Posts by Tom

Here are our happy winners with their prizes! Congratulations and we hope you enjoy them!

 

H2 will be renamed VICELAND on February 29^th, 2016. With the name change will come a dynamic change in content. VICELAND will feature Lifestyle and Reality-TV shows aimed at millennials. Programing for the new channel will begin at 6pm with a two hour introductory special showing clips from their wide variety of new shows.

Photo by Marvin M. Tajchman

ValuNet Named Business of the Year 2015

In January the Emporia Area Chamber of Commerce named ValuNet Business of the Year 2015. Thank you to all our customers and the leaders of Emporia for supporting us and making this a possibility.  We hope that the relationship that we have worked so hard to build with the community continues to grow and make Emporia the best town in the Midwest.

“Our employees’ exceptional attitude and constant efforts to take care of our customers is what has made us so successful so quickly.” – Rick Tidwell, President of ValuNet

ValuNet customers can enjoy HBO for free from 6 am Friday, February 19th to 6 am Monday, February 22nd. This weekend features the season premieres of Girls, Togetherness and the first two episodes of Vinyl, the latest and most anticipated HBO original series. Also, preview HBO’s movie lineup with Fifty Shades of Grey, The Maze Runner and Get Hard. Plus, HBO’s movie premiere of Magic Mike XXL. HBO channels start at channel 400. See what HBO is all about!

ValuNet customers can enjoy Showtime for free from Saturday, January 16th to Monday, January 18th. Preview the premium channel with the new series pilot “Billions” starring Paul Giamatti and Damian Lewis, a complex drama about power politics in the world of New York high finance. Also see the new season of Shameless starring William H Macy. Showtime has new movies The Hundred Foot Journey and The Imitation Game as well as classic movies like Good Morning Vietnam, Goodwill Hunting, and Silence of the Lambs to name a few. ValuNet’s Showtime Suite offers 10 channels. For a listing please visit the channel guide in the Customer Tools tab under TV Resources.  To add  showtime to your package just call our office and get signed up! 208-5000.

ValuNet customers enjoy HBO for free from Friday October 16th to Monday October 19th. Preview the leading premium channel with movies like Unbroken, American Sniper, Let’s Be Cops,Taken 3, not to mention the award winning series Real Time with Bill Maher, The Leftovers, Last Week with John Oliver and many, many more. See what HBO is all about!

ABC Family is changing its name. Starting in January 2016, the Disney-owned TV network targeting younger viewers will be known as Freeform. The network will begin promoting the new branding right away, committing tens of millions of dollars to getting the word out, while the new logo will be unveiled in a few months.

‘Chasing Life’ Canceled By ABC Family After 2 Seasons

This will be the first time in 27 years that the cable channel won’t have “family” in its name. Launched in 1977 by Pat Robertson, it was named the CBN Family Channel in 1988 and kept the word in as it went through various ownerships, named The FamilyChannel, Fox Family and then ABC Family. It was believed that there was a clause in the original sale by Robertson that would forbid any future owners from dropping the word “family” from the name though an ABCF rep said that there is no legal obstacle standing in the way of the network changing its moniker to Freeform. Another vestige from the early days of the channel, Robertson’s talk show The 700 Club, will continue to air on the rebranded network.

ABC Family’s decision to go for a new name was triggered by a gap in perception, said ABC Family President Tom Ascheim, noting that, according to research, core viewers understand the younger, social-media active brand while non-viewers associate it with wholesome and family-friendly programming. “We wanted to harmonize our content and out brand,” he said. “By achieving that harmony, we would be much better positioned to keep our core viewers and add new viewers.”

Interruptions with TV reception may occur beginning Fri Oct. 2^nd through Sun Oct 10^th. The outage window occurs daily between 10:00 AM and 4:00 PM.  This yearly phenomenon occurs on different channels at different times and usually only lasts for a few minutes. Viewers can expect choppy video to total loss of signal for a very brief period.

The sun outages are predictable for each satellite and all television service providers experience them. Fortunately, they are a very short term problem; however, there is technically nothing that can be done to prevent them. 

** Sun outages will not affect your ValuNet internet or telephone service **

It is important to remember that the sun outages are a naturally occurring, atmospheric phenomenon and there is nothing wrong with your TV or ValuNet’s fiber service.

Sun Outages or Solar interference occurs twice a year, every February/March and September/October. A Sun Outage takes place when the orbital positions of the satellite and the sun are in one line. The earth station receives signals from both the sun and the satellite, but the more powerful sun rays subdue the desired signal, causing a loss of service. The high energy level and broadband nature of the sun’s energy can overpower a satellite’s downlink signal and effectively wash out a receive signal with noise.

Channel interference will gradually intensify each day until it peaks and then in the same way it will gradually decrease until the event is over, a period of about 8 to 10 days in our case.

For more information go to the following link to learn more:

http://www.radio-electronics.com/info/satellite/solar-effects/sun-solar-outages-basics-tutorial.php

NFL RedZone is available now on ValuNet channel 70.

SEE EVERY TOUCHDOWN FROM EVERY GAME ON SUNDAY AFTERNOONS

JUST $59.95 GETS YOU THE ENTIRE 2017 SEASON*

NFL RedZone from NFL Network is a special game day-only channel owned and operated by NFL Network that broadcasts on Sundays during the NFL regular season from 12:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. CST.

RedZone provides “whip around” simulcast coverage of all Sunday afternoon games airing in-progress on CBS and Fox.

CALL VALUNET TODAY TO ORDER NFL REDZONE 208-5555!

*NFL RedZone is a one-time payment of $59.95. Customers must have a subscription to ValuNet ValuPLus HDTV package.

By Samantha Bookman 8-26-2015

Online video streaming devices are present in 21 percent of U.S. homes, a 13 percent increase over the past year, new research from The Diffusion Group has found. Further, a Parks Associates study revealed that four brands make up 86 percent of all streaming devices sold: Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Roku.

“Roku continues to lead streaming media device sales in the U.S. with 34 percent of units sold in 2014. Google is second with 23 percent, and new entrant Amazon overtook Apple for third place,” said Barbara Kraus, director of research at Parks.

Additionally, Roku is tops when it comes to usage, at 37 percent. Google’s Chromecast came in a distant second in usage at 19 percent.

Also of interest is the age demographic when it comes to purchasing and using streaming devices. Adults aged 25 to 44 are more likely to own a streaming device, TDG found; it saw 29 percent penetration among this group. Late millennials, however, in the 18-24 age group prefer to stream via game consoles rather than newer streaming devices when in the home.

Parks’ research also came in line with TDG’s findings, calculating that streaming devices are present in 20 percent of U.S. households. About 2 percent of those device owners also have a streaming stick.

“20 million US households now use an Internet set-top box to access streaming TV services,” notes Michael Greeson, founder and director of research at TDG. “As Apple prepares to launch its new Internet set-top box, it does so knowing demand for such platforms have significant headroom, and will be driven by not only greenfield purchases, but multi-unit and replacement sales, as well.”

A joint group of researchers from the Netherlands and the US have smashed the world speed record for a fiber network, pushing 255 terabits per second down a single strand of glass fiber. This is equivalent to around 32 terabytes per second — enough to transfer a 1GB movie in 31.25 microseconds (0.03 milliseconds), or alternatively, the entire contents of your 1TB hard drive in about 31 milliseconds.

To put 255Tbps into perspective, the fastest single-fiber links in commercial operation top out at 100Gbps, or 2,550 times slower. 255Tbps is mind-bogglingly quick; it’s greater, by far, than the total capacity of every cable — hundreds of glass fibers — currently spanning the Atlantic Ocean. In fact, 255 terabits per second is similar to — or maybe even more than — the total sum of all traffic flowing across the internet at peak time.

By Sebastian Anthony – Senior editor ExtremeTech

ValuNet has begun construction on the Chapel Ridge Apartments fiber build. Crews are burying fiber optic cable to each of the 14 buildings bringing the residents the fastest, most reliable internet in Emporia as well as the clearest HDTV and superior telephone services. The project is slated to take about 90 days to complete, with services being offered earlier in some buildings. Chapel Ridge residents call ValuNet at 620-208-5555 to get pre-signed now.

ValuNet Tower Cam!                            

Have you checked out the ValuNet tower cam on channel 8? The 2 megapixel Samsung  Pan-Tilt-Zoom camera is mounted 250 feet above the ground on the City’s tower at the Public Works complex on Hatcher Street.  The camera not only gives a stunning aerial view of Emporia in a 315 degree pan with several stops, but can be manually controlled to watch and zoom in on approaching storms. WIBW regularly shows the camera on its news casts as well.

Be sure to take a look on ValuNet channel 8      

ValuNet is aggressively working on the fiber build out in the northwest part of Emporia from I-35 to the north city limits, Graphic Arts Rd to Sonora Dr. This area includes the West Ridge, Timmerman, Crest View Lakes, Hidden Lakes, Bayshore neighborhoods, just to name a few. The recent rains have slowed us down just a bit with burying cable from the pedestals to the houses, but it is drying out some now and we are going full speed ahead. If you are in these areas and have not talked to or been contacted by one of our sales representatives call us at 620-208-5555 now and get signed up!

Why Your Cable Bill Is So Darn Expensive

By Adam Levine-Weinberg
April 12, 2015

Cable TV is expensive. According to the FCC, the average cost of an expanded basic cable subscription reached $64.41 in 2013. The price of expanded basic cable has risen at about two and a half times the rate of inflation since 1995.

Cable providers like Time Warner Cable are not the primary cause of soaring cable bills.

The inexorable rise of cable prices explains why so many consumers are eager to cut the cord. But why is cable so expensive in the first place? Many people assume it is because pay-TV operators like Time Warner Cable (NYSE:TWC  ) , AT&T (NYSE: T  ) , and DIRECTV(NASDAQ: DTV  ) are greedy — but that is not the whole story.

It is all about the bundle
The most frustrating thing for many consumers is that they are forced to buy massive bundles with dozens — or even hundreds — of channels just to get access to a few channels they actually want to watch. But this is not by choice on the part of pay-TV providers.

Indeed, while massive bundles help juice revenue for pay-TV providers, they also contribute to significant increases in programming costs: the per-subscriber fees paid by pay-TV operators to channel owners. The net impact on earnings is questionable (at best).

The real beneficiaries of the bundle are big network owners like Disney (NYSE: DIS  ) andViacom (NASDAQ: VIAB  ) . For example, Disney can use its popular channels like ESPN and Disney Channel as leverage to demand that cable operators also include channels like ABC Family, ESPN Classic, or Fusion in their lower-tier bundles.

Cable providers fight back — sort of
Many cable providers are fed up with this system. Members of the American Cable Association (which represents smaller cable providers) want the FCC to stop channel owners from forcing lots of unwanted channels into their bundles. Under one proposal, the FCC would mandate that cable channel owners make the 20 most popular channels available “a la carte” to any cable provider that wants to sell them that way.

The discontent goes beyond small-time operators. Mid-sized cable provider Cablevision, which dominates the New York metro market, has been locked in a fierce antitrust lawsuit with Viacom for several years.

Cablevision claims that Viacom forced it to carry 14 little-watched networks as part of its typical “expanded basic” bundle in order to get the top Viacom channels: Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, MTV, and BET. Tying access to a few popular channels to carriage of more than a dozen unwanted ones could potentially be an antitrust violation, but fighting channel owners in court is an expensive gamble that most cable operators are not willing to make.

So, while many cable providers have vocally opposed excessive bundling, they have not taken much concrete action to stop it. As a result, the average expanded basic cable bundle has ballooned from $22.35 for 44 channels in 1995 to $64.41 for 160 channels in 2013.

There is no walking away from the table
The other big question is why pay-TV providers like Time Warner Cable, AT&T, and DIRECTV do not just walk away — i.e., drop all of the channels from one or more of the media giants. If a pay-TV operator could pull this off, it would even the scales with big cable channel owners. But with the exception of some smaller cable companies that have dropped Viacom, this has not been attempted.

This has a lot to do with the capital-intensive nature of the pay-TV business. Whether they deliver content through cable cords, telephone wires, or via satellites and home satellite dishes, pay-TV operators spend a lot of money building and maintaining the infrastructure necessary to get content into your home.

From a profitability standpoint, it is crucial to spread these fixed costs over as broad a revenue base as possible. As a result, it would be dangerous for a company like Time Warner Cable, AT&T, or DIRECTV to drop any popular channel.

Disney’s channels are expensive; pay-TV providers can’t afford to lose them.

For example, suppose a cable company wanted to appeal to non-sports fans and dropped all of its expensive sports channels. By dumping regional sports networks (which can add more than $10 per month to cable bills in some regions) and all Disney channels (headlined by ESPN, which costs more than $6 per month), the cable operator could pass a lot of savings on to customers.

However, doing this would mean conceding sports fans to other pay-TV competitors. To make matters worse, by giving up other Disney properties like Disney Channel — and possibly also Disney joint venture networks like A&E and History — the cable operator would also alienate families with kids, history buffs, etc.

In the end, lower prices would not be able to compensate for the large number of customers who would switch rather than lose their favorite channels. With a much smaller customer base, it would be impossible to cover the substantial fixed costs of the pay-TV (and broadband) business.

The moral of the story
Cable channels have all of the bargaining power in their negotiations with pay-TV providers, be it a cable company, telecom provider, or satellite company. Most big media companies have at least one or two highly popular channels. They can use this popularity to strong-arm pay-TV companies into taking big, expensive bundles of channels.

Aside from government intervention, the only way to break the power of the big media titans would be for major distributors to walk away. However, any pay-TV provider that did so would be resigning itself to a niche position — and that is not viable in a capital-intensive industry. Instead, Americans have had to swallow higher cable bills year after year.

Free HBO to all ValuNet Customers. 

HBO and Cinemax are having a free preview weekend starting at 6:00 am Friday April 10th until 6:00 am Monday morning April 13th.  Anyone who is a ValuNet customer will have access to all of the HBO and Cinemax channels to catch the season premier of one of the hottest new shows, “Game of Thrones” as well as season premiers of “Silicon Valley”, “Veep” and their normal programming.

HBO channels are:

400 – HBO HD

402 – HBO2 HD

404 – HBO Signature

406 – HBO Family HD

412 HBO Latino.

Cinemax channels are:

420 – Cinemax

422 – MoreMax

428 – ActionMax.

If you would like HBO monthly service call ValuNet to get signed up, 208-5555

March 24^th, 2015

ValuNet is wrapping up construction in the Landmark / Deer Brook Additions which includes Deer Brook Lane, Antler Ridge, Caribou Lane, Whitetail Lane, Mount Vernon Terrace, Laura Lane, Marco Court, W 20^th, 21^st, and 22^nd Avenues from Graphic Arts to the west. Service is available to 95% of this area now. Call your local sales team at 208-5555 to get signed up.

ValuNet’s current areas of new construction are in the Becker Addition area as well as Green Briar Estates. Green Briar will be ready for customers after April 15^th and Becker addition should be ready around the end of May. We are currently pre-signing customers in these areas now.

Coming by the end of summer are the West Ridge area, the Crestview Addition and the Willow Creek Addition.

Check back frequently for updates as ValuNet continues to make Emporia a Gigabit Community!