Concern on Long Island Over Cablevision Digital Cable Transition

A legislator in Long Island’s Suffolk County expressed concern over notices that Cablevision sent recently to subscribers warning that all their TVs will soon “require a digital cable box.” Cablevision already completed similar transitions in New York City and Connecticut, and rival cable, satellite and fiber optic companies in the region already require that subscribers have digital set-top boxes. The warnings irked at least some Long Island Cablevision subscribers who were told they need to get digital cable boxes for every TV not equipped with a CableCARD or QAM tuner.

As his “initial reaction,” the legislator, Ricardo Montano, D-Central Islip and chairman of the Suffolk County Legislature’s Consumer Protection Committee, thought the Cablevision policy will impact the elderly and “working poor” on Long Island the most, he told us. There’s little that the Suffolk County legislature can do because Cablevision’s contracts are “between Cablevision and the various municipalities” that make up the county, not the county itself, he said. Cablevision told him the plan would affect only 5 percent of the company’s customer base, he said. But “who has older TVs? Older people,” he said. “And who can least afford it? People on fixed income."

Cablevision is offering free digital cable boxes for a limited time to Long Island subscribers. It told us that we would be charged about $7 a month for each box after the first year for the four extra digital cable boxes that we requested as part of the company’s limited-time promotion. Other Cablevision subscribers were told they could only get three boxes for free for a limited time, while others were told only two. It “depends on what area you live in,” a Cablevision customer service representative said when asked about the limited-time offer.

Depending on one’s “financial status,” Montano thinks Cablevision may offer “some kind of hardship application … but nothing’s been finalized yet,” he said. Joan Gilroy, Cablevision director of government affairs, met with the Consumer Protection Committee last week, he said. Montano stressed, “I don’t have it in writing” from Cablevision, only in “oral testimony,” and “the bottom line is that I think that there’s still room for ongoing negotiation.”

There’s “a variety of different box offers in the market, which is why we encourage customers to call the number on their notifications or visit a walk-in center, instead of trying to communicate specific details” of the company’s strategy to the media, a Cablevision spokesman said. Gilroy herself didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Cablevision didn’t say how many subscribers had complained about the digital transition on Long Island. Only a small number of subscribers were impacted by the new digital cable box requirement, it said. “We are clearly moving to an all-digital future, and more than 95 percent of our cable television customers today receive digital service, which delivers many more channels and choices, expanded access to video on demand -- including thousands of free selections -- high-definition programming and other advanced interactive services.” The company “already discontinued analog service in New York City and Connecticut and are extending a variety of offers to our Long Island customers to help make this transition,” it said.

But there likely are many subscribers on Long Island with digital cable boxes who still each have at least one analog TV that gets a limited number of TV stations via cable and not a set-top box. Before the U.S. went digital last June, we asked a Cablevision representative whether analog-to-digital converter boxes would be required to continue receiving TV on such sets and were told that they wouldn’t. Those TVs would continue to receive TV service, we were told. Long Island Cablevision subscribers can still opt to buy a converter box so they can continue to receive over-the-air stations on some TVs, but the boxes have been much harder to find since the government’s transition-enabling coupon program ended.

Cablevision won an FCC waiver early this year to become the first cable operator allowed to encrypt basic cable channels (CED Jan 11 p6). The company and supporters had said the action will reduce pollution by allowing the company to turn service on and off without sending technicians to homes (CED Oct 26 p6). The order required Cablevision to make good on its promise to give CableCARDs or set-top boxes without charge to subscribers who don’t have either.

Meanwhile, in New York City’s five boroughs, there have been “fewer than 10” consumer complaints about Cablevision’s digital transition, said a spokesman for the city’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications.