[noleng]

Can they do this?

I still pay for internet , so I obviously have live signal coming into my apartment. The tech guy and rogers claim that I have to pay for basic cable in order to get signal into my place.

I had cable before. I cancelled it. They came and put some filter on it to restrict access to cable tv, and they cut me off from my own security camera.

This is blackmail. I have to pay them for cable in order to get my camera working, meanwhile they are lieing since I have cable active in my place or my internet would not work.

How do we get this resolved without having a lawyer and the police contact them. They can not cut off my access to my own security systems within my building. And it worked even when they canceled my boxes, and service. They had no right to do this, and they refuse to fix it unless I sign up for cable again, meanwhile I pay them 100.00/month for internet.

 

[travisc]

Well, considering that the security camera system is injected into their cable system within the building, I would suspect you have no legal right to access that system without playing by their rules.

 

[noleng]

somewhat understandable, but they claimed two scenarios. Either they run the system or they dont.

They said that they dont, and if they did, they would have no problem getting it going. But since they do not have a contract with my building, I need to contact my building management.

The problem is. IT WAS WORKING. They are the ones that are restricting my access. So their reasoning makes no sense. And keep in mind, that regardless of if they have the contract for the lobby cam system or not. They simply provide management for it. It has nothing to do with a cable package.

For them to blackmail me into buying cable in order to access my lobby cam that is not run by them, is illegal.

They told me to ask management. Well there is no need. It was working originaly. They cut me off, and they admitted to the fact that they do not control the one in our building. They just happen to feed it into their system.





They have every right to restrict my basic cable access, but if they can not do this without interupting my LOCAL in HOUSE broadcast, then they should not be touching our internal cables.


.


But normally your statement would make sense in this matter.

 

[noleng]

http://eaglefilters.com/Catalog_Order_Form/EagleComtronicsCatalog.pdf

This is the link to the documentation and picture of the EZLH Filter that blocks everything but the internet frequency.

For anyone wishing to know what they are looking for, look at the pdf, and scroll down to EZLH

 

[fstlouis]

Why don't you reconnect your camera downstream of the filter?
I'm not sure anybody understand your setup exactly.

 

[noleng]

This is a camera in the lobby of my condo.

Everyone has access to it.

I am not in control of it.

If rogers wants to control its lines. They can set up a trunk out side our building with every suite, and block my cable from there. WHat happens in our building is our business. And if it too expensivce for rogers to do it this way, well tough. They have no right to bully people around, blackmail them, and put people at risk by not having access to our security features.

We do not pay rogers to supply the camera, so they better hook it up, or I will get into the closet, and they will have a huge clean up mess to fix.

 

[dmccorm140]

I have lived in my building over 10 years and had Rogers and never been able to see the Security Camera.. The problem has been the property Manager sold official status of Television provider to the building to LOOK many years ago. Which meant LOOK had control of the camera. I think recently Bell replaced Look as official provider and so I continue to not have Security Camera access.

 

[17671]

im not here to defend rogers or not, but if everyone had antenna in the buildings, the lobby camera would not even exist. paying for cable tv in your building, and dont get this confused with paying for internet... you get cable tv signals, which rogers injects in the cable to begin with, they can easily inject a security camera down it too, its "their" equiptment" chances are, if you dont pay for cable tv, your getting antenna, and you dont need to hook up your TV to the cable port in your condo anyways, it goes to an external antenna, which is NOT compatible with injecting a lobby camera over it, it would add to the complexity of it. I'm not trying to defend this as well, but some people would not like to go through all of this to watch a simple lobby cam. What would be cool is if the building gives you a web portal for the lobby camera on their condo boards web site, or they actually install a 7" lcd inside your suite in the wall, and you press a button on it to activate the camera to see whos paging you or buzzing you. but.. this aint cheap. if enough people write to the condo, theings will get the ball rolling.

 

[17671]

now the filters have been made from day one to restrict cable tv for internet only subscribers, they were never made one to allow a lobby camera, why should they make one just for you? im not trying to knock you, but you gotta realize, the filters were made way before lobby cameras were being used, thats how they are. when you subscribe to a "basic" package of cable tv, then you will get channel 59/998 because the basic tv filter allows this. its all about whats allowed and whats not and who makes the technology to do such. if a company does not "make" hardware such as a filter to do such, then sorry, you shoudl be writing to the filter company, and prolly they use the same filters in the us of a, and mexico too,

 

[noleng]

valid points.

Also realize that if they would have gone about it abit differently I would also be more understanding.

Keep in mind that they said. if they were to have a contract with our building that they would have done something about it.

This makes me curious. It also makes no sense.

The channel is 59 or 99x regardless. The frequency is the same almost everywhere for this channel(s). So they would have no more options regardless if they managed our camera or if they didnt.

Also. I would think that since My building is not on its own frequency for this channel (Its more or less system wide) That they could probably get a filter with their own exceptions built in. Not only me. Its not like I am a rare case. They use tens of thousands of these things all the time.

To be honest. (they may have done this in the past, I'm not sure) I feel that anybody paying for one of the premium INTERNET packages, at least my 99.99/month should be entitled to free basic cable anyhow. Now this is not the case, and I can not get upset about this.

Either way. I am not going to go crazy on my cables in my building. I've seen the closet before. It would take me 2 years to even find my cable. I spoke with a rogers tech that lives in my building. He said he will resolve this for me. I can only assume that he would de-filter my line. But whatever happens. I am not stealing cable. An authorized employee is fixing the issue for me. Again, I do not know what he is doing. But he doesn't have many options does he.

Anyways. I have satellite.Rogers cable has no value to me.

As for the LCD monitor.. a bit far fetched maybe. But an ip address, or website/INTERNET access or wifi point would be very practical.

I'm sure down the road this is what will happen everywhere... globally.

The initial question is still a big concern to me. Are they allowed to control in this manner, and if so, should they be allowed to. In this day and age, having access to your security camera at your front door is not an unordinary request, or in some situations, a need.

Either way. If you come and buzz up to see me, I believe I will be able to see you doing so within a day or two!

I am curious if any other people have had similar issues. I'm sure that I am not the first person to be affected like this.

NG

 

[Costa]

Any equipment installed by anyone in an apartment, home becomes the home/building owners property. Including Roger's boxes, Bell dishes, cabling, etc.

Cable providers have a right to disconnect you from their service, but not from the camera's. Filtering a internet cable only customer from cable tv is YOUR sacrifice. They COULD split the camera's to your cable and bypass rogers service, but you'd lose on internet. Also; check with your building manager for a solution.

They could split the camera signal, run it on the cable headed to your apartment, and maybe get DSL for internet.

 

[noleng]

Thank you costa.

 

[17671]

I suspect when everything becomes fully digital, ie no more need for filters, then this would be a non-issue. Everything would be controlled by back end provisioning. Filters are in existaince because of the past, before there was no digital provisioning, we needed filters to control what signals we allow or block to each cx. In an ideal world, everything will be digital and we will not need microfilters to block or allow channels or services, they will all be controlled by the STB and docsis modems. If you connect the cable outlet to a tv, only channel 59 will work, and you will see your lobby camera. You also have to understand channel 59 used to have "your world right now" and when people cut their cable and subscribe to internet only, the channel didnt work for them, so why would it work for you too? you see, in their eyes, theyre giving equal service to both home owners and condos, maybe no one cancelled cable before so it was not brought up as an issue, hope this clears things up.

 

[digital_rookie]

Costa,

There is a slight error in your last post. "Any equipment installed by anyone in an apartment, home becomes the home/building owners property. Including Roger's boxes, Bell dishes, cabling, etc." is actually incorrect.

The only thing that becomes the property of the building/home is the inside wiring. Unless the homeowner purchases a set-top box or internet/phone modem outright, these remain the property of the tv service provider (in your case - Rogers). There is also no implied building/homeowner ownership of an ongoing service (tv signals), just the physical wiring.

This signal delivery topic is of interest to me as I sit on my Condo Board. I would like to clarify a few items that have been touched upon by Paolo and others.

Once you chose to opt out of tv service from Rogers, their obligation to provide you with any tv signals along the wiring that they installed in the building ceased. They are within their rights to "trap or filter out" any RF frequencies associated with their tv service to ensure that a non-paying customer does not have access to their tv service.

The fact that your building management / condo board chose to leverage Rogers tv service to provide you access to the lobby cameras on Rogers wiring is not a Rogers' issue.

It is within the purview of the building management / condo board's to provide you with access to the lobby cameras. You should address this to your building management / condo board either in writing or in person (annual condo board Annual General Meetings are usually good to raise issues). An earlier suggestion to provide you with access to these cameras via a secure internet portal is actually a very good idea. I would raise this with your building management.

Again, you have opted out of tv service from Rogers, so you really have no right to any tv signals delivered on that tv service provider's wiring. Have a discussion with your building management to see if there is a way that the lobby camera feeds can be provided to you via the internet. I believe you had mentioned that you still receive internet service from Rogers. Perhaps the building management and Rogers can work out a solution that provides such a portal to those customers who have internet but not tv service.

My building currently has service contracts with both Rogers and Bell and the building security cameras are available on both platforms. This issue has not been raised by any unit owners/tenants at any of our recent AGM's, which leads me to believe that everyone in our building has tv service from one of the available suppliers. I would be interested to hear what your building management has to say on this topic.

Good luck.

 

[mr weather]

I'm confused. On one had you're saying the inside wiring is the property of the building/home and on the other you're saying the provider (eg. Rogers) owns it. Which is it?