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SOME private home owners who thought SingTel's mio TV was their ticket to pay-TV programmes are up against the same obstacle that for years kept them out of StarHub's cable TV service.
SingTel's pay-TV service, launched last July, delivers TV channels over a regular phone line, but some users are finding that they have to rewire their homes to get it.
This is because phone cables in their homes may be too old or their homes are too far away from a phone exchange which has the equipment to deliver the service.
They were in the same spot when StarHub launched its cable TV service more than a decade ago, in that they had to pay to hook up their homes if they did not want to wait until their homes were covered.
The Straits Times spoke to five private home owners - three in landed properties and two in apartments - who want mio TV but have not been able to get it as they live in the 10 per cent of homes still not covered by SingTel.
The service is available to 90 per cent of homes now, up from 85 per cent at its launch, but it is not known when the entire island will be covered.
While StarHub charges landed property owners from $2,352 to hook up their homes, SingTel does not have a fixed rate. The cost depends on the amount of work that needs to be done.
Retiree Tan Tuan Khoon, 61, for example, who lives in a semi-detached house off Yio Chu Kang Road and is interested in the CCTV4 Chinese news channel, said he was told it would cost $2,500 to hook up his home for mio TV.
He had signed up for the service, only to be told later that his house was not within range of the signals. He said: 'I already get SingTel's broadband and phone line at home but I can't get the TV programmes.'
In the same boat is businessman Ng Thye Peng, 34, who listed the channels he wanted, only to find out that he could not receive the service in his condominium apartment in the East Coast.
Like Mr Tan, he is already surfing the Net on SingTel's broadband service.
Replying to queries from The Straits Times, SingTel spokesman Tricia Lee called for customers to be patient, saying that the rollout was still under way; she noted that the process for other pay-TV services also took years.
Ironically, SingTel has been fast off the blocks with mio TV, garnering 27,000 customers for the service in the first five months.
Its pulling power comes from its being the first real challenger to the stranglehold StarHub has had on the market for 13 years.
Some couch potatoes believe mio TV can present even stiffer competition for StarHub if it hastens its efforts to hook up viewers.
Manager Wayne Goh, 35, who lives in a semi-detached house off Yio Chu Kang Road that is still not covered by SingTel, does not mind paying up to $500 for mio TV.
He was offered a set-top box as part of a deal when he signed up as a SingTel broadband service customer recently, but was later told that the mio TV service had not come to his neighbourhood.He said: 'I'm still keen if it means I can use the same phone line at home instead of installing a new cable.'
siewtha@sph.com.sg
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