Canadian Attempts at an FTA service

[Sadie]

It seems the previous threads on the Canadian attempts at an FTA service are all rather old so I thought i would start a new one, does any one know what is happening?

FreeHD Canada, Bells Freesat and Rogers (ex Starchoice) all came out with plans last year.
The only one I can find out any kind of news from is FreeHD Canada and you really need to be a lawyer to figure it out.

From FreeHD Canada's website it appears they believe they have their license and plan to start operation in early 2011 with a free Local Program Package and a pay All Access Package.
In addition the would be a $5.00 a month charge for a full EPG for the local program package
It looks like you will be required to buy the equipment from them no mention as to what type of equipment it is or if it will be compatible with our equipment, my guess is it will contain some kind of conditional access module although the was some talk of using spot beams to protect regional distributing rights earlier.

Most of the above is guess work from reading their website and the Febuary 2010 FreeHD License together with the recent July 2010 rules affecting the transition to digital TV in Canada (interesting bit starts about 1/3 way down), as I said I'm no lawyer hopefully some body can throw some more light on the matter.

I've no idea what Bell and Rogers are up to, if anything.

 

[Stargazer]

Didn't this fall through?

 

[trommy]

They are keeping their cards close to their chest.There was a similar proposal from a BC entity that may have fallen through.
FreeHDCanada is 91% privately owned with 9% owned by the owner's wife.Who knows if they will sell shares.

 

[classicsat]

Rogers has nothing to do with either satellite provider. They are cable only (although do have broadcast stations in Toronto and elsewhere). They may have mentioned a free basic cable. Star Choice is now called Shaw Direct, and has since 1998 at least, been a subsiuary of Shaw communications. I have not heard anything of a free service from them. FreeSat-HD Canada has been pretty mum, but it has been strongly inferred that they will use their proprietary receivers and encryption. If they are starting in 2011, they will not be using spot-beams, for no satellite up there yet has Canadian Spot-Beams, nor is there work of one being launched, unless it will be part of the G1 satellite, which will be the one for Shaw Direct's extended Ku project. I haven't heard of anything from Bell since their proposal, which was based on a few regulatory situations being a particular way, which never happend. As for the somewhat recent CRTC ruling WRT to the DTV transition and a free locals from the provider, it s not that complicated, "BDUs" as they are called in the industry can provide locals for free, only for installation costs and equipment sale (or possible rental), with no obligation to pay for additional service to get the free locals.

 

[trommy]

FreeHDCanada still has their website and is not scheduled to start before 2011.They want the public to use their equipment but they will be broadcasting the locals ITC so any HD FTA box should work for those.All the existing providers are remaining silent on free locals.

 

[Davage]

FreeHDCanada still has their website and is not scheduled to start before 2011.They want the public to use their equipment but they will be broadcasting the locals ITC so any HD FTA box should work for those.All the existing providers are remaining silent on free locals.

I am willing to bet that the locals will all be encrypted, and will only be authorized for 'free' into homes that sign up for the free service. Otherwise, everybody would go out and buy FTA receivers and tune into any signals that fall into their yard, including signals from 'out of market' areas.. I'm thinking that they will honor their "Free" tv promise, but will be doing so via an encrypted stream.

 

[trommy]

The reason the providers are offering to do this is so the small tv stations won't have to build expensive digital transmitters which would be FREE OTA.I don't think the crtc would allow that.They certainly shouldn't but you never know.Time will tell.

 

[Sadie]

Your right classicsat I got Rogers and Shaw mixed up, sorry.
I'm of the impression that the Bell and Shaw proposals were not serious, something mainly to make them look good to the regulator.
That leaves us with the FreeHD Canada proposal, my guess is that its hung up where most of these things hang up and that is at the money stage, can he make a good enough business case to get what he needs? (also the same problem the American proposal faces)
At least he has a lot of experience in this field if you believe the website, 2011 is not far away so I guess we will see soon enough.

 

[trommy]

Rogers has nothing to do with either satellite provider. They are cable only (although do have broadcast stations in Toronto and elsewhere). They may have mentioned a free basic cable. Star Choice is now called Shaw Direct, and has since 1998 at least, been a subsiuary of Shaw communications. I have not heard anything of a free service from them. FreeSat-HD Canada has been pretty mum, but it has been strongly inferred that they will use their proprietary receivers and encryption. If they are starting in 2011, they will not be using spot-beams, for no satellite up there yet has Canadian Spot-Beams, nor is there work of one being launched, unless it will be part of the G1 satellite, which will be the one for Shaw Direct's extended Ku project. I haven't heard of anything from Bell since their proposal, which was based on a few regulatory situations being a particular way, which never happend. As for the somewhat recent CRTC ruling WRT to the DTV transition and a free locals from the provider, it s not that complicated, "BDUs" as they are called in the industry can provide locals for free, only for installation costs and equipment sale (or possible rental), with no obligation to pay for additional service to get the free locals.

I can't find anything refering to "Freesat HD Canada" except in the generic sense.I assume you mean "FreeHDCanada" which is scheduled to start at the end of Aug,2011,although I think I saw a reference to it beginning sooner.Thanks

 

[cracklincrotch]

August 2011 eh? That's when analog is supposed to be turned off. Coincidence?

 

[trommy]

Their plan is to begin at (or near?) the transition date.Who knows what's really going on.They are pretty quiet with info.