I was talking to my cable company today, and they said that starting 2/17/2009, they will no longer be *allowed * to provide analog service, due to the digital TV legislation. I thought that legislation affected only over-the-air broadcasts, and that cable companies could do whatever they damn well please. I also thought that cable customers would be the only ones who would be able to continue to receive analog content without a special set-top box to convert digital to NTSC.
Is my cable company right, or was the rep misinformed?
According to the FCC here, only broadcast TV is affected. It doesn’t make any sense to require cable companies to stop using analog, since the whole point of the mandated conversion is to free up some of the RF spectrum, which doesn’t apply to cable companies. So your cable company is misinformed/lying to you.