If you were watching the Closing Ceremony of the Winter Olympics on Sunday and saw a message from Comcast crawl across the top of your TV screen, this means you need a digital cable box.
Or a digital adapter.
If you don’t get one, you’ll still be able to watch NBC and the other broadcast stations, but anything between channels 30 and 78 won’t come through.
Comcast is converting those channels into an all-digital format.
The cable provider started doing this in Winder and areas of northern Gwinnett County last April. It’s been moving through metro Atlanta, hitting a block of 10,000 to 20,000 customers at a time, and will finish by the end of the year, said Andy Macke, the VP of Government Affairs.
Next on the list are customers in DeKalb County, Buckhead, Midtown and parts of downtown Atlanta, he said.
Macke said most Comcast digital customers have a digital cable box on at least one of the TV sets.
But it’s the second TV, maybe the one that’s in the office or bedroom, that doesn’t have one -- that’s the TV set that needs a digital adapter.
“If you can see that [message] crawl, that means that TV will be affected,” Macke said.
Customers can get a digital cable box or a digital adapter a couple of ways. They can order them online at Comcast.com/digitalnow or call Comcast at 1-877-634-4434.
Or, they can go to one of Comcast’s area stores to pick up a box or an adapter.
The first digital cable box is free. Same for the first two digital adapters.
After that, there’s a charge: $6.95 a month for an additional digital cable box and $1.99 a month for a digital adapter.
Macke said Comcast is spending $65 million to beef up its network in metro Atlanta. It’s spending an additional $5 million to add more programs to its on-demand library.
The areas that already have gone through a conversion are: Barrow County, parts of Cherokee County, Cobb County, north DeKalb County, north Fulton County, east and north Gwinnett County, Hall County and Jackson County, Macke said.
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
