While the very high-profile side of Comcast may be capturing global headlines by buying huge multimedia corporations like NBC Universal (pending federal approval), the nation's largest TV services provider continues chipping away at the near-dead analog world on the very local level in order to grow its HD tiers.
Case-in-point: Tiny Nashua, New Hampshire.
Comcast is busy there moving a big chunk of analog channels (24-69) over to its digital line-up. By spring 2010, every Comcast sub in and around Nashua will need to equip himself with a DTV cable box or digital converter. (For now, Comcast is equipping up to three televisions per household with a set-top box and two digital converters for free, according to the Nashua Telegraph.)
Comcast and other cablers continue their migrations from analog channels to DTV in order to free up more spectrum channels, including for HD outlets, according to the cable firms. The Nashua newspaper says "a few days after the digital conversion is complete [by spring], Comcast will double its number of HD channels to 100." Comcast said about 80 percent of its Nashua subs are already digital customers.
As in other small regions around America (in Nashua's case, nearby towns like Hudson and Merrimack) the switchover to all-DTV channels by Comcast and its competitors will not be completed until late 2010 or even early 2011, in some cases.
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