From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Source Cable (formerly known as Southmount Cable) is one of three main Cable television service providers for the city of Hamilton, Ontario. The other two are Mountain Cablevision and Cogeco. Each company has a monopoly in a specific part of the city of Hamilton; Source Cable's service area is south of Limeridge Road to the end of the original Hamilton city limits (south, east and west).
[edit] Technical information
Source Cable uses the Motorola platform for their cable service. Supported receivers include the DCT700, DCT1700, DCT1800, DCT2000, DCT2500, DCT3080, DCT3416, DCT5100, DCT6200, DCT6208, DCT6412 and DCT6416. Scientific Atlanta digital boxes are not compatible with Source Cable. Source Cable currently uses iGuide for their interactive program guide.
[edit] Services Offered
- Analog cable which offers more than 60 channels
- Timeshifting which includes 19 channels from around Canada and the United States
- 38 Digital Audio Channels
- 16 Pay-Per-View Movie Channels
- More than 130 digital specialty channels
- HDTV services
- I-Guide Interactive Program Guide
- Cable 14 Community Channel
- High Speed Internet
- Lite Speed Internet
- Wireless Internet
- Digital Telephone
[edit] History
- September 1974: Source Cable begins operations as Southmount Cable Limited and offers a channel line-up made up of all local channels as well as some distant signals from London and Erie and a Community Channel (Then on cable 4)
- September 1 1979: CFMT-TV Toronto was added to the line-up
- September 1 1983: Source Cable (like many other cable systems) offers specialty and premium channels for the first time which included The Movie Network (formerly First Choice), Super Channel (Defunct) and C Channel (Defunct)
- September 1 1984: MuchMusic and TSN are made available for the first time as premium services.
- Early 1988: A&E, TSN, MuchMusic, Spike TV (formerly TNN), Headline News and CNN move to a basic cable tier.
- September 1988: Family Channel was made available for the first time as a premium channel
- September 1990: Source Cable added Telelatino as a premium channel
- September 1 1991: WJET (ABC – Erie) and WSEE (CBS – Erie) are removed from the system due to high copyright fees.
- December 23 1991: Superstations TBS, WWOR and WSBK are offered to customers for the first time as a Premium add-on to The Movie Network (formerly First Choice)
- July 31 1992: WQLN (PBS - Erie) was replaced with WNEQ-TV (PBS - Buffalo).
- October 30 1992: YTV and TMN2-4 (formerly First Choice) were added to the system.
- July 4 1994: TLC and CBC Newsworld were made available to customers for the first time. Telelatino moved from a premium service down to the extended basic tier.
- December 1 1994: Premium channel Moviepix was added to the system.
- October 1 1995: Pay-Per-View is offered for the first time with a suite of 10 Pay-Per-View movie channels and a preview channel. Country Music Television (formerly NCN) and TV5 were added a few weeks later.
- February 16 1998: Bravo, Space, Slice (formerly Life Network), HGTV, The Score (Formerly Headline Sports), The Golf Channel and Speed Channel (formerly Speedvision) were made available to customers. Unlike other cable systems which offered these channels on a basic discretionary tier, Source Cable offered these channels individually and customers required a decoder to view them.
- October 9 1998: Rogers Sportsnet (formerly CTV Sportsnet) was added to the extended basic tier. CITS (IND – Hamilton) was added to the basic cable service.
- November 1 1998: MuchMoreMusic was added to the basic cable service.
- February 15 1999: Tier Two was launched with the addition of History Television, WGN Superstation, Discovery Channel, Teletoon, Showcase and TV Tropolis (Formerly Prime). Family Channel moved from a premium channel to Tier Two. WNEQ (PBS – Buffalo) was removed from the system due to the fact that only 6-7 hours of programming was offered per day.
- May 1 1999: CFTM (TVA - Montréal) was added to the system.
- June 30 1999: Superstation WWOR was replaced with KTLA Los Angeles.
- September 1 1999: Canadian Learning Channel, Star, Business News Network (formerly Report on Business Television) APTN and Treehouse were added. Treehouse and APTN was offered on Basic cable while the other 3 channels where launched as a mini-tier which required the use of a decoder to view them. In order to make room for these channels, Pay-Per-View was reduced to 4 channels from 10.
- February 1 2000: Digital Cable was launched for the first time. At the time of launch, Pay-Per-View moved from analog to digital (events were still available with an analog decoder). The original digital line-up consisted of 16 Pay-Per-View channels, 4 US Superstations (WPIX, KTLA, WGN and WSBK) and 30 Music stations from MaxTrax (Formerly DMX Audio). Unlike other providers, The Movie Network was not made available in digital format and remained analog. Playboy TV was made available on digital cable a few months after launch.
- September 1 2000: W Network (formerly WTN), Comedy Network and CTV Newsnet were added to the system. Bravo moved from a premium channel down to tier one. MuchMusic was moved from Tier One to Basic Cable.
- September 1 2001: TBS moved from the premium movie package down to tier two. TV Tropolis (formerly Prime) moved to basic cable.
- November 1 2001: Source Cable added over 50 new digital specialty channels.
- May 1 2003: Southmount Cable was rebranded as Source Cable. HDTV services were made available for the first time shortly after. Initial services included NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, PBS as well as one HD feed that carried programming from multiple channels.
- September 1 2003: Analog premium services were discontinued. HGTV, Slice (formerly Life Network), The Score (formerly Headline Sports) and Speed Channel (formerly Speedvision) moved to the basic discretionary tiers. The Golf Channel moved to a digital sports package.
- February 1 2004: Source Cable launched an all digital line-up. Source Cable was one of the first cable companies to offer an all digital line-up.
- October 1 2005: Additional digital specialty channels such as Pet TV, Fox News and Bloomberg were made available. RAI International was also made available. The HD channel line-up expanded to include The Movie Network HD, CITY-TV HD, Global HD, CBC HD, CTV HD, TSN HD, Sportsnet HD, Discovery HD and Viewer's Choice HD. The Super Sports Package becomes available for the first time (Original Package included NHL Centre Ice, NFL Sunday Ticket and MLB Extra Innings). After being absent from the dial for over 6 years, Superstation WWOR returns to the Superstation package.
- September 1 2006: Additional digital specialty channels such as MTV (formerly Talk TV), CGTV Casino&Gaming, The Christian Channel, NFL Network, Gol TV and WFN are made available.
- September 27 2006: OHL (Ontario Hockey League) was added to the Super Sport Pak.
- November 20 2006: NBA LP (National Basketball Association League Pass) was added to the Super Sport Pak.
- April 1 2007: The HD channel line-up is once again expanded to include Equator HD, Rush HD, Oasis HD, Treasure HD and HDNet.
- August 1 2007: The digital line-up was re-mapped in order to have all the channels grouped by their respective theme. DW-TV moved to the news package.
- August 23 2007: Setanta Sports soccer and rugby channel is made available.
- Sep-Oct 2007: The HD channel line-up is expanded to include National Geographic HD, Showcase HD, A&E HD, WGN HD and Leafs TV HD (Games only) .
- December 5 2007: The HD channel line-up is expanded to include CFMT-DT (OMNI.1) Toronto and CJMT-DT (OMNI.2) Toronto
- February 1 2008: MMoreHD and RDI (Réseau de l'information) are made available.
- March 2008: Teletoon Retro and Playhouse Disney was added to the digital basic line-up
[edit] Future Services
- Source Cable along with all other Canadian cable/satellite providers will be offering the new premium service, Super Channel in the near future
- Source Cable plans to have a video-on-demand service available by September 2008
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
