Is Cable a Bargain or a Big Waste?

The Dodgy Box

For many people in Ireland, Sky Digital is not an option as many, especially in urban areas, live in apartment complexes with restrictive policies on the mounting of satellite dishes.

With the exception of a few small localised cable providers such as Casey Cablevision in Waterford or South Coast TV in Cork, many are forced to go to UPC. UPC Ireland was setup after a protected merger between the two dominant cable companies in Ireland, NTL and Chorus.  UPC have spent the last two years fighting a losing battle against the so called “Dogybox”.  A hacked set-top box that decodes all of the encrypted cable TV channels for the monthly price of UPC’s basic analogue cable service.  Rumours have abounded for months that UPC are on the verge of implementing a new type of encryption so that the “Dogybox” will no longer work and thus turn as many basic analogue customers into full paying digital ones.

What if it’s all pointless?

UPC already provides a healthy 20MB Internet Connection with a I.5MB uplink and no download cap called Broadband Ultra.  With more and more people downloading television episodes, as well as movies, from torrent websites, could UPC be spending a lot of money shooting themselves in the foot?  How long will it be before a small form factor, silent and internet connected PC running something along the lines of Boxee becomes available using Irish based services similar to Hulu in the U.S.?

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