Does anyone know when Homechoice plan to start HD broadcasting..is it dependent on all the exchanges being upgraded or is it technically not possible at present.
I have phoned customer care who are less than helpful...would appreciate any thoughts on this.

Well, they are still upgrading exchanges until past mid June, so not before then. Other than that, depend whether they can afford to give us a new STB or charge £300 like Sky do. Their HD launch was described as imminent a few weeks ago by a HC boss.

While I don't doubt they're working on this, can you give us a source for this info?

Its was a comment on a media site, can't remember where. Not importantly really, beleive it when you see it .

my sentiments exactly because hc are not a broadcaster per se so afaik the relevant encoding decoding etc poses quite large problems for them, all of course requiring significant funding

I think they would have to upgrade their decoders to support HDTV. Given that there is only one upgrade they could make - to HDTV - I assumed that is what they were currently doing.

Not quite - they could be offering dual box functionality through the second ethernet port.

An upgrade to the DSLAM to enable ADSL2+ and to channel 2 streams would be needed here as well.

well, the line upgrades are for enabling ADSL2+, though i'm not sure whether HC will be oging HD in the imminent future, i severely doubt it.

Why would you need adsl2+ unless it came with HDTV? whats the point?

Interactive Services?

The Football First Premiership Contract is probably going to be expired before they bring this in...

Having more than one box?
Providing 8Mb Internet and TV at the same time?
Higher upstream speeds?
Providing better service to more people?

There are lots of reasons apart from HD - although in the current hyped up HD world I agree it seems the most likely.

BT Vision may be ok, but until its on the market its no competition to anybody. Once its out, HC will have to do something, as will all ISP's which is why they are thinking of wholesaling their services toother ISP's. To survive, ISP's are going to have to offer every service, because price discounting alone isn't the way.

Well at least we know the IP-STB technology is in place:

http://www.hdtvuk.tv/2006/06/ukbased_company.html

Any ideas who supplies the Homechoice STBs?

Come on Homechoice, I want my HD!

Well a brief search on google reveals that HomeChoice is a customer of Amino's.

Well that's good news at least. The bandwidth is nearly available, seems like it wouldn't be difficult to get their hands on the STBs needed. So what have they got left? Upgrading the encoders and licensing the HD content. So they just need the money...shall we start a whip-round

If anyone wants to know, i just spoke with some techie guys from Homechoice, who have told me whats going on over the coming year.

In the South of Ireland they are currently testing the new ADSL line/HD STB on a clear Telephone line through a company called Arcom.

If all goes well, we could be seeing the first STB's, capable of receiving the new rate of 24mbps to display HD signal plus Internet download speeds of upto 3-4 times what we currently have at the moemnt. (12-18, thats not the upto speed, the actual speed!! All this in around 3-6 Months time, apparently!

There is a downfall, the cost, they did not explain, but it will be substantial due to the cost of upgrading the lines upto copper which is still being done as we speak, apparently its a better conductor and can carry a higher signal constantly for greater distances.

So yes, new STB, Fast Internet, and all in lovely HD, you gotta love it!!

What do you mean 'upgrading the lines to copper'? Lines are already copper.

Do they mean better quality copper at the exchange? or will they give us new higher quality connections by replacing the existing wiring to house?
(years ago Easynet were going to do this for a business ADSL LLU line, they could then guarantee its quality)

Months.....haha, more like a couple of years with homechoice!

I think some people are unlucky to have aluminium phone lines which were cheaper to install but are very much inferior to copper when data is thrown in.

If this is true then this is good news!

Thanks, didn't know that.

http://www.ja.net/development/networ...technical.html

The BT Local Loop is Copper (some Aluminium), but no fibre as far as I am aware.

Only the Cable Companies (ntl:Telewest) use a Fibre to the Kerb model AFAIK?

Zen