i extracted this from the straits times forum.
We refer to the ST Online Forum letter by Henry Lim Li Shun on Sept
30 (SCV's set-top box should be free for subscribers) and thank him
for his feedback.
Rental fee for set-up box covers maintenance costs
We would like to assure him that StarHub imposed the subscription
charge for our analogue set-top box only after careful
consideration.
We would like to clarify that the $2 rental fee for analogue
set-top boxes is to recover the increased maintenance and repair
costs associated with the continued delivery of our analogue cable
TV service.
StarHub is one of the few remaining operators in the world to
continue to operate both an analogue and digital service, as we
want to give our customers the benefit of choice.
To maintain both our existing analogue and digital platforms, a
rate adjustment was needed in order to ensure that the quality of
our services on both these platforms are not compromised.
In addition, most manufacturers have stopped producing analogue
set-top boxes and their spare parts.
In order to maintain the analogue service, we have to source for
these components via alternative suppliers which are invariably
more expensive.
Even though StarHub is the sole pay TV provider in Singapore, there
are many alternative sources of news and entertainment in
Singapore, including seven free-to-air channels.
StarHub has never considered itself a monopoly in the entertainment
business and has always endeavoured to weigh the value of what it
offers.
It wants to provide an attractive package of programmes at a price
that will appeal to sufficient numbers of customers in order to
earn a fair return on its investments.
It is a common practice for cable TV operators around the world to
charge subscribers a small fee for the rental and usage of the
set-top boxes, as there are costs involved in maintaining these
units.
In the region, Malaysian pay-TV subscribers who subscribe to the
services of the largest pay-TV operator in Malaysia pay upfront to
purchase a decoder to view the programmes on the operator's
Direct-To-Home satellite platform.
In Hong Kong, customers of the two major pay-TV operators pay a
deposit and monthly rental fee for the set-top box, which is loaned
to the customers.
This same practice is also adopted in Thailand. It is noteworthy
that these costs exclude the monthly subscription charges that
customers pay to receive the pay-TV services.
StarHub Digital Cable aims to provide customers with affordable
access to its cable TV services. Hence, customers of StarHub
Digital Cable are not required to purchase the analogue or digital
set-top boxes or pay a deposit fee to use them.
Until September 1999, our customers were billed a monthly rental
fee of $3 for the analogue set-top boxes.
This fee was subsequently waived, as we had then achieved some
cost-savings in the provision of our cable TV services and we
wanted to pass on the cost-savings to all our customers to provide
them with greater value.
However, due to the increased costs of maintaining the analogue and
digital operating systems, we are now unable to continue to waive
the monthly rental charge.
Please be assured that the rental fee for our analogue set-top box
was reinstated only after careful deliberation.
Additionally, the rental fee of $2 for an analogue set-top box is
now a third less than what was charged previously.
We seek Mr Lim's kind understanding on this matter and hope to
receive his continued support.
