Picked the brain of a TWC tech. the other day

[ArgMeMatey]

That's not what I read.  The insert mentions individuals possessing analog displays, not analog cable subscribers.

I am an analog cable subscriber.

They sent the notice to me.

Therefore isn't it reasonable to judge the notice by what it says rather than what it does not say?  

If that's the case, the notice applies to me in my current situation unless they tell me otherwise at some time in the next seven months.  

They aren't saying anything about people with analog displays needing converters.  It does not seem reasonable that they would, within a few months, say "Well, we didn't mean we would still provide analog cable channels, just that you could get a converter from us at additional cost so you could continue to use your analog TV."  In fact, if they did that, they would be no better than OTA.  You seem to be arguing "Cable not good" not "Cable good".  

Besides, Cuprisin said TW told him analog is sticking around past the transition.  So they have made a very public statement that is contradictory to any other reading.

[goldenear]

I agree that TWC sending this notice to current cable sub's makes absolutely no sense whatsoever because the 2/09 transition has no effect on cable sub's at all.  They are specifically commenting on analog displays viewing OTA material.

[Blitzburgh]

It does have an effect on cable subs.

Cable subs will not have to pay to have a cable box connected to all of there tv's now.

[UncleMeat]

I agree with Mhz,

People would be surprised at the number of subscribers who are perfectly happy with analog service and actually watch channels like HSN.  I believe that it may larger than we assume.

There's also no "All good" or "All Bad" with Cable, Dish, or U-Verse.  There are +'s and -'s with all services competing against a struggling economy.  Deals are wonderful sales pitches, regardless of what you take, but the questions such as how long do they last? What are subs getting from one service that they aren't getting from another service?

Dish has its downsides with long term service contracts.  TWC Cable has its downsides with the unpredictable behavior of its Navigator Guide.  And U-Verse is not mainstream enough to begin a full-scale evaluation at this time, but still runs off of existing phone lines.

If any of these competing businesses were all bad and that message was sent across public lines, these companies would hardly have any customers.  I don't see that happening.  Remember that forums such as this, represent an extremely knowledgeable user-support population.  However, that population is such a microcosm of the macrocosm that these big conglomerates whether they be TWC, Charter, Dish Network, U-Verse or Direct TV, aren't going to notice one way, or the other.

Jack

Good points, especially the first one.  People on forums (any forum of any variety) have a tendancy to create a bubble of reality for themselves.  We have to remember that just because 60% of people on a forum think one way, doesn't mean this applies to the overwhelming majority of people who do not subscribe to said forum.  This is a place for enthusiests, thus are standards, expectations and perception is skewed.

Also, to join the naysayers from the first 20 posts, never put too much stock in anything from a technician, sales rep or anyone in the operations end of a major corporation.  If you're not currently with a large corporation, think back to in high school when you had a job at a Best Buy or McDonalds and how often you, as essentially a low-level grunt, knew of accurate information about high-level decisions from the corporate end of the business.  It's generally just a bunch of rumors filtered down the silo or things completely made up by someone at the shop and passed on anyway.

[goldenear]

It does have an effect on cable subs.

Cable subs will not have to pay to have a cable box connected to all of there tv's now.

I have no idea what you're talking about.  The FCC forcing analog transmitting OTA broadcasters to stop broadcasting over those frequencies in question has nothing to do with cable or DBS subscribers.  Just because a broadcaster goes digital does not mean that a cable company cannot convert that broadcast back to analog and distribute it as an analog channel to subscribers.

[Gilbert]

I'll say this, however: I think TWC is going after those who have multiple TV's in their house...without a cable or sat connection. And while 90% or so of America has *one* TV hooked up, I think I saw a stat that said 50% of TV's were not. Whatever it is, it has to be very sizable. And TWC wants to leave no marketing stone unturned...