CCTT decoders causing headaches

SCORES of people descended on the Cable Company of Trinidad and Tobago’s (CCTT) Richmond Street office yesterday, in an attempt to get their malfunctioning cable boxes changed for the long weekend. Customers have been complaining for weeks about the quality of broadcast from the country’s lone cable provider. One customer told Newsday he had to return the “new” decoder box because it did not function when he got home. “The substandard equipment the cable company brings to Trinidad is not functioning properly.

I went in to them today (yesterday) to change my decoder box, and when I got back home with the new one, that not even working, so now I have to go back to them and change the ‘new’ one,” said the irate customer. CCTT issued a release yesterday stating they had upgraded and enhanced picture quality and seamless transition from channel to channel. They said the older decoder boxes were unable to handle the upgrade and has caused some problems. The company stated that in order to determine if  they fall into this category, customers are asked to follow these procedures:

1. Tune your decoder box to channel 39 (Animal Planet)

2. The decoder box will display L01 and remain locked on channel 39. During this period, the decoder box should receive the updated software and provide the new level of service. The process should take 20 minutes.

3. If steps one and two do not go smoothly (for instance the decoder box keeps cycling through the channels), unplug the decoder box, wait one minute and plug it in again.

4. Turn on the box. It should display the L01 message and automatically tune to channel 39 (Animal Planet).

5. Leave on the decoder box until it turns itself off (this should take about 20 minutes). The decoder box will display the correct time after a few seconds.

6. Once the time is displayed, turn the decoder box back on and proceed to select channel of choice. If all the above steps fail, customers can call CCTT.