# New DTV television service



## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

USDTV to Launch Low-Cost Wireless TV Service
Tue Mar 16, 2004 05:22 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Start-up company USDTV on Tuesday unveiled a digital television service being rolled out in various U.S. cities this year and sent via VHF/UHF antennas in a lower-cost alternative to cable and satellite television.

Subscribers must buy a $99 set-top box from regional electronic chain stores and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. outlets. They also have to pay a monthly fee of $19.95 -- compared with than cable and satellite service bills that range from about $30 to over $100 per month.

The company has already launched the service in Salt Lake City, Utah, where it where it is based, with more than 25 channels and plans to debut in Albuquerque, New Mexico and Las Vegas, Nevada in the next 30 days. It plans to launch in 30 major markets by end-year.

The company hopes to have 5 million subscribers in four years, said USDTV Chief Executive Steve Lindsley, the former president of KSL-TV, an NBC affiliate in Salt Lake City.

Lindsay said he expects the service will appeal to current cable and satellite subscribers who dislike paying high prices for myriad channels they seldom watch. It will also attract those with no pay TV service, whom he called "cable nevers."

"We are very optimistic that the combination of the discounted pricing and the convenience will bring some "cable nevers" over to try (the new service)," he said at a New York press conference.

USDTV is the latest in a series of attempts to offer an alternative television distribution system, virtually all of which have failed, industry analysts say.

*Full Story*


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## Jacob S (Apr 14, 2002)

Is the service just starting at $20 and that they have packages higher than that? 25 channels seems to be pretty limited. It is a good idea though, not very expensive, and is a cheap way of getting the service rolled out to consumers, as well as allowing consumers to install their own box to get the service.


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## Mike D-CO5 (Mar 12, 2003)

It says that the box receiver funtions as a digital tuner even if you don't have the service. Does that mean for 99.00 you can get a digital tuner and you could connect an atenna to it to get your digital locals in your area?


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## Guest (Mar 17, 2004)

One more reason for the "wired ones" to worry. This new service might convince die - hard "OTA - antenna - only" users to take a plunge instead of signing up for cable. Of course, this service might be provided by the cable tv coalition; not sure.


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

crest said:


> ...This new service might convince die - hard "OTA - antenna - only" users to take a plunge instead of signing up for cable...


How many "diehard" OTA folks do you think are left? I would guestimate about 7, and if they haven't gone CATV by now, they're not going to.


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## Bogy (Mar 23, 2002)

crest said:


> One more reason for the "wired ones" to worry. This new service might convince die - hard "OTA - antenna - only" users to take a plunge instead of signing up for cable. Of course, this service might be provided by the cable tv coalition; not sure.


This seems to be a more likely solution for the person who is unable to be wired, but doesn't want to go the way of the dish, with all those rainouts. :lol:


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## thebigjp (Jan 21, 2003)

Bogy said:


> This seems to be a more likely solution for the person who is unable to be wired, but doesn't want to go the way of the dish, with all those rainouts. :lol:


The people who can't be wired went to Wireless Cable in the 90's and is now enjoying satellite service on by way of DirecTV or Dish Network, depending on who there Wireless Cable Company converted them to.


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## mwgiii (Jul 19, 2002)

Quotes from the article referenced above:

"Subscribers must buy a $99 set-top box from regional electronic chain stores and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. outlets."

"The set-top box also works as a High Definition tuner, even without the service."

Their website - http://www.usdtv.com/index.php


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## Foxbat (Aug 1, 2003)

Interesting comment in the article about "the set-top box also works as a High Definition tuner" as verbiage on their website states that a subscription is required to receive any channels. Click here and look at the *Important Note* at the bottom of the page.

Also, the poor people of Salt Lake City are getting ripped off by their broadcasters using the public airwaves to broadcast a subscription service. By doing so, they are stealing bits needed by the networks' HD program streams and allocating it to these multiple sub-channels, reducing the HD stream to a macro-blocked mess.

This is bad news for OTA HD reception, no doubt about it.


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## Jacob S (Apr 14, 2002)

This will attract people because of the simplicity and cost effective methods. I am guessing that there are no contracts to sign, that it is cheaper, and all you have to do is hook it up to your outdoor tv antenna which would allow most to do it theirselves.


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## DS0816 (Mar 29, 2002)

What channels does one get? What could make this service work is if the subscriber selected the cable channels he wants.


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## DJSix (Jan 19, 2004)

Jacob S said:


> I am guessing that there are no contracts to sign


Not true, from USDTV's Website:



> One-time USDTV receiver charge of $99.95 with one-year service agreement. Each additional receiver is $49.95 with a one-year service agreement.


Top that with....



> A subscription to USDTV is required to receive any broadcast service with the USDTV receiver. By subscribing to the USDTV service, the customer agrees to a one-year service agreement of $19.95 per month for the base receiver and $4.95 per month for each additional receiver. The monthly service fee will be charged to the customer's credit card. If the customer terminates the agreement prior to the 12-month term, a cancellation fee of $150.00 per receiver will be charged.


Hmmm...at least D* doesn't require a credit card to sign up, they'll prorate the cancellation fee, and 3 ird's doesn't equate to a fee of $450.

Looking through the website, I can't help to think that a cable company is behind this. On the page where they compare themselves to Comcast, E*, and D*, there's a bit of misinformation:

1)Installation is a free limited time offer? Hmmm, 6 years ago I got installed with D* free, when I switched to D* last year, still free installation. Boy, that's some limited offer.

2)$38.99 for basic package with local channels. No HDTV. Not so fast USDTV, with an off-air antenna, D*'s hd ird's will pull in an hd signal and integrate it with the guide.

I know I won't be switching since I love my out of market hockey, sports pack, Spike (no Spike means no MXE)  , and many other reasons.


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## mindwarp (May 19, 2003)

Well, at least I have th give them the benefit of doubt. The only thing is that this wont be coming here to my island, at least not for now. And I wont be switching for now from dish at least not if there is no better thing offered.


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## SamC (Jan 20, 2003)

Is this not just the monopolist broadcasters doing what many of us said they would do with their ATSC digital channels? One SD simulcast and the rest scrambled SD pay services. All this "new" technology is, is that. This company has made a deal with the local broadcasters to use their "side" channels in ATSC for scrambled pay services.

$20 month, with a $200 buy in, for Disney, Toon Disney, Lifetime, HGTV, Food Network, ESPN 1 & 2, Discovery, and TLC, with no expansion possible, ever, is just not what the market wants. You could get 5 times the channels for the money with either DBS provider or cable.

And the technology would only work where they could line up at least 4 of the local broadcasters to carry their signal, and then only for people that really can get TV OTA. And it would preclude 24/7/365 the stations from broadcasting HD.


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

> "USDTV to Launch Low-Cost Wireless TV Service"


Big deal. Low cost wireless TV was launched in the 1940s - no set-top box required.


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## Jacob S (Apr 14, 2002)

Do they require a phoneline hookup or is there one in their box? How would they know where the boxes are at?


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## kariato (Dec 16, 2002)

:lol:


Nick said:


> Big deal. Low cost wireless TV was launched in the 1940s - no set-top box required.


It's funny how things go in circles, cable was for those who could not pick up a clear signal. Now they are using broadcast to simulate cable.

I can imagine those market with a shopping channel/small market that do not require their HDTV channel should sell all of their bandwidth to this service. I wonder how many SD channels fit in a HD signal.

The idea is not new they used to broadcast HBO scrambled for a while. I wonder if the decency rules apply to these channels because that will limit what is broadcast. I wonder if Spike or E would standup as a broadcast channel (I know the talk show formats are bad)

I think that more importantly this provides a low cost way for HDTV signal to be viewed of a standard set (at low resolution of course) for a resonable price. I think you will see quite a few people move to this if they could match the line up of the dish top 60.

There is a conflict of interest since the broadcst channels own a lot of cable channels and obtain fee's from the local cable systems.


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## jdmart (Jan 9, 2004)

They start activations here in Albuquerque on Wednesday the 24th. I'll let you know how it goes. I know I wouldn't leave Dish for this but know a lot of cable customers in Albuquerque who would jump on it.


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## ypsiguy (Jan 28, 2004)

USDTV's channel selection is scant for the amount of money. I wouldn't buy it, but I can see this delivery method being the death of HD broadcasting. Lesser affiliates in a DMA will sell part of their frequency to this service. Have heard that all a DTV broadcaster has to offer is one free channel and that's it. So we'll get one free overcompressed channel. Great.....


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## ypsiguy (Jan 28, 2004)

kariato said:


> :lol:
> 
> It's funny how things go in circles, cable was for those who could not pick up a clear signal. Now they are using broadcast to simulate cable.
> 
> ...


My local PBS affiliate told me they can get about 3 SD channels into the 6Mhz of bandwidth before picture quality starts to degrade. They told me they are highly favoring 1HD + 1SD channels because they want to stay true to the reason for this conversion.


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