Tele-Communications accelerating digital
DENVER, March 24 (Reuters) - Tele-Communications Inc [Nasdaq:LBTYA - news] expects to have between 800,000 and one million digital cable television customers by the end of this year, chief operating officer Marvin Jones said on Tuesday.
''We're rolling out digital as widely and quickly as possible,'' he told TCI's annual investors and lenders conference.
Digital compression enables cable companies to offer more channels on other services on their systems.
TCI President Leo Hindery said that 92 percent of the homes ''passed'' -- homes that TCI could serve -- could receive digital now, but the company is only marketing ''to 70 percent of those'' customers.
He said TCI is focusing on employee training for the new product, because each market must have technicians trained in digital technology before digital TV can be marketed to
potential customers in a given area. TCI currently has
150,000 digital customers. The company is installing at the rate of about 1,700 per day and expects that figure to rise to between 3,000 and 4,000 installations per day by the middle of next month, company executives said.
TCI said at the end of the fourth quarter it had 14.4 mln basic cable customers. |
