NEW HAVEN, CONN.-Regulators are inclined to allow Southern New England Telecommunications Corp.'s Personal Vision subsidiary to leave the cable business, in hopes another company will buy SNET's cable assets so they won't be scrapped.
The Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control released a draft decision Jan. 19 that would allow the telco's cable unit to shut down its hybrid fiber-coaxial system if the operator pays $50 to each subscriber, and not the $40 SNET proposed.
SNET, an SBC Communications Inc. unit, 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 in competition with SNET. The regulators also decided they lack authority to order SNET to sell the cable assets to Connecticut Telephone & Communications Systems.
