Karib Cable boxes may go on sale

Customers of this country’s lone cable television company Karib Cable will soon have the option of purchasing additional cable boxes, as opposed to just renting them.{{more}}

With the final details worked out, head of telecommunications watchdog the National Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (NTRC), Apollo Knights, said that his institution has recommended that Karib Cable provide an option where the boxes can be bought.

This option will be made available within the next month.

Karib Cable began making additional boxes available to households two weeks ago, after they announced that the Analog cable system was to be discontinued from Thursday, August 12.

The boxes are available for a deposit of $50, plus an additional $10 per month rental.

The analog cable system, which was supposed to be phased out on Thursday, August 12, is still in place, however, following talks between the company and the NTRC last week.

Knights indicated that the ‘stay of execution’ for the analog system gives customers who have not yet picked up their free box a chance to do so, in order to avoid service interruptions, as well as to allow other details between the two groups to be worked out.

“We told them we want the boxes to go out to everyone before it (analog) was turned off, so that people don’t have a period of time when they don’t have any signal.”

“We have no problem with a rental,” Knights indicated. “Some persons may want to rent a box. But we also want to have a package in place where people can buy the box. We didn’t tell them to put it on hold; we told them that we need to have both options that we can agree on.”

With regard to an increase in the monthly rate which has been requested by Karib Cable, Knights noted that customers will know sometime in September if there will be an increase, and if so, what that figure will be.

He confirmed that a proposal for a rate increase had been received and it is being looked at. But until then, basic rates will remain at $74.75.

“We also sent it over to ECTEL (the East Caribbean Telecommunications Authority) who usually advise us on these kinds of increases and we should hear from them sometime this week.”

Knights, the head of the local body since its inception in 2001, said that as long as all the information is in place, the public will soon know what the payments are to be.

Meanwhile, analog cable is slated to be available until September 8th 2010. (JJ)