Television is handled by Ka-Tel. The type of service offered will depend on where the person is located. Some rural areas likely do not have a coaxial infrastructure where they live. With that said, there will be efforts to provide Fiber Optic services to such areas. Unlike internet, and telephone – television is not considered as an essential service. Therefore, there is no requisite for affordable service.
Ka-Tel will also issue licenses for OTA (Over the Air) TV signals. These channels will be required to be ad-supported, therefore not cost the customer anything. If technology allows for it, the TV station will not be allowed to charge to watch their stations. In the event that TV networks has different chnnels depending on where they are, it would be reorganized to offer a more streamlined service no matter where in the country you are. Since I am a US resident, I only can provide examples for US channels that I know of. The channels will be as follows:
- Channel Guide: 1
- ABC: 2
- CBS: 4
- FOX: 5
- NBC: 6
- PBS: 7
I am sure you get the idea. ABC will be channel 2 no matter where you live in the country. This makes it easier to provide the channel number, and everyone knows whom you’re referring too. While this will be overkill, channels 2-50 will be reserved for OTA channels. There are also sub-channels, so a company can split the quality of their channels and lease out some of the spectrum which will increase the number of channels.
OTA customers will likely be stuck with the various stations they have avaialble to them. However, coaxial and fiber optic customers will have the option to have the standard channels for free, but will have to pay for basic and extended packages for television. Since I hadn’t hadn’t had cable TV in decades, I can’t go in much detail of these channels, and provide a clear pricing structure based on packages. However, Cable channels will be very high to compensate on the need for Ka-Tel to provide affordable internet and telephone. Ka-Tel will be required to run the OTA channels through coaxial and fiber for free. The reason for this is to eventually move away from OTA delivery of these channels, therefore opening spectrum for other roles. This will mean that channels 1-50 will always be free, even if delivered via coaxial or fiber.
Devices
There will be a desire to phase out the need for a cable box. Instead, the intent will be to stream TV to a smrt TV, only using a box for non-smart TVs. Apps will be created for all of the major smart TV platforms.
With that in mind, the TV will need cable or fiber access. This could be done by connecting to a RJ45 jack for a wired connection, or Wifi. The service will provide for DVR capabilities at the Ka-Tel network service. This will mean that you would be able to save shows to watch later without the need for a DVR. 10 hours will be included for free, and the subscriber will have the option to lease more space. You would just have to enter your credentials within the app which will tell Ka-Tel what channels to provide. Since TV is not an essential resource, Ka-Tel will provide based on what they are able to negotiate with the premium television providers such HBO, or TBS.
This will eventually mean that you would not need a coaxial line for your TV if everything can be streamed from the fiber optic. Some people might question this, but look at all of the streaming services that are out there, and successful. This means it is possible to do this. Coaxial will be considered as legacy which means until fiber is rolled out everywhere, there will be some need for a coaxial jack to plug into at least an OTA antenna. Once that is resolved, coaxial will be depreciated as obsolete much like what the RJ11 (Telephone) jack is currently. The goal will again be to run everything regarding to communications over the coaxial, and eventually – fiber optic.