Rogers have certainly been "encouraging" people to switch to IgniteTV over the years, especially 2023, but there may not yet be a "hard date" for the end of Legacy Digital Cable, and it may happen in certain areas before others are affected. For example, some MDUs (Multi-Dwelling Units - Apartments, etc) have contracts that may currently expire after the end of this year. Therefore it will be a bit phased in depending on location.
If you read earlier posts in this thread you will see that certain areas, where smaller cable companies were taken over by Rogers, are already exclusively IgniteTV. Also, when renewing contracts Rogers makes it very difficult, although not impossible, to continue on Legacy Digital Cable.
Reading comments from Shaw customers in this and other forums, it seems the same is happening there - cannot renew on Legacy Digital Cable. It may depend on how many customers are still on Legacy Digital Cable, because Rogers can only swap out so many people per month, so that calculation should be getting clearer, the closer we are to Legacy ending.
Rogers typically don't give out firm dates until just before something happens.
I tried searching the CRTC site but have not seen any filings related to Rogers discontinuing Digital TV... although such filings may not be required.
If Rogers makes any material changes to their services, they typically provide customers with at least 30 days notice. If (as has been rumoured) Rogers does plan on discontinuing Digital TV for any customers on or around Dec. 31, 2023, I would expect customers to get officially notified on their November bill.
It is being eliminated, just in phases, maybe they are targeting certain areas first, but for people that still using it, the price is going up, the price of tv is going up universally in canada amongst all providers, so why would digital cable be excempt from this? they have operating costs too
@rjmaxim wrote:
Received email in February that states:
Your account shows that your current TV Box with a model number starting either with SA or PA will be decommissioned as of April 30, 2024.
Currently on Legacy system with 3 PVR's (1 Netbox and 2 Explorer HD's). Not clear but sounds that the Explorer Boxes may still work but not supported if they break. Or if they no longer able to receive TV signals. The Netbox units are not yet included. Guess will find out on April 30th. Also would prefer to stay with Digital TV not IP TV yet.....
Rogers has a digital-tv-box-retirement web page and it has every indication that those old Scientific Atlanta and Pace cable boxes will become e-waste on April 30, 2024.
The justification that Rogers provided simply says, "To deliver the best possible experience to our customers, we’re phasing out some of our older Digital TV boxes that aren’t compatible with newer technology."
It could be that they are dropping support for MPEG-2. This could also be the date that they transition their outside HFC plant to mid-split. They could also be decommissioning old infrastructure in the headend. It could be all the above. Regardless of why, I would not count on being able to watch TV or any recorded content on your older PVRs once those boxes get decommissioned.
@rjmaxim wrote:
-G- ....You're probably right...but will find out in May. It's inevitable....As long as the Netbox still works for now....My legacy plan ends Jan/'25. I also have Bell FTTH but no TV so have time to check options. 👍😊
I don't know what Rogers plans to do on April 30. It's a Tuesday, so I seriously doubt that Rogers would be making any significant changes that could even potentially be service-impacting for Internet. It could be tied to a contract or license expiring that affects the supportability of those old set-top boxes.... or it could just simply be the date that Rogers selected to retire legacy hardware that badly needed to be retired (for a number of reasons) while also providing (much) more than 30-days notice to those impacted.
@rjmaxim wrote:
...Perhaps the letter is meant to be vague to encourage IP TV migration sooner.
IgniteTV has been available for almost 6 years. As mentioned here previously, it's costing Rogers a lot of money to run both Legacy Digital cable and IgniteTV. These costs are passed to the customer. It's time Legacy Digital Cable were gone.
@rjmaxim The set-top box retirement is also being discussed here: https://communityforums.rogers.com/t5/Account-Support/Rogers-email-about-decommissioning-cable-boxes...
FYI, there is another "ticking time bomb" where the PowerKEY encryption, used in all of Rogers' legacy cable boxes, including the newer boxes, will cease to function in November, 2024. It's a worldwide problem that affects all cable companies using SA gear. Those, that are able, are either switching away from Scientific Atlanta to another vendor or migrating their legacy customers to IPTV.
@rjmaxim Another problem is that those old set-top boxes were built for a different era. Somewhere, I have a list of devices that were confirmed to work (and not work) on a mid-split cable plant, and many cable boxes are known to have compatibility issues. This is not something that can be fixed in software.
Rogers needs to evolve its HFC infrastructure to remain even slightly competitive with fibre and doing so (unfortunately) necessitates dumping legacy technologies and freeing up spectrum.
Rogers also has not sold Digital TV to any new customers in years; it makes no business or technical sense to keep it around any longer let alone invest even a single penny to further extend its life.
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