Group presses for legislation vs illegal cable TV connection

There is a pressing need for Congress to declare by legislation that illegal connections to cable television is a crime, the Philippine Cable TV Association (PCTA) said Monday. The association said in a statement that the industry is losing P6.3 billion in forgone revenues a year, based on estimates that there is one illegal connection for each paying subscriber. The PCTA has initiated talks with Congress on the passing of a bill that would criminalize illegal cable connections, association chair Jose Lobregat said in a statement. “It is the PCTA’s hope that this bill will be [passed] into law by the end of year or the start of 2011," Lobregat said. Once illegal connections are eliminated legitimate subscribers of cable television are assured of better service and signal reception, meaning they would get the kind of service they are paying for, according to him. “At the same time, this would allow the provider to recover quickly the cost of their investment which they can spend on improving the service such as going digital and adding more content and value added services," he said. Digital television technology is impossible to tamper with, helping consumers get better service assuring service providers of a healthy bottomlines, the association said. “Digitization would allow the providers to carry more channels and more value added services." Lobregat said. “On PCTA’s part, digitization of cable is not a question of whether to do it or not but when." he said. The country’s largest cable TV operator, Sky Cable, earlier said it has earmarked P1 billion in capital expenditure for 2010, of which P200 million will be spent on a planned shift from analog to digital technology. Eighty percent of its current 500,000-subscriber base will be fed with digital cable TV, it said. —VS, GMANews.TV