Oceanic Cable
to raise rates 5%

The increase will
take effect in January

By Rob Perez
Star-Bulletin

The state's largest cable television company is raising the rate for its most popular service by nearly 5 percent.

Oceanic Cable sent notices to customers this week saying the monthly rate for its standard service -- the package of channels that most of its roughly 245,000 customers purchase -- will increase from $27.53 to $28.88.

The increase takes effect in January.

As part of the change, Oceanic is adding five channels to the standard package: the Learning Channel, Sci-Fi Channel, Home & Garden TV, Travel Channel and MSNBC, a 24-hour news, talk and information channel. Standard service currently has 51 channels.

Oceanic said the increase will be the first in a year and will be the only one in 1999 for cable service.

The company said the rate change reflects many factors, including a small adjustment for inflation, increased programming expenses and the recovery of costs incurred during a recent system upgrade on Oahu.

The upgrade involved the installation of a fiber-optic cable network that increases system reliability, improves picture quality and allows the company to install new channels and add new services, Oceanic said.

It said the rates for basic service, the minimum-channel package, will remain unchanged at $9.90 a month.

Rates for some premium services that involve extra charges will be modified.

The company also said the franchise fee, now ranging from $1.20 to $1.85, will be $1.75 per customer, plus 2.771 percent of all charges above standard service.

Oceanic is part of Time Warner Inc.