We would like to take this opportunity to respond to the July 31 article entitled, "Ulman presses Comcast on changes."

Digital is now the technology standard for Comcast and other video providers and three-quarters of our customers in Howard County already subscribe to digital cable. By migrating channels to digital distribution, it allows us to free up bandwidth to bring customers more video channels, more high-definition choices, faster Internet speeds and other advanced features.

By making changes like the recent relocation of the out-of-market Washington, D.C., broadcast TV stations from analog to digital service in Howard County, we were able to add five new popular high-definition networks to our lineup in the past month alone.

The relocation of the Washington, D.C., broadcast stations also creates consistency with other channel lineups as most consumers only receive the local broadcast stations from the TV market in which they live (as designated by the FCC and Nielsen). Howard County is in the Baltimore market.

It is important to note that more than 90 percent of the programming on the Washington, D.C., broadcast stations also appears on the Baltimore broadcast TV stations.

That said, we recognize that changes to our service may be initially unsettling for some of our customers and we will continue to make ourselves available to both the county and our customers to explain the changes and options available to local residents.

Please know we work very hard to communicate changes to our customers through a multitude of ways, including newspaper ads, customer letters and channel crawls. And, at the same time, we are offering easy and inexpensive options to allow analog customers to join the digital age.

We encourage readers to contact us with questions at 1-800-COMCAST or visit our site at www.comcast.com to learn more.

Brian Lynch

Baltimore

Brian Lynch is area vice president for Comcast.

user comments (0)