BVI Cable TV's Customer Service Representative, Cathy-Ann Grant presents a new digital cable box to Isabel Acevedo.

Photo Credit: Gordon French/BVI Platinum News

BVI Cable TV's Customer Service Representative, Cathy-Ann Grant presents a new digital cable box to Isabel Acevedo.

Photo Credit: Gordon French/BVI Platinum News

With the rollout of digital television service, BVI Cable TV is looking to expand into offering high speed internet and discussions are currently ongoing in this regard.

Innovative Companies, the parent company for BVI Cable TV, continues to study the local market and is prepared to offer the service late this year or early next year.

Mr. Seth Davis, CEO of Innovative Companies told BVI Platinum News that the company has made a significant investment in upgrading the facilities from analog to digital to be able to offer better services.

"We are planning to offer high speed internet service later this year. As soon as we have fully made the switch to digital we will begin to work on our internet offer," said Mr. Davis.

He stated that the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission has undertaken a competitive study of the internet industry in the Territory.

"We are waiting for the results for that study because that helps inform the business case as to what will or wouldn't be available to us in terms of bandwidth, capacity and pricing and then we can make a better business case, determining how to roll it out on our cable TV system. We are ready to be able to technically offer the service; we just need to make sure that the economics work for us and we also need to understand what the demand is. If consumers do want cable modems and high-speed service and certain price points, we would like to hear from them so we can understand and build that case," Mr. Davis stated.

BVI Cable TV is anticipating a major growth in its customer base when they close their analog system and fully implement its digital network by the end of this month. Mr. Davis told BVI Platinum News that the company expects about 800 subscribers to join their base. A large part of that growth is expected to come from returning customers who may have dumped the service for programmed boxes on the black market. However, under the digital system, the company states that customers will no longer be able to pirate the service

"Customers that have been connected to the system without going through the business office and want to connect now because they have to, they just sign up as new subscriber. We are encouraging it because we want people to have the best possible TV and channel capacity services we can offer and we are doing that by moving to digital. It helps us to keep rates stable when we get more subscribers on because people stealing service or illegally gaining service are taking advantage of the people that are paying for the service, so it sets a level playing field. We move forward with more subscribers, can offer more programming and we become more attractive to the program suppliers," Mr. Davis stated previously.