To the Journal editor:

Charter Cable has just informed its customers that it is changing to an all-digital format and that we now need a box for each TV that is hooked up. We are allowed one box for free for one year and then have to pay 6.99 for each box thereafter.

Charter tells us that they are terminating the analog signal in their system because it takes up too much bandwidth. I have been a Charter customer for over 26 years and have seen some hefty increases over the years but nothing like this. Let’s see, I have four TV’s hooked up so I will be paying an additional 27.96 per month on top of an already bloated cable bill, This is totally outrageous and unacceptable to me. One of the good things about cable versus satellite was that with cable you could hook up any amount of TV’s that you wanted to for one price.

Apparently, Charter thinks they can dazzle us by giving us a new channel lineup in digital and HD. If they really want to impress us they could offer us a la carte, where we pay only for the channels we buy instead of getting tons of junk channels in a bundle. I have a contract with Charter that doesn’t expire until next summer but after that I will be free to shop around; I will look in to satellite TV and DSL Internet from my local phone company.

It shouldn’t be hard to find television and internet service that is cheaper than charter, after all, they must be one of the most expensive providers out there and once their customers start unhooking they will have all kinds of free bandwidth on their system, lots of bandwidth and no customers.

JOHN?CARR

Munising