A customer service rep (had to cave in and get the PVR ... Rogers effectively makes it impossible to use or build a third-party PVR) today confirmed that the upgrade was in progress, although she could not locate a projected completion date.

And Rogers van have been spotted hanging around the neighbourhood ...

Wooohoooo! Greely, Ottawa has been upgraded! More HD channels after waiting a whole year!!!!!!! Good going everyone. Hope you all get upgraded as well.

Still Waiting.......*(can't you see my grey hairs)


*23 months for me since my I got my HDTV. I won't count the timeshifting channels I haven't received which I could have benefited from.

November 1, 2007 = successful upgrade to 860MHz services in NAVAN.
Had to re-authorize every STB to receive most of the basic channels (2-65).

Good Luck with everyone else in Ontario in 600MHz land.

Homer ;)

I'm happy to report that the upgrade has happened in Grand River country. Here in St. Marys we're seeing the full 860 line-up. Never thought I'd see it............ Paul

Is there anything above 860MHZ? Could Rogers of gone higher in their rebuilds? If so why not? They knew HD was the thing of the future as well as high speed internet not to mention ohobe and VOD.

Someone can correct me. Cable and sat operators operate in the following RF spectrum;

5 - 42 MHz :: cable upstream
54 - 860 MHz :: cable downstream
860 - 950 MHz :: open spectrum
950 - 2450 MHz :: satellite downstream

You can build out to a Gig with cable technologies out there, but there's not necessarily much point with analog eventually going away or getting drastically reduced, and technologies like switched digital coming in the next year or so.

YESSIR !!

...the whole Ottawa surroundings (aka rural Ottawa) upgrade was almost complete and that the new 860Mhz service would be available starting November 1 2007...


Woke up this morning to the new 860Mhz service, with full HD, ROD, time-shifting, etc. I only had to wait 3 months, but it looks like it was worth waiting.

Didn't even have to do anything to the STBs to see the new channels.... but my daugther reports that her favorite channel (#63 VRAKTV) is *not* available. Will probably have to re-authorize the boxes, but only after I figure out what else is missing. My guess is that they will want to ding me for more $$$ to get all 30+ HD channels.

Artologik

None of the Home Terminal Device manufacturers offer products that go beyond 860 MHZ , which includes modems and Set-top boxes, but they will be available soon. Even FIOS in the U.S. uses 860 Mhz equipment.

Do you guys get HDPBS now that we've been upgraded to 860MHz?

Do you guys get HDPBS now that we've been upgraded to 860MHz?


Yep, twice! On channels 525 & 530. I would trade one of those for TSNHD which is not part of the regular line-up anymore.

Artologik

You can build out to a Gig with cable technologies out there, but there's not necessarily much point with analog eventually going away or getting drastically reduced, and technologies like switched digital coming in the next year or so.

Exactly.

For the foreseeable future, going past 860 MHz is not very inefficient. Not only would the entire network need to be upgraded at huge cost -- nodes, head end, customer STBs -- but 1 GB is still being worked out by the tech gurus.

Switched Video, on the other hand, promises huge bandwidth savings -- doubling, trebling or more effective capacity. It's running now in some US systems and will certainly come here.

Second big upside coming is "analog spectrum repatriation". At the moment, a huge amount of network is dedicated to analog -- yet in Ontario, for example, most homes get full digital service (analog duplicates 70 odd channels). One analog channel uses the space of 10 digital. Rogers has said it plans to drop Tier 3 Analog some time in the next 2 or 3 years or about space for 150 digital channels. Layer on switched video and that's maybe 300 or more effective channel slots.

MPEG-4 is another possibility, cheaper than a rebuild to 1 GB, but not necessary, again, thanks to switched video and analog repatriation. The downside is replacing customer set top boxes to decode MPEG-4.

Customers don't like analog repatriation :P

I'm sure the first repatriation will be the Ultimate TV channels (29-60).
Basic cable (2-28, 61-70) will be the last OR will always be ANALOG.

artologik,

Do you pay for the additional HD channels to get HD-PBS? I see these two HDX channels on channels 525 & 530, but they're scrambled? I also do not get HD-TSN but I do get HD-SNT. I used to get HD-TSN before the additional HD channels were added on. I guess, I was getting those because we only had so few in Greely. Now, with the additional HD channels, they've probably removed them as "free" ... :-) and is part of the "value-added HD channels". Not sure if HD-PBS falls into either. I'll check the Rogers cable line-up online when/if they get updated.

Ah, well. Pros and cons...

Sounds good! But no luck in Heidelberg yet ... patience, grasshopper! ;)

I'm sure the first repatriation will be the Ultimate TV channels (29-60).
Basic cable (2-28, 61-70) will be the last OR will always be ANALOG.

Analog transmissions will end in Canada in August 2011. Some European countries have already done so ...

That doesn't mean that cable companies will ditch analog, doesn't this just mean that OTA broadcasts will no longer be analog?

Lawman,
Upgrade to the HDTV Specialty Channel Pack for an additional $7.95/month, and you'll receive HD TSN, HD Discovery, A&E HD, HD Net, HD ABC Seattle, HD CBS Seattle, HD NBC Seattle, and HD Fox Seattle.

Everything else should be free!

Analog carriage will be dropped only for OTA. Cable companies can do what they want.