They didn’t ever have cable television, but in the last week of December, 80 households in Sandhill got their cable. It was a breakthrough – while it lasted – which was only two weeks. Tonight, those households are without cable again – as another cable controversy has erupted.
It’s a long and messy story, and here’s how it goes....in the red corner is Clear the Land Cable, a company owned by area representative Edmund Castro’s wife, Helen; in the blue corner is Centaur Cable, a company owned by the family of PUP Leader John Briceno. In the middle of the ring is CBC Cable and BTL. CBC sells 120 channels to both cable providers, and they distribute it to them using BTL’s fibre optic cable. Got that part? Ok....
Centaur had the license for Sandhill for 2008 and 2009 – but in that time they have been providing cable only to the Maxboro community. That’s a part of Sandhill and the prime part for cable providers because the homes are occupied mostly by working people who live close together. So it’s relatively cheap and lucrative to provide cable for them. But the rest of Sandhill, made up of homes which are spread far apart over many miles is not that attractive, mainly because the cost of running the cable all those miles between the homes makes cable transmission costly not feasible financially.
Centaur’s Manager Errol Cattouse told us today that they did not expand for technical reasons and high operational costs. But they recently got their own fibre optic cable and had plans to connect the areas in the New Year. However those plans were fast-tracked in late December when BTL and CBC ran a fibre connection into the area – the problem is that was a connection for a new cable company, Helen Castro’s Clear the Land – which got a cable license for Sandhill in 2009.
A representative from that company today told us that they paid CBC to connect their fibre but didn’t know that Centaur would benefit from the same connection. Well, BTL stepped in today and told CBC that the letter of their agreement states that the fibre line is for Clear the Land Cable According to Chief Operating Office Karen Bevans the Centaur connection was unauthorized. She says Telemedia asked CBC to terminate it today. And that’s what happened – leaving, as we said at the top – 80 households without cable.
Centaur’s manager Cattouse says that he blames the Broadcasting Authority for giving two licenses for one village – which has not been the policy or practice. But now there’s only once license because the authority has decided not to renew Centaur’s license for 2010 – leaving Clear the Land with the only license. Cattouse says they were given no formal notice of this non renewal and now they may have to seek redress in court.
Clear the Land’s spokesperson says that Centaur and its predecessor Baymen has ignored the residents of Sandhill for twelve years – and Centaur only came in after they knew Clear the Land had made arrangements to connect those homes. Clear the Land says that even so – they have only connected those at the center of Sandhill leaving out the far flung homes. And while the companies and the regulator fight – the residents of Sandhill are left to figure it out. Clear the Land says that they will connect all those people in two weeks time – while Centaur is reportedly investigating other means of distributing its signal to those areas.
