Comet Cable Forum: August 2007

Friday, August 31, 2007

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Comet Digital Officially announced on website

Comet Cable have officially announced the launch of Comet Digital on their website http://www.cometcable.com/ plus some of the things we can expect from "Comet Digital". Rumors indicate that the soft launch of Comet Digital will take place in September. Initially the existing subscribers are expected to be converted onto the digital platform before promoting it to attract new subscribers. According to sources Comet will actively promote Comet Digital to attract new subscribers from December onwards but if all goes well they may do this earlier.

Comet Digital is expected to contain the following features

60 Channels.
Free Digital Decoder
Same Antenna
No Change in Subscription
Razor Sharp Pictures
Lifelike Surround Sounds

Comet is also planning to include an Electronic Programme Guide as well as increase the number of channels to above 60 as they roll out their digital system. What is interesting is that the present antenna will be retained but the decoder will be changed free of charge for existing subscribers. The subscription will also not be increased at the moment. Certain Comet Subscribers would certainly like to reduce the height of their existing antenna since it is very high, we hope that Comet will take steps to reduce the height of the existing antenna once the digital system is in place. However if line of sight is a must then this may not be possible. Comet should also take steps to increase the coverage of Comet to cover more regions in Sri Lanka.

The launch of Comet Digital will certainly add value and increase competition in the pay television industry which is at present limited to Dialog TV and LBN.

Please keep us updated on the latest on Comet Cable as the days progress.

Friday, August 24, 2007

September is close at hand

So with only a few days to go for the month of September it seems that many subscribers are looking forward to the launch of Comet Digital. At the moment there is no publicity is being carried out regarding the launch of Comet Digital. There is some information that suggests that the digital launch has been delayed but we are unable to confirm this and this time it looks like Comet is on track for the digital launch. However anything is possible since this has not been publicized as yet.

According to information received last it seems that Discovery Channel has gone off air on Comet Cable for the second time this year, but we are not sure whether it has returned and we hope that our readers will be able to shed some light on this.

We hope that Comet will publicize its plans for the digital launch and announce the official launch date soon. Hopefully Discovery Channel went off air due to some upgrading being done in relation to the digital launch and not some petty payment issue.

Please keep us updated on the latest regarding Comet Cable as the days progress.

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

What can we expect when digital comes

And if it does come and when it comes, then Comet subscribers will get a much better service than they are getting now, which is stating the obvious.

By going through the comments on the blog it seems that subscribers are raising questions about the new digital service.

Will a Dish replace the tall antenna?
Highly unlikely since Comet we believe would opt for DVB-T (Digital Video Broadcasting - Terrestrial) instead of DVB-S (Digital Video Broadcasting - Satellite presently used by Dialog TV). We are not sure whether the antenna will need to be at the present height though but since DVB-T also needs line of sight the height may remain the same. You may not have to use the same antenna and they might change it to a new one but if the antenna is kept the change over to digital from analog will be cheaper.

Will their be a limitation in capacity?
Yes, since they are operating on a wireless frequency they will be having limited capacity and will be able to carry only a certain number of channels per frequency but this can be overcome by adding other frequencies to expand. This is not only for Comet the same limitation exists with Dialog TV too since they can only add a limited number of channels per transponder and they also expand by adding new transponders and adding channels to the other frequencies. The operator who has the highest bandwidth at the moment and can expand without adding anything is LBN since they are operating on DVB-C (Digital Video Broadcasting - Cable). We are not sure how the limitations works for digital services over copper cables and we hope that someone can enlighten us on this.

What are the new features?
Electronic programme guides, Internet Access, Movie on Demand, Pay per view and a whole host of others. These are the general features but it depends on what Comet decides to implement and what not to not to implement but according to a website they had earlier for Comet Digital some of these services were listed.

Will there be rain fade?
Not sure but it is highly unlikely

The above is from the information that we gathered from external sources and it was not supplied by Comet Cable. We are not technicians and not experts in DVB-S, DVB-C, DVB-T and if there are any factual errors please highlight them to us.

Comet Digital according to the rumors is expected to launch in September 2007 and we would like our fellow bloggers to keep us updated on the latest on Comet as the days progress.

Monday, August 06, 2007

Star Cricket introduced

Comet Cable became the second pay television operator behind LBN to introduce Star Cricket on their platform according to unconfirmed sources. The introduction was carried out during the weekend at the expense of removing VH1/MTV. We believe that the channel that was replaced will return to Comet once they launch digital operations.

Star Cricket which is part of the ESPN Star Sports package is a dedicated 24 hour cricket channel which has the rights for some of the major ICC cricket tournaments over the next 11 years. The addition of Star Cricket is welcomed by many Comet Cable subscribers.

We are receiving conflicting reports regarding Comet Digital and we hope that the management of Comet Cable will make an official statement regarding the launch of Comet Digital. We hope that the Comet Digital campaign is not being carried out in order to retain subscribers from switching over to LBN or Dialog TV since they have an impressive lineup of channels and Dialog TV have launched the Star Package and are expected to launch Star Cricket within the next few days.

Please keep us updated on the latest developments regarding Comet Cable as the days progress.

Thursday, August 02, 2007

More on Comet Digital Plans

Rumors indicate that Comet will be launching Digital Services by September 2007. Comet is not giving any information regarding the new channels or subscription rates and connection rates but it seems that after several years of being delayed Comet Digital will be a reality soon. We also received a scanned copy of the Comet Newsletter and we are publishing it below for your reference. We hope that will also not get stretched like any of the previous announcements. If this becomes a reality, there will be three companies (Dialog TV, LBN and Comet Digital) vying for the spot of leading cable television operator in Sri Lanka and soon they will be joined by SLT IPTV. All this will mean that the subscriber will reap the benefits from the competitive offers.