Regulators are inclined to allow Southern New England Telecommunications
Corp.'s Personal Vision subsidiary out of the cable business, hoping some other
company buys the cable assets instead of seeing them scrapped.
The Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control released a draft
decision Jan. 19 that would let the telco's cable unit shut down its hybrid
fiber-coaxial system if the operator paid $50 to each subscriber, and not the
$40 SNET proposed.
The phone company, owned by SBC Communications Inc., wants to shut down its
cable operation and be released from terms of a statewide cable franchise. But
it does not seem interested in selling the HFC network to another company, which
could possibly offer phone service that would compete with SNET's.
The draft decision also found that the state lacks the authority to order
SNET to sell the cable assets to Connecticut Telephone & Communications
Systems.
The small telco wants to buy the cable operation, and it asked the regulators
to order SNET to agree to the sale. But the regulator's draft decision strongly
recommends that the telco turn provisioning of video over to another company so
that consumers would enjoy continuity of service.
State regulators are not expected to make a final decision before next
month.
