Date: Fri 19-Jun-1998
Date: Fri 19-Jun-1998
Publication: Bee
Author: CURT
Quick Words:
SNET-cable-tv-business
Full Text:
Merger May Put SNET Cable TV Venture In Jeopardy
NEW HAVEN (AP) -- SNET's venture into cable television, already running behind
schedule, may be in jeopardy by the company's planned merger with Texas-based
SBC Communications Inc.
Questions about the future of SNET americast were raised before state
regulators this week as they began a review of SBC's proposed $4.4 billion
merger with Southern New England Telecommunications.
SNET said it continues to build its cable network, although more slowly than
projected, and continues to both market the service and to add customers.
"We are still continuing to deploy the network," SNET spokeswoman Myra Stanley
said last week.
But she added: "If this merger is approved, I'm sure there will be further
discussions."
SBC said it plans to honor the terms and conditions of the 11-year contract
that regulators granted -- the only statewide cable franchise in Connecticut.
But SBC and SNET witnesses conceded that there are concerns about the
technology being used, problems with providing reliable telephone service over
the network, and its profitability.
SNET's cable business would be evaluated after the merger, the witnesses said,
and changes could result. When asked whether the changes included the
elimination of the service, the witnesses were noncommittal.
"We are very concerned about the economics of the business," said Anne
MacClintock, SNET's vice president for regulatory affairs and public policy.
James Kahan, SBC's senior vice president for corporate development, said the
company wants to be in the video business.
"The question is, `What is the right technology, what is the right business
model to ensure that we are not just a competitor in the short term, but we
are a viable competitor in the long term?'" Kahan said. "What we can't do is
jeopardize the quality of service for telecommunications to deliver video."
Donald Saltzman of Weston, chairman of the Statewide Cable Council, which
advises SNET on the needs of subscribers, said he is worried the service will
be discontinued.
"The fact that they failed to mention it and cut back on the installation
schedule does not give us a warm and fuzzy feeling. They will keep cable
television if it's profitable," Saltzman said. "The state of Connecticut
wants, needs and demands competition in cable television. We do not want to go
back to the monopoly we had in the first 15 years of cable."
The cable service, begun in March 1997, has about 15,000 customers in 10
towns.
The original timetable for cable roll-out was the first quarter of 1997 in
Darien, Farmington, Westport, New Britain and parts of Fairfield, West
Hartford, Hartford, Stamford and Norwalk.
SNET's cable service is still not available in Hartford and Stamford, but it
is available in North Haven, Old Greenwich, and Weston.
The network will expand by the end of the year, but SNET will fall short of
its projections of bringing service to 28 towns by 1999. Instead, the company
plans to have the service available in 20 towns by 1999, Stanley said.
SNET originally had said that the service would be available to nearly 64
percent of Connecticut by the year 2000 and to 87 percent in the year 2005,
and that the entire state would be cable-ready by 2007.