How is the availability of an off-air signal predicted?
In order to predict availability of off-air channels for a given location the address must be Geocoded. Geocoding allows us to determine a customer’s position within the signal areas of each local television station serving their location. With this information it is possible to calculate the strength of each station’s signal. If the predicted signal strength is below a certain threshold, a location is considered to be outside the station’s signal area. It is important to remember that a customer may be in a station’s home market for delivery of Local into Local programming from DIRECTV, even though they are not predicted to receive an off-air signal. The accuracy of the signal prediction is dependant upon the geocoding process being able to determine an exact physical location. However, the signal strength at a given address may also be impacted by local factors that are not included in the model, so actual results may vary.
