Supervisors to examine fuzzy cable

[cablewithaview]

NATCHEZ — Adams County Supervisors want to find out why some county residents’ pictures are fuzzy.

Several supervisors said they have received complaints from their constituents in recent months about their cable reception.

At Monday’s meeting, the board requested a letter be sent to Cable ONE to ask a company representative to come before the board.

The board has been getting complaints from county residents for about two years, Supervisors President Darryl Grennell said Wednesday.

“On some of the lower channels, the reception has been really bad,” Grennell said. “We’ve tried to get a meeting with (manager) Mr. (Bobby) McCool through our previous county administrator, but we’ve been unsuccessful in terms of being able to get Mr. McCool to come before the board.”

He said the board had made at least two attempts to get in touch with the company.

“We would like to see what the long-term and short-term plans are to correct this,” Grennell said.

Assistant Administrator Charlie Brown, former county administrator, said he called to speak with the manager several months ago.

“I never was able to get in touch with the manager back then,” Brown said.

Although most cable customers live inside Natchez city limits, several complaints have come from county residents, Grennell said.

Companies like Cable ONE have to go before local governing bodies to show what kind of services they will offer, and the government then may grant them a franchise, County Attorney Bob Latham said Wednesday.

The board of supervisors adopted an ordinance June 9, 2003, to allow Cable ONE to operate and maintain the business outside the city limits, Chancery Clerk Tommy O’Beirne said.

McCool was not available for comment Wednesday.

Supervisors to examine fuzzy cable

[cablewithaview]

NATCHEZ — Fixing cable problems in the Miss-Lou is going to take an investment on the part of CableONE, manager Bobby McCool said.

And it’s an investment they are considering, he said Wednesday.

Network stations — lower channels — have always been fuzzy in the area, he said. And the only solution is to change the way the cable company receives the stations’ signals.

Currently, the Jackson, Baton Rouge and Monroe stations are just too far away, McCool said. They send signals through the air to a 300-foot tower in Adams County. But by the time the signals reach that tower, they are weak.

“We don’t have any control of that interference,” McCool said. “Some stations send weaker signals. We’ve continually had that problem.

“Most larger cities have local TV stations. We are in the southwest corner (of Mississippi), 60 to 100 miles away.”

The Adams County Supervisors sent McCool a letter following their last meeting, asking for answers about the problems. McCool said he plans to attend Monday morning’s board meeting to answer what he can.

Currently CableONE does not pay programming costs for the signals from network stations. Rates that are passed on to customers reflect the free signals, McCool said.

Unless network stations increase their signal strength, the only way to solve the problem is via satellite, he said.

For the last few months CableONE has been looking into the costs of receiving local networks via satellite, then sending them out to customers. To do so, they’d need the necessary equipment, and they would have to pay for the signal.

“It hasn’t been approved,” McCool said. “It hasn’t been determined if we can or can’t do it.”

Supervisors President Darryl Grennell said his board was waiting to talk to McCool before considering other options.

Grennell said he would ask the board attorney would come to the meeting prepared to discuss the county’s contract with Cable ONE. Grennell said he did not know if the contract included a non-compliance clause.

McCool said he was aware of the complaints from customers, and understood the board’s position, but didn’t really have a different answer for them.

“I’ll be telling them the same thing I told them the last year or the year before that,” he said. “They’ve received complaints like this every year.”

The board and other local city boards have discussed the problem before.

Cable company to try to fix problems