cable

Comcast is helping consumers ease the transition into digital television by offering free basic cable for a year. Their offer comes ahead of the Feb. 17th digital television transition.

The offer isn't completely without strings, customers must also sign up for one other Comcast service, such as broadband in order to take advantage of this offer.

There are currently 11 million households receiving over the air television. I am sure that this is only the first of many such efforts by television providers to hook these new customers.

Verizon has recently surpassed Comcast for the number of HD channels in it's lineup.

They added 39 new channels to its Verizon FiOS TV lineup in Maryland and Virginia with 19 new high-definition channels including a Big Ten college sports network and 20 new multicultural content stations.

The additional channels bring Verizon’s total lineup to more than 540 high-definition options for viewers that include at least 49 HD channels and more than 500 HD video-on-demand titles offered each month.

The FCC plans to vote on Friday to issue a reprimand to Comcast because of their efforts to block or throttle certain internet traffic. This vote will come despite mounting pressure by the Bush administration to block the measure.

House Minority Leader John Boehner sent a sharply worded reprimand to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. At issue is the their belief that the FCC is "improperly inserting itself into a self-governing entity."

"Comcast will begin testing what the cable concern has described as a "protocol agnostic" approach to managing bandwidth traffic during high-peak periods, Comcast said Tuesday.

Selected customers in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and Warrenton, Virginia, are expected to receive e-mails on Wednesday highlighting the program. The 30-day tests are expected to begin Thursday.

Comcast’s high-def subscribers just got a boost with the addition of hundreds of library titles from MGM.

The MGM titles will also be available on Comcast’s non-HD service, bringing the cable operator’s video-on-demand offerings up to more than 10,000 per month.

On Wednesday, a spokesman from Comcast indicated that it was pulling out of the wireless phone joint venture with Sprint Nextel Corp. According to a report from Reuters, the $200 million joint venture between Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Sprint did not spark much interest from customers.

Comcast is beginning to feel the pressure of competition from Verizon. Yesterday, the company sued the FCC over a rule enacted in December that bars it from making a major cable acquisition.