Cable customers dealing with thinking inside the ‘mini box’ for an all-digital service
Like New Orleans, St. Charles Parish’s Cox subscribers have lost analog channels in the company’s push to go all digital.
“Everything that we do in St. Charles Parish, we do in Jefferson Parish, Orleans Parish and St. Bernard Parish service area,” said Steve Sawyer, Cox’s director of public and governmental affairs. “All four systems make up the Metro Service Area. “The key thing to remember is that this only affects Cox customers who have a cable running from their wall directly into their television set. If a customer as a converter box already, they see no change at all. Also, as of date, Cox is complete with this digital transition.”The digital conversion posed problems for Jennifer Perkins, owner of Anytime Fitness in Luling and Destrehan.
Perkins said having the box for nearly 20 televisions with an equal amount of remote controls didn’t make sense.“Going digital isn’t so bad, but as a fitness facility there are numerous TVs and each one of them have a box and it would only work with a remote control,” she said. Perkins also was concerned about the boxes being so close that the remote controls might change channels on neighboring TVs.
“This was just not a good option for us,” she said. “We ended up going to DirectTV.”Perkins added it was a costly move and cut the channels by half.
After issuing months of warnings about the phase out, New Orleans analog customers watched channels disappear until there were none last month. The process requires they rent small boxes for each television. They are free for one year and then $2.99 per month per box.
“While this is a change for our analog only customers, most that we speak with do very much like the Cox ‘mini box’ once they get it set up and we hear back that most find it very easy to set up … the box that the mini box comes in is designed with color coding and takes no time to install and the only tools you need are your thumb and forefinger,” said Steve Sawyer, director of public and governmental affairs. “As opposed to just about 25 channels customers now have much more with the mini box. With the Cox ‘mini box’ customers will enjoy 100 percent digital picture, on-screen program guide, over 40 new channels – now in HD, parental control, remote and over 50 channels of commercial free music.”
Sawyer declined to state how many customers it has in the parish or Louisiana.
The move is aimed at giving Cox an all digital network in Louisiana, as well as allow the company to “claim back over 40 percent of our network” to allow them to provide more high definition channels, faster internet and more.
Cox is following the industry trend toward all digital networks.
“At Cox, we only have a few more systems to make this transition and we will be 100 percent nationwide complete, as well,” he said.
In 2006, the St. Charles Parish Council set out to invite more cable competition in the parish. When Cox Cable’s contract expired in 2007, consumer complaints over service and lack of the television guide channel prompted parish officials to invite other cable franchises to the area.Today, area customers can choose Cox, as well as Dish Network and AT&T’s Direct TV and AT&T Uverse for cable, internet and phone service.
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