We are pleased to announce a number of new channels now available on our Digital TV line-up.

Channel 105 – Crime & Investigation Network®; the ultimate destination for crime, investigation and mystery programming. CI opens the door to crime labs, police archives and the justice system, providing viewers with a behind-the-scenes look at criminal investigations, as well as in-depth explorations into the lives of infamous criminals.

Channel 106 – Bravo; new and inventive original programming that tap into the network’s “passion groups” of Food, Fashion, Beauty, Design and Pop Culture.  Bravo transformed the reality television landscape with its critically-acclaimed series and watercooler hits including the Emmy-Award winning “Top Chef,” Emmy nominated “Inside the Actors Studio,” “Watch What Happens Live,” “Bethenny Ever After,” “The Rachel Zoe Project,” “Flipping Out,” “Million Dollar Listing,” “Tabatha Takes Over” and “The Real Housewives” franchise.

Channel 107 – Oxygen; delivers relevant and engaging content to young women who like to “live out loud.” Oxygen is rewriting the rulebook for women’s media by changing how the world sees entertainment from a young woman’s point of view. Through a vast array of unconventional and original content, including “The Glee Project,” “The Face,” “Best Ink,” “I’m Having Their Baby” and “Bad Girls Club,”.

Channel 108 – Esquire Network (formally known as G4); the modern man will be televised. Championing intelligence, wit and style, Esquire Network brings the iconic men’s brand to television as the definitive network for the modern, multi-faceted man. The network’s programming explores and celebrates the interests, passions and aspirations of today’s man: gaming, gear, entertainment, food, fashion, women, humor, travel, competition, danger and more.

Channel 132 – Military History; Covering great battles both famous and obscure, generals and foot soldiers, code breakers and spies, from the history of warfare in general, to specific wars and battles, to the life of a soldier and the equipment he used, Military HISTORY™ provides an expansive schedule of programming that includes documentary specials and series on military subjects.

Channel 204 – Chiller; the only cable channel devoted to delivering viewers round-the-clock scares.  Chiller’s eclectic slate of adrenaline-fueled, soul-stirring entertainment includes a broad offering of films, including feature-length premieres every Friday, international programming (Afterlife, Apparitions), documentary and reality shows (Fear Factor), anthology series (Masters of Horror) and some of the most thought-provoking and suspenseful series ever on television (The X-Files, Tales from the Darkside, Twin Peaks, Millennium).

In addition to these exciting new channels, we also added additional High Definition channels;

Channel 249 – USA; Channel 250 Bravo; Channel 256 – CNBC

If you’re currently not a subscriber to Digital TV, give us a call at 276-4458 to learn how to upgrade to this exciting entertainment package.

Butler-Bremer Communications Announces the Retirement of

Al Freerks

&

Eva Miller

Please join us in Celebrating this event at an OPEN HOUSE;

* Friday April 26, 2013

* 3:00 p.m. – 6 p.m.

* At the Butler-Bremer Communications Business Office; 715 main St., Plainfield

The Perfect Storm. Last week we had a convergence of two issues which caused Butler-Bremer to have significant network issues. Most telephone companies, including Butler-Bremer, have back-up power systems in place which consist of a stand-alone generator and a large bank of batteries. The batteries maintain power until the generator kicks in and can take over the power load. Early the week of April 22nd we determined that a short had occurred in our battery pack at the Plainfield office and had technicians in route to work on the issue. Unfortunately, as storms rolled through south east Iowa on Wednesday, Mid-American Energy experienced a wide spread power failure which affected Plainfield. Normally our back up system would respond to this power lose, as it had numerous times in the past, and we would not have lost any network services. In this one isolated case the batteries failed to hold power until the back-up generator could take over and our entire office crashed. This crash effected telephone, Digital TV and Internet services. Our Digital TV and Internet services are controlled by server banks (specialized computers) which do not respond to sudden power loses/subsequent restarts very well and we discovered that a drive on our primary Internet server bank failed to restart. This drive held our data bank which allowed authorization of Internet and e-mail, which is why customers were unable to access either for approximately 8 hours on the 24th. We have a temporary battery system in place and will have a permanent replacement of our battery system installed by mid-week. Additionally we have the majority of Internet services back and will be replacing the damaged servers as soon as we possibly can. We apologize for the inconvenience this outage caused and will be applying a credit to our Internet customers on the May billing.

With the recent upgrade in software to our Digital TV service there were a few changes to note:

1. The Previous Channel button was “moved”; both remotes have a “p<p” button that is now the previous channel control (located next to the “mute” button on each remote).
2. A shortcut button to access recorded programs for DVR’s has been added; on the boat shaped remote this is the “PVR” button on the lower right; on the other remote it is the “Film Strip” button by the navigation control. Pressing this button will take you direct to your recorded programs, thus avoiding having to navigate through the menu.
3. A “MiniEPG” (guide) is now available; pressing the “guide” button once will bring up the MiniEPG, using the navigation arrows you can move up or down one channel at a time or forward through the next three programs on a channel. The program you are currently watching will stay full screen while you navigate through the MiniEPG. Pressing the “guide” button a second time will take you to the Standard guide screen, pressing the “guide” button a third time takes you to your Favorites.
4. The MiniEPG can be de-activated if you desire using the following steps; Menu; Settings; Preferences; Appearance; arrow down to the MiniEPG and press “OK” to toggle to no; arrow right to apply; press OK and the MiniEPG is now de-activated.
5. When in the “Menu” you will note that the active ICON will show in color and all other ICON’s will be grey, this helps identify which function you are on, so using the arrows you can easily highlight the function you want to access.

A Remote Guide has been uploaded onto the Web site, please refer to it to review the button functions on your remote.

Due to the recent software upgrade some of the buttons on the remotes used for our Digital TV service have been changed or new functions added. The attached sheets show the remotes and the functions for the various buttons. Also attached is a new users guide for the Digital TV service, please note that not all services show in the users guide are currently provided by Butler-Bremer. Please contact the office if you have any questions.

5.9 Remotes Guide

UM-CDNSTBC-5 9a

During the Wednesday (February 20th)/Thursday (February 21st) maintenance window we will be installing an upgrade to the software used to provide our Digital TV service. This upgrade will bring some new features, which will be addressed at a later date. In order to apply the upgrade, we will remotely reboot the set-top-boxes (STB) used for the service. The rebooting of the STB’s will take very little time, although it will affect viewing during the reboot. We don’t anticipate any problems but if you have any issues Thursday morning please contact the business office at 276-4458.

The Iowa Hgh School State Wrestling Finals will be telecast on the Butler-Bremer digital CATV service. The finals will be held Saturday February 16th, starting at 6:00 pm.

Digital customers tune to channels 50 or 53

Be sure to tune in Saturday the 16th and enjoy the finest high school wrestling in the nation.

Comcast SportsNet Plus has announced it will carry the following Missouri Valley Basketball games:

Men’s Games:

• Wed, Jan 2; 7:00 pm; Creighton @ Illinois State
• Wed, Jan 23; 7:00 pm; Creighton @ Drake
• Tue, Jan 29; 7:00 pm; Illinois State @ Bradley
• Wed, Jan 30; 7:00 pm; Missouri State @ Creighton
• Tue, Feb 12; Indiana State @ Missouri State
• Wed, Feb 27; 7:00 pm; Northern Iowa @ Southern Illinois

Women’s Games:

• Fri, Jan 25; 7:00 pm; Northern Iowa @ Creighton

• For Digital customers, these games will be on Comcast SportsNet Plus on Channel 161.
• For non-Digital customers, these games will be on channel 69.

Tune in and enjoy some of the best college basketball in the country. GO PANTHERS!

Once again Butler-Bremer Communications has increased the download speeds for our NetSpeed and Netspeed Business packages. As of today the Netspeed package has been changed to 4 Mbps download and the Business service was increased to 8 Mbps download. This has been done without an increase in the monthly fees for with of these services.

* Please note that the NetSpeed Lite service level has not been changed.

Hey NFL Fans, the NFL Network is now on our digital TV system. Programming is available in both SD and HD formats. The NFL Network will carry 13 regular season games, starting on Thursday September 13 with the Packers vs Bears. Here’s the channels you can see this programming on:

     NFL SD – Channel 162

     NFL HD – Channel 229

The NFL Network is available on our Digital TV system ONLY. If you don’t have our digital system, contact our office today to schedule installation.