Starting late Monday 6/24/13, my expanded basic channels started disappearing with messages such as "37-NICK is not included in your current subscription". Chat reps and my bill confirm that the missing channels are in the expanded basic lineup and my sub is active. They had no trouble sending a refresh signal to the DTAs (two tv's). Power cycling and reactivating don't do anything (they're listed as activated anyway). A phone tech (after an hour of periodically putting me on hold) claimed I had to upgrade my service (yeah, sure) because my DTAs won't work with encryption. He said my area started encrypting last week. Except none of Comcast's online info says that the DTAs don't work with encrypted signals. (They actually say outright that encrypted digital signals just require a digital device such as a STB or a DTA, with update dates for the info in June 2013). He wanted to transfer me to billing to "upgrade"! That makes no sense to me, especially since there has been no notification (looked at four recent bills, nothing) and 30 days notice is required by state law. The phone tech first tried to claim I was notified two months ago and that it was on the bill. Before that, he tried to say both DTAs mysteriously went bad at exactly the same time... I think he was frantically looking through scripts, trying to say something to get rid of me.
Besides, the message would be different if it was a device incompatibility problem. I used the info function on the remote and the expanded basic channels are indeed encrypted (ENC) while the still-present limited basic channels are not (CLR). But I don't know for sure when encryption really began, since the phone tech seemed to be grabbing at straws and I really don't trust him. I had thought they already encrypted their digital signal long ago but never checked via the remote.
Anyway- is anybody else having this problem in the 47374 zip code area? (Indiana). I would be undergoing cartoon withdrawal except for my iPhone (the network sites still believe I have expanded basic, thankfully).
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