[mythtv-users] Cablecos and QAM

[Gary Buhrmaster]

On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 6:10 PM, Greg Tippitt <gtippitt at gmail.com> wrote:
....
> Hopefully if some of the others were to start losing customers to WOW
> or OTA, they might change the practice.

Competing MSOs may very well loss customers to WOW because
of lower prices, better service, and so on.  But it is unlikely to be
because of any (current) lack of encryption of basic.  CableVision,
which had a very early waiver from the FCC to encrypt basic (special
circumstances in their market), which also provided a case study,
found less than 0.1% (1/10 of one percent) of their customers
requested a "free" device during the encryption (there were,
however, anecdotal reports of a larger number of new subscriptions
to service.  Go figure.)  In the grand scheme of things, the number
of "free" devices, or people unsubscribing due to dissatisfaction
of the encryption was less than the monthly churn in subscribers.
So it is unlikely to be a factor in any MSO's decision as to whether
the encrypt basic.  Like it or not, the open source TV community
numbers are just too small to have more than a minor footnote in
the decision process (and yes, there were footnotes in the FCC
decision).

Gary