CITY VIEWS DIGITAL CABLE; MORE TCI CHANNELS AREN'T ASSURED, PANEL TOLD

Although digital compression produces a high quality television picture and increases the number of channels available, most cable subscribers would lose two or three channels.

That was what two members of the Cape Girardeau Cable TV Advisory Committee told other members of the committee Tuesday night, a day after they visited Berlin, Conn., to see a cable system that uses digital compression technology.

TCI Cablevision invited representatives of the city to visit the Hartford suburb as part of an effort to sell the city on allowing TCI to go back on its pledge to wire the city with fiber optic cable by April 1998. TCI wants to use digital compression instead.

That commitment was part of the agreement when the City Council renewed TCI's franchise in October 1995.

After hearing about the trip to Connecticut, the cable committee unanimously voted to recommend that the city open discussions with the cable company about changing the franchise agreement.

"Discussions mean they are still held to their franchise agreement" unless the council agrees to a new one, said Teri Goodman, a member of the committee and the city's public-awareness coordinator.

Jim Dufek and Susan Hekmat of the committee went to Connecticut and gave the report. Walter Denton, assistant to the city manager, went as well, but did not attend Tuesday's meeting.

Berlin was the first system in the country to use digital compression, Dufek, said.

Dufek and Hekmat found the system there superior to the one in Cape Girardeau for more reasons than the digital compression. Even for those subscribers without digital compression, Berlin has "twice the channels for half the money," Hekmat said,

The reason is a greater bandwidth, Dufek said. TCI's Cape Girardeau system uses 300 megahertz of bandwidth while Berlin has 750 megahertz.

The kind of equipment TCI uses to transmit its signals determines bandwidth rather than the kind of cable.

TCI wants to change its agreement because it says that replacing the existing coaxial cable with fiber optic cable throughout the city would cost too much and mean rate increases of at least $5 a month for every customer. Instead, the cable company proposes using digital compression technology on the existing coaxial cable to increase the number of channels available.

TCI contends that the main reason for converting to fiber optics is to increase the number of channels available, and that using digital compression would increase the number of channels without forcing the cable company to raise every subscriber's rates.

Under TCI's proposal, TCI would charge subscribers who want to keep the same number of channels as they have now the same rates they charge now, while it would put together a more expensive package for customers who want more channels. Those customers would need to rent a converter from TCI to receive those channels.

However, TCI doesn't have enough bandwidth to add any new channels to the existing system, Dufek said. Although using digital compression, TCI could transmit up to 12 channels on the bandwidth it now uses for one channel, it would have to use existing channels to transmit the compressed signals. That means dropping one analog channel on expanded basic for each 12 additional channels for those who opt for the digital compression.

Committee member Bruce Mims said that subscribers wouldn't stand for losing any channels. "If there are any other people in Cape land like me who are only interested in what we watch now, digital compression gets me nothing," Mims said.

Dufek said the city needs to see exactly what TCI intends to offer. If the digital compression is paired with increasing the bandwidth, it could mean a great improvement in service without increasing costs to most subscribers.

Fiber optics cables transmit signals using pulses of light. The coaxial cable currently in use uses electric current. Fiber optics cables can carry more signals and need fewer amplifiers to keep their signals going.