Comet Cable's silence is suspicious

Comet Cable has not answered any of our questions on the questionnaire (see post on March 9th 2007) that we emailed them. We were able to get replies from LBN and Dialog TV for some questions that we emailed them and they were posted in their respective blogs several weeks ago but Comet has been keeping quiet and the excuse given by Mr. Harold is that relevant management personnel have been forwarded the questions and that the reply has not been received as yet from them.

One of the contentious issues that we raised is regarding the June 1st deadline by the TRC and the future of Comet Cable.

According to the present situation we are forced to come to the conclusion that June 1st may indeed be the end for Comet Cable. If that were not so then we do not see a need for Comet Cable to delay answering our questions.

Comet Cable telecasted SET Max illegally?

We are getting unconfirmed reports that Comet Cable actually started telecasting the match between Sri Lanka and Bermuda only to abruptly stop it later on. The live telecast is supposed to have been broadcast using a SET Max feed obtained from Indian DTH service Tata SKY. According to reports a crawler on the screen inserted by Tata SKY appeared warning against unauthorized rebroadcasting of the feed which was apparently censored by Comet Cable sometime later. Several customers had called Comet Cable regarding the censorship and after about an hour later the live telecast was stopped and VH1 was back on instead of the match.

We hope Comet will not resort to practices such as illegal rebroadcasting but will legally try to obtain rights and telecast the matches live. Illegal broadcasting will only result in Comet Cable falling into a further financial mess with all the legal action that can be brought against them in addition to the unstable financial situation of the company.

It should be noted that not only is the live telecast illegal but Comet is also possessing an illegal Tata SKY connection.

The claimed Press Briefing

Comments have been appearing on this blog claiming that Comet Cable carried out a press briefing to announce the launch of their DTH service in September and also announce the acquisition of the exclusive broadcast rights to the Rugby World Cup.

We have been checking on this claim since the first comment appeared and we state that we have not been able to obtain any confirmation from any source leading us to believe that no press briefing of this nature took place and that the comment was placed to mislead the Comet Subscribers. Even today's newspapers did not carry any reference to any press briefing of this nature.

If any press briefing took place we will definitely report it and if anyone has independant confirmation of the press briefing we would like them to email the press release to us on "tvradiosrilanka@yahoo.com" so that we can make a post based on it.

Certain bloggers have raised concern why Comet did not telecast the match yesterday. The reason is that Comet will only telecast the matches broadcast by DD and a schedule of the matches to be broadcast by DD can be obtained on the post below this one.

The telecast and no telecast of the World Cup

It has been reported that Comet Cable carried broadcasts of the ICC World Cup match between West Indies and Pakistan on the 13th and we believe that this broadcast was done via DD Sports. We have also got reports that yesterdays matches were not telecast over Comet Cable which maybe because DD Sports did not telecast the match.

For a list of all matches being telecast by DD Sports please click here.

All Comet subscribers would be able to watch the matches that are listed in the above link but most of the matches are mainly involving India and a few involving non Indian matches.

Special request to Comet Bloggers

We would like to request all Comet Bloggers to keep their discussions focused on Comet Cable and on how it can improve itself. This is not a blog for commenting about other pay television providers and insulting them.

We also request bloggers from the other forums not to post unnecessary comments here.

Please note that if this continues further we may be forced to remove the commenting option which will eventually mean that bloggers will not be able to share any information on this blog.

We would also like to urge the management of Comet Cable to reply to the email that we have sent them.

Thank You
Admin

Awaiting Comet Feedback.......

On the same basis of the interviews that we carried out with LBN and Dialog TV we sent an email to Comet Cable requesting to reply to a couple of questions that we raised with them. The email was sent on Wednesday 28th February and on a subsequent reminder on 5th March we received a reply from Mr. Harold on 7th March saying that the questions have been passed on to the relevant authorities for clarifications and as soon as the reply is received we will get the answers for our questions. We hope that we receive the reply soon since it is now over one week since we submitted these questions.

Given below are the questions that we forwarded to Comet Cable.

1) On Dec 15th 2006 the SDA published a notice citing non payment of dues by Comet Cable. They also said that they will not allow the transfer of Comet Cable shares and also withdraw the license if the outstanding is not settled. Has this matter been settled.

2) On June 1st 2007 the TRC wants some of the frequencies allocated to Comet to be released. What is the status of this.

We believe that the TRC wants the frequencies released to implement Wimax services in colombo and the suburbs. Has Comet been allocated alternative frequencies?

3) Sir, were there plans to start a satellite DTH service in partnership with Srilakvahini whose holding company is Futuresat or any other company?

Comet has been promising to go digital for the last few years and every year in the beginning they say that it will take place at the middle of the year and then change that to the end of the year when the middle of the year comes.

In the new look website the digitisation plans have not even been mentioned (this was available for some time in the old website).

4) Does this mean that the plans have been dropped?
If not then when is Comet definitely going digital. An exact time period is
appreciated?

Customers are in doubt whether services will continue or not after June due to the TRC deadline and we hear that many have moved over to competitors. We have noticed that overselves since many houses that we have seen which were having Comet antenna's have now got other connections.

5) Some customers are complaining of a drop in signal quality even without obstructions coming up. Has Comet reduced it's broadcasting power? We wish to state that we are unable to verify this claim that has been made.

6) What assurance can you give to your customers regarding the future of Comet or do they have to start looking for an alternative?

7) Will Comet be broadcasting the ICC World Cup Live? Dialog TV is said to have obtained exclusive rights for this event on the pay television platform.