Getting more from cable

By CHRIS CONROY

BETHEL, NY — The more people watch cable TV, the more money the Town of Bethel will make.

At the February 27 Bethel Town Board meeting, final touches were put on the new franchise agreement with cable television provider Time Warner.

Under the new agreement in effect for the next ten years, the town will receive a franchise fee equal to five percent of the money collected by Time Warner from customers in the town. This is up from the previous agreement’s rate of two percent and puts Bethel, according to supervisor Alan Scott, in a good financial place.

Along with this new franchise agreement, Time Warner representative Brenda Parks told the board that the company was looking at the feasibility of expanding its offerings. A number of areas are being looked at, including Black Lake Estates and areas off of Airport Road.

The advantages of cable services is not just TV service.

According to Black Lake Estates resident Leon Smith, many of the residents in the development have satellite dishes, but would welcome cable service more for the Internet access than the television.

“Many people work from home,” he said. Fast and reliable connections to the Internet are notoriously hard to come by, he said.

Currently, the only choices for Internet access are dial up accounts and the Time Warner provided RoadRunner service.

Dial up accounts, provided by a number of companies, are limited in speed and require a phone line while in use. Poor connection quality is common in some rural areas, like Bethel, and can lead to lower connection speeds and inconsistent connections.

In contrast, cable Internet service provides an always-on connection at a much higher speed. It also requires cable service running to a residence. Time Warner began offering RoadRunner service in Bethel during the summer of 2002.

Another high speed Internet connection option is a Digital Subscriber Line, commonly called DSL. Similar to cable, DSL service provides an always-on connection to the Internet at comparable speeds. This service is often provided by a phone company, such as Frontier or AT&T. Currently, no company offers DSL service in Bethel.

At the meeting the board also:

• Offered a verbal commitment to support town assessor Marge Brown in her drive for an increase in the income limit for senior tax discounts.
• Reappointed Herm Bressler and Tim Dollard to the town planning board.
• Announced that OSHA training for town highway department workers would be provided by Sullivan County.
• Passed on to the planning board a recommendation that all new buildings in central Kauneonga Lake should take sidewalk construction into account when presenting building or renovation plans. The goal is to build or repair sidewalks throughout that part of town.
• Announced a proposed FAA plan to expand the runways at the Sullivan County International Airport.