By WILL STEWART / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard

CANTRELL

The monopoly is over. With Ben Lomand’s entry into the local TV market earlier this month, Charter Communications is no longer the county’s sole cable provider.

BLTV, as the company’s video service subsidiary is known, has been online in the city of McMinnville since the beginning of May, and should be ready to expand outside the city by late summer or early fall.

“As the demands and needs of our customers change, we change,” said Ben Lomand CEO Levoy Knowles. “We are answering a need of the community by giving people a choice in their video component. We’re very excited to be a part of this new wave of technology.”

Strictly speaking, Ben Lomand’s TV service is not cable. Rather, it is an all-digital video service which is transmitted via phone lines.

“Basically cable is a shared network in which each home fights for bandwidth. With video, each home can get its own amount of bandwidth,” said Ben Lomand technician Ray Cantrell. “This makes our picture quality and service more robust than any of our competitors. You really have to see it to believe it.”

But as the video service enters homes via phone lines, all wishing to subscribe to BLTV must have phone service through Ben Lomand.

Knowles said the company’s move to video service has been in the making for over a year. It is the final part, he said, of Ben Lomand’s “triple play,” which also includes its phone and Internet service.

“We want to be a one-stop shop,” said Knowles. “Now customers and members will be able to get their Internet, long-distance telephone, local telephone service and video all in one bill. We’re only the third company in Tennessee to attempt this progressive measure.”

The makeup of BLTV’s video packages is similar in size and channel selection to Charter’s, and includes digital basic and expanded digital basic packages, as well as a number of premium channel options and pay-per-view choices. The biggest difference is BLTV does not offer analog service, as the federal government has mandated all TV service be digital by 2006.

Other differences include on-screen caller ID pop-up for customers with Ben Lomand caller ID service, and the addition of a local weather station which gives real-time weather and radar information exclusively for McMinnville. The caller ID service displays the number of who is calling on your TV screen.

For more information, call 507-BLTV.