking up the equipment.  (10 minutes)

An inmate serving time for robbery is convinced the local cable company and state corrections department are robbing him on his monthly cable bill.

Joel Santos Maldonado, 28, of Lancaster is serving a 12- to 26-year sentence at the State Correctional Institute at Fayette in Labelle, Luzerne Township, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Maldonado already feels his monthly bill from Texas-based Correctional Cable TV (CCTV), which provides cable service to prisoners, is high enough, but when he discovered the state included a 75-cent monthly “administrative fee” he filed a lawsuit.

Maldonado accuses the state of interfering with his business relationship with CCTV by including the fee.  Without the fee, his bill would be $15.75 a month for the 47-channel cable package.

His suit asks for a reversal of the 75-cent fee as well as unspecified damages.

Prison officials counter the administrative fee has been part of the cable package for at least four years.

Trinity Broadcasting Network offers inmates special programming on CCTV that it claims "rebuilds inmate lives and reduces recidivism"

“The inmate signs an agreement that states we charge this fee when he elects to purchase cable,” corrections department spokeswoman Susan Bensinger told the newspaper. “If he doesn’t want to pay the fee, he can simply elect to not purchase cable TV service.”

Those outside of prison pay more for their cable service.  Cable pricing from Atlantic Broadband is a comparably worse deal.  For $19.99 a month, residents of Labelle get 20 channels, mostly local broadcast stations, public access, and a handful of basic cable channels.  To get a package comparable to what Madonado receives, a customer would have to upgrade to the 67-channel standard service package — for $59.99 a month.

The lawsuit awaits further action in Fayette County court.

Correctional Cable TV began providing cable service to Correctional Facilities in the early 1990’s and currently serves more than 130 facilities across 20 states, particularly in Colorado, Virginia, Michigan and Pennsylvania.  The company furnishes, installs, and maintains the equipment to provide the programming at no up front cost to the prison authority.  Programming costs are recouped by charges paid by inmates to receive the service.

Jackson

A Tennessee state senator has introduced a bill that would fine the state’s cable companies for running racy television advertising on its cable channels.

Dubbed the “Girls Gone Wild Bill,” the legislation would hopefully curb cable operators’ willingness to run suggestive advertising, according to the bill’s author Sen. Doug Jackson (D-Dickson).

This isn’t the first go around for Jackson’s bill, having failed to pass during the last two legislative sessions.  But Jackson believes the third time is a charm, passing a vote in the Senate Commerce Committee 8-0, with one member abstaining.

The Tennessean talked with Jackson to learn why the bill was necessary:

Jackson has said he got the idea for the proposal after seeing partially censored commercials for “Girls Gone Wild” videos that show young women disrobing and acting out other sexual situations.

“They’re provocative and shocking to a lot of families trying to raise children,” Jackson said.

The bill would make any television advertisements considered “obscene” to be illegal. Obscenity, Jackson said, is not protected by the First Amendment. Under common law, it is established by community standards, and in Tennessee, each judicial district can establish for themselves what is considered obscene.

“A jury in Dickson County could determine the videos being sold are obscene, which makes it an illegal product,” he said.

The legislation has gotten Jackson plenty of attention across the state, as Tennessee media covered the unusual legislation.  But some fear Tennessee could become a laughing stock over bills like these.

Columnist Gail Kerr, also writing for the Tennessean, called the mad rush of oddball legislation a bunch of  “crazy crap”:

You can sure tell the Tennessee General Assembly doesn’t have any money to spend this year.

After a slam dunk, fast special session on education, our esteemed lawmakers have returned to their usual bad habits.

They have filed legislation that would kill Nashville’s honky tonks, debated whether to outlaw putting electronic chips in people and whether to amend the state constitution to assure you the right to catch a catfish.

Sen. Doug Jackson wants a constitutional amendment to assure every Tennessean has the right to hunt and fish. No one is trying to stop you from hunting and fishing. Jackson also is bringing back his “Girls Gone Wild” legislation, aimed at stopping the late night television commercials promoting the raunchy videos. He was inspired by watching the commercials.

One thing’s for sure, state law prevents these folks from taking campaign donations while in session. With two of them running for governor, one running for Congress and a slew up for re-election, they’ll start getting eager to adjourn pretty quick. It cannot happen too soon.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WKRN Nashville Girls Gone Wild Bill 02-09-2010.flv[/flv]

WKRN-TV in Nashville reports Sen. Doug Jackson’s bill would allow communities to define certain ads on cable television obscene and have them pulled off the air.  (1 minute)

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Some members of the Tennessee Legislature believe the state’s cable companies should not be taking money from companies peddling smut, as WSMV-TV Nashville reports. (2 minutes)

Protesting adult programming on cable and satellite television is a long-standing tradition in Tennessee.  Some elected officials even dislike the prospect of MTV running on state cable systems.  But most agree lawmakers have the biggest problem with cable’s dirty little secret — extremely explicit adult programming aired on pay per view channels.  Most cable systems don’t go out of their way to promote this type of programming, but viewers learn it is there when skimming electronic program guides.  Most adult movies have titles that leave little doubt what they offer viewers willing to purchase it, and plenty do — it’s very profitable for most cable operators.

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David Fowler, a former state senator from Signal Mountain, last November denounced EPB, Chattanooga’s city-owned fiber television and broadband provider, for allowing adult programming on the lineup in the first place. (WDEF-TV Chattanooga) (11/2/2009 – 1 minute)