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Welcome to the website for the
Hartford Area
Cable TV Advisory Council

COMCAST Cable serves 6 towns in the greater Hartford area. HACTAC is the designated organization with the role to seek input, provide information and offer advice on ways the cable franchise can better serve its customers.

Please feel free to contact HACTAC members in your town
(who we are) and offer your comments and suggestions about COMCAST and what HACTAC might be able to do to better inform and represent COMCAST subscribers.

HACTAC

Next Meeting 7pm

June 17 2009

COMCAST Berlin

The initial application for the Hartford area franchise was foiled with the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) by New England Industries, Inc. (NEI) of New York City, on April 21, 1964. On March 21, 1967, New England Industries, Inc was granted a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity by the PUC to construct and operate a cable television system in the towns of Hartford, West Hartford, East Hartford, Windsor, Bloomfield and Simsbury. Shortly thereafter, NEI formed a subsidiary corporation, Hartford CATV, Inc to operate the franchise. The firm was owned 95% by NEI and 5% by Irving s. Ribicoff and David Kotkin of Hartford.

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CABLE TV Notes

The Comcast Hartford franchise covers 6 towns -Bloomfield, East Hartford, Hartford, Simsbury, West Hartford and Windsor.

CABLE TV COVERAGE
As of 1-1-07
1,577,019 homes in CT had Cable TV access
1,039,944 (66%) were connected

In 2001 cable saturation was 76%

As of 1-1-07
Comcast Hartford lines passed 147,994 homes
78,101 (53%) were connected.

2006 Connecticut had 24 cable TV franchises and 1,039,944 subscribers

2005 Connecticut had 24 cable TV franchises and 1,051,584 subscribers

2004
24 cable TV franchises and 1,084,954 subscribers

2003
26 franchises and
1,115,722 subscribers

More stats as DPUC updates these figures

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Consumer Alert

LOCAL ACCESS TV
NOT AVAILABLE IN ALL "CABLE" OPTIONS

As people shop for choices for "cable tv" be aware that the providers do not make the same offerings for all channels especially Local Access Channels.

CABLE -
The "cable" systems such as Comcast provide 3 local access channels, Public, Education, Government - PEG. They receive broadcasts from the local access stations and pass them through to subscribers in the same real-time and quality as with all "cable" channels. You can watch your Town Council meeting as it happens if your PEG stations broad cast the meetings "live".

PHONE
The phone system, such as ATT U-verse, where available to consumers, transmits local access programming in towns that have set up distribution of those channels through the system. Not all towns have done so. Broadcasts are lesser quality video, take time to load to your TV and are distributed after they have been captured in the system. They will not be real-time. You cannot see your local Town Council meeting "live". You can however watch local access programs from other towns if they have opted into the system.

SATELLITE
There is no "Local Access" option with vendors such as DishNetwork or Direct TV. You have no access to PEG broadcasts. They advertise that you can get "local channels" but those are not access channels just local broadcast TV such as channels 3,8,30, 61 etc. You can never see the Town Council meeting with satellite TV.

Will I need a Digital Converter to watch TV after June 2009?

YES
A television receiver that only has an analog broadcast tuner will require a converter box after June, 2009, to receive over-the-air broadcasts with an antenna because of the Nation’s transition to digital broadcasting. So, if you are still using the rabbit ears or your roof antenna to tune in to American Idol next year - you need to buy a converter box to watch your favorite shows. There are funds available to help pay part of the cost for the boxes if you need one.

NO
Analog-only TVs should continue to work as before with cable and satellite TV services, gaming consoles, VCRs, DVD players, and similar products. Cable TV subscribers do not need the converter box - your TV signal is already converted in your cable signal.

For more information, call the Federal Communications Commission at 1-888-225-5322 (TTY: 1-888-835-5322) or visit the Commission’s digital television website at: www.dtv.gov.