SG Broadband Community

Since cable went digital many years ago, cable companies require you to have a cable box, even for just basic cable. Yet, when I go camping, I've noticed many campgrounds do NOT require you to have a cable box. You just connect to the cable source at your campsite, and then just do a scan on your TV, and voila, your watching TV. Yet, if you do that at home, without a cable box, voila, you get nothing!

And it can't be as simple as, well the campground has the cable box so they just distribute it to all the campers. Because if that were the case, each camper would still need a cable box remote that would reach to wherever the main cable box is located on the campground, which wouldn't be practical or make any sense.

The marinas (I go to a lot, and configure networks/wifi for a lot)...just give you the basic unencrypted channels at standard definition....and marinas are similar to campsites in how they're set up and coax and data is distributed.

There is no longer any unencrypted cable channels (at least that I know of). Systems are regularly scanned for such. Since they have all gone to addressability, some sort of box/device is needed. Many motels and other venues with mass distribution such as a campground, they will have a room with equipment in it from the cable company. The channels get distributed from a central point. Many others will have a small digital transport adapter in the room.