Cavan Cable Company ( Smyths) gets a website

Sponge Bob

Cavan was the last place in Ireland with:

1. Analogue only cable.
2. A cable operator with no website.

It wouldn't be th elast place with no cable broadband, plenty of them

Thankfully they now have Digital TV as well as analogue. Smyths have a website ( www.cablevision.ie) and damned if they don't promise broadband in 2012

How very 21st century.

icdg

Not just Cavan, there were seven towns out there which after changes to the licencing regime in 1999 which mainly affected the big five cable companies (which became two that year) and Casey Cablevision, retained the old cable licencing regime from 1974 which gave them exclusive licences but no digital TV. The 1999 regime has been superseded by general authorisations to operate cable networks instead (MMDS is still subject to licencing, but UPC has all the licences and no more are being given out in the 2.6 Ghz band).

Checking out the other 1974 licencees which were still in business post the 1999 changes...

Crossan Cable has a website too (www.crossan.ie) though it seems a bit out of date if the logos are anything to go by (Channel 5's original logo, which hasn't been used since 2002, is on it! The mere fact that a small Irish cable company was given premission to carry Channel 5 makes you wonder how UPC have never been able to do so...). "Longford metropolitan area..." hmm

Crossan and Smyths seem to have traded their 1974 licences for general authorisations at some point which gives them the same status as UPC and Casey Cablevision and allow them to run digital systems (and would mean their exclusivity is gone).

Of the others, Clane Cable Systems was bought by UPC. I have no idea of the status of the others: Bagnaelstown Cable, Emmet Electrical Limited, Orlynn Park Amenities Limited, and Tara Cove Holidays. If they are still in business, they are still on the 1974 licences though Comreg don't seem to make any mention of them on their website.

Antenna

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Thankfully they now have Digital TV as well as analogue.

Sounds like they are distributing Freeview 'as is' - DVB-T, (though possibly, depending on the cable system, frequency downconverting to lower VHF channels rather than the original UHF channels) - the website clearly indicates Digital TVs do not need a STB, and no multiroom charges (a 16 euro a month covers all TV points in the house).
It appears that the Irish channels are being converted to MPEG2, though, as it mentions MPEG4 in relation to HD only. Satellite channels also being converted to MPEG2 DVB-T.

about analogue the site says:

Will the Analogue service be turned off?
No. Although you may hear about analogue switch off by 2012 in the media, this is in relation to the state terrestrial service, and does not affect us. We are free to continue transmitting in analogue for as long as we wish.

We may however need to remove a small number of analogue services towards the end of 2011
to free up space on our spectrum for more digital services including high speed broadband.
Nevertheless, we would anticipate that the analogue service will continue for many years to come.

It also mentions "Options available to affordably upgrade non-digital televisions"

Sponge Bob

icdg wrote: »

Of the others,

You have a good page about them here

http://www.iolfree.ie/~icdg/cable_about.htm

icdg

I wrote that back in 2000 or so, a long long time ago...