UPC Broadband Availability

whyulittle

Just wondering if UPC HD is available to my address, should Broadband automatically be available too?

I'm a current UPC analogue customer, and got some promo stuff in the post saying Broadband is available. Their website checker says Digital TV is available, no HD and no BB. I emailed them and they said HD is available, but no BB. I'm in Athlone which is supposed to be Fibre Power ready, and know others in town who have got it.

My 3 dongle has me driven demented, need to get some proper BB back.

Mister Robinson

If you are on their fibre cable then you should be able to get HD Tv as well.

If you're not on the fibre cable then do an address check on their site and it will tell you what you can get.

http://www.upc.ie/broadband/thirty/

whyulittle

That's the thing, the online checker says HDTV and BB are not available. But when I emailed them, they said HDTV is available but BB isn't. But they might have no knowledge at all and are just reading it off the screen.

So I was just wondering anyone who knows the technics behind it, should BB automatically be available if I can get HD.

watty

no.

Older parts of cable networks have 42MHz to 560MHz approx as downstream Channels. HD will work fine.

Broadband needs newer cable trunk amplifiers that are 88 to 860MHz approx downstream (88 to 108 for radio and 110 to 860 approx for TV & broadband). On Broadband, 5MHz to 65MHz or 15Mhz to 50Mhz approx is the Upstream, the Broadband return channel. They may even ditch the radio to make Trunk amps for TV & Broadband a bit cheaper and better, not sure.

At the cable feed point (head end), Broadband needs a CMTS box to connect coax to ethernet. Digital TV uses a DVB-c Multiplex modulator for each channel that is only one way, unlike two way Broadband CMTS box.

So there are various reasons why you could get TV or even HD TV and no Broadband.

whyulittle

Thanks watty.