Digital Cable Conversion is completely anti-consumer. They can cut service costs, forgo capacity upgrades and charge indefinitely per device, leaving consumers with inconveniences, obstacles and surcharges.

Time Warner Cable staff said the digital cable adapters (DCA) are mandatory, for everything, unless you have a digital cable box per device. HDTVs with digital tuner do not get a pass.

I quote: “No adapter = no TV. Cable TV is going to be password protected.”

So any analog and digital equipment, such as DVR, DVDr, Slingbox, PCtuner, is obsolete, as it cannot decrypt the signal or change channels on the DCA.

No channels will be lost, and the signal is better, Time Warner says. Really?

The adapter only supports standard definition.

I lost every local HD station. Most analog channels were blank. The DCA quality is worse in side by side analog comparison. It is prone to interference and signal degradation.

Toss out the $100 all-in-one remote, put the TV on channel 3 (or 4) and use the chintzy DCA remote, without closed-captioning support.

Two or more devices in a room? Thanks to DCAs, you can no longer control the channel independently, because each remote changes the channel on any DCA.

What happened to free HD, cable without a box, buy a new HDTV and get cable to avoid a converter — so eagerly touted during the DTV transition and other commercials?

We were perfectly happy viewing and recording the analog-digital mix; but now will pay more for less, while losing any recording and networking capability. Even a new DVR or Slingbox wouldn’t work without DCA.

Of course, Time Warner would happily rent me a dozen digital cable boxes and DVRs.

I’d much rather cut the cable and go old school: rabbit ears, radio and newspaper.

Frank Dobbelaere

Augusta