Comcast Digital Transport Adapter

I am having the exact same problem! I am a college student and do not have the money to pay for cable. We have comcast internet in the house and somehow, through some miracle, the cable is on.
Has been for a year. But now i have lost half of the channels. How did you solve it? is there anyway to not go through comcast?

Unfortunately, these DTAs are very similar to a cable modem. Each unit has a unique MAC address and will not receive a signal without Comcast approving it. With cable modems, Comcast approves the MAC address for your account only. You cannot take your cable modem to your buddy's house and expect to get free internet. It's relatively safe to assume that it would not work with a DTA. Besides, if that were the case, you would be able to go to your local WalMart, Target, Best Buy etc. and pick one up for some ridiculous amount of money, right?

I also live in an apartment building with "communal cable." I would guess that, since it is illegal in my state for a cable provider to touch cables inside a building without permission from the building owner, this is Comcast's brilliant solution - make everyone pay. It is incredibly antiquated and very irritating.

However, in accordance with federal law, if you pay for ANY type of cable television service the provider MUST give you access to any local broadcast stations, public access and/or government issue channels. Comcast cannot without these channels from you, so if you got them before, you absolutely will retain them when Comcast goes "all digital," as they've done in my area.

As a side note: Almost all HDTVs have built in digital tuners. For me this means ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS and QVC (for some reason) all come through in full 1080i without any additional equipment. If you have an HDTV, bring up your menu and do a quick "channel search" and they should pop up for you as well - provided your local broadcaster is broadcasting in HD.

I don't think you will able to use a digital transport adapter unless you get it directly from Comcast. We had to call Comcast and give them the id# on the box before the box would work. It would appear that the boxes you see for sale on ebay might be a problem because of this. I was told by Comcast that the only way I could have one on more than 3 TVs is to rent FROM THEM AT $3.00/mo

Listen to the few people up there. You want this box to work but you can't afford it? As long as your cable provider is in the same location as your friend that pays for comcast have them activate the box if they were the ones who ordered them to be safe. Then the box should work anywhere in the area of your service providers zone for that box. So again person A. has comcast and these stupid boxes. person B. lives not too far but is a poor mo fo and needs cable to watch TRUtv. Person A will activate from home let it stay on for a day to be safe. Person B. picks up takes to his dorm room and JACKPOT!!!! He's smooking wacky tobacky and drinking brewskis getting LOL's at his fav show Jersey Shore LMAO. P.S> this might work for longer distances but better to be safe then sorry. Also if you want to be really safe just run a cable wire from your moms basement to your new pad. Might cost a lot in cable but you can get free cable wire if you look around. Just dig a small trench and zig zag it back to the new pad some how.

I tried using a neighbor's adapter....she had a spare one....but it told me, via the screen, that I had to call them. Each box is unique with a serial number. I did not call.......

Why can't you just call comcast with the information on the box and get it activated? I don't think they can insist that you rent it from them, if you want to buy your own box. In the long run, if you stay with comcast for long time, it seems to be better to buy the adapter. that would work if you use it to activate extra tv's, you'd still have to sign up for comcast cable. I think the whole idea of having to have an extra box for each tv is like going back in time, its completely antiquated in this time of high tech. Its a horribly cumbersome way to nickle and dime customers. I really hope they find a more technically savvy and consumer friendly solution. I am staying with my limited basic where I don't have to worry about boxes, adapters and all the rest, I just plug in the tv and that's that. I am hoping all this stuff will go internet anyhow and all be available through streaming media. The whole way cable tv is handled these days is completely outdated.

Tonye05,

Just wondering if you were able to use someone else's digital transport adapter at your home, because I am wondering the same exact thing??!!!!

The adapters are all addressed so they would have to be activated by the person who recieved them ...... after they are activated it may be possible to take them to another location