By MYLA IGLESIAS
The Philippine Cable TV Association (PCTA) said the number of
cable subscribers grew by 2 percent during the second quarter due to campaign
against signal piracy and installation of set- up boxes in households.
Allan Dungao, PCTA president that legal subscribers of 1.5
million rose to 1.8 million in major cities.
"That was an improvement from the stagnant or declining rates
we posted in the past", Dungao said.
Dungao is optimistic the industry can sustain the 2 percent
growth.
Dungao estimates that illegal subscribers number three
million, double that of the paying subscribers.
The Philippine cable industry has accumulated P 6 billion
losses yearly due to signal piracy, and signal theft, he said.
Dungao said that the only way to curb the rampant illegal
cable connections in the country is the passage of a bill making it a crime to
steal cable connections. Hopefully, he said illegal connection can be reduced by
10 percent yearly.
Signal theft is piracy from the operator to the households
while, signal piracy from the program provider to the operator.
Rep. Joseph A. Santiago, (Catanduanes), introduced House Bill
1409, which punishes violators caught with illegal cable TV or Internet systems.
The penalty will be imprisonment of not less than two years but not more than
five years, and/or a fine ranging from P50, 000 to P100, 000.
The measure provides that it will be unlawful for any person
to intercept or receive any signal or service offered over CATV and cable
internet systems by tapping any unauthorized connection of existing wired or
wireless facilities. These are usually done through the use of electronic
devices such as digital/analog receiver-decoder boxes, converter boxes and the
like.
However, the ABS-CBN cable unit Sky Cable Corp., has
allocated P600 million capital expenditures this year to finance the digital box
(Digibox) rollout.
Carlo Katigbak, SkyCable chief operating officer earlier said
that the Digibox address the problems of the illegal cable connections as well
by encrypting the cable signal, thus preventing illegal tapping into SkyCable's
network.
At present, there are 3 cable operators in Metro Manila and more than 400
operators in the provinces.
