Re: I'm back......

[Garrett Wollman <wollman>]

<<On Sat, 30 Sep 2000 12:07:57 -0400 (EDT), Sven Franklyn Weil <sven@gordsven.com> said:

> Interesting...does anyone in Canada own any of the required recepetion
> and decoding equipment to pick up these digital signals?

Sure.  Bell ExpressVu costs peanuts a month and includes all of the
major networks in both languages and most timezones.  There is a
competing DBS service whose name I'm blanking on at the moment which
also carries those services.  (DBS lineups, as with wireline cable,
are regulated by the CRTC.)

If you know the right people, it's possible to get one or both of
these systems in the U.S. (presumably what Larry meant by ``gray
market'').  With the Canadian dollar at near-record lows, it's
possible to get every single service available in Canada for less than
many people pay in the U.S. for basic cable.  (However, the satellite
footprints are engineered to favor Canada, so only people in the
northern tier of states can receive the signals on a consumer 50-cm
dish.)

-GAWollman