Local residents may notice an increase in their cable bill next month as Cox Communications institutes price adjustments on many of their cable packages.
Cox Community Relations Manager Jennifer Muench said the price hike was due to three specific reasons: increases in programming costs, network upgrades – including a larger variety of High Definition channels – and increases in operational costs.
The company hopes to increase options for their viewers by adding new HD channels for customers to choose from this year, Muench said. This expansion, she said, is one of the factors that contributed to the price hike.
“As we continue to upgrade and increase bandwidth, our operating costs increase,” Muench said.
Cox has already notified the customers who will be affected by the price adjustments, which will begin on March 15. However, not all customers will see their rates go up and the extent to which customers will be affected differs according to the individual services they subscribe to.
A total of nine cable services are set to undergo price adjustments. The Limited Basic package will increase from $26.64 to $29.14 and the Digital Basic will change from $62.24 to $68.74.
However, the price increases will have differing effects on students. University-owned residence halls are in a unique situation, Muench said, as they provide basic cable packages to residents as part of the housing fee. Because of this, most students living on-campus will not be affected by the price adjustments.
“I don’t see it affecting students who live in university-owned residences, unless those students have ordered advanced services from us directly,” Muench said.
Students residing in non-university owned apartments and homes who subscribe to Cox are most likely see an increase in their cable service bill depending on their current package and the extent of the extra services they currently subscribe to, Muench said.
HD
I will believe the bit about "a larger variety of High Definition channels" when they are actually added.
Most area residents are probably unaware that our local HD selection from Cox pales in comparison to the services the company offers in other markets.
The last time I counted, there are 10 networks that are offered elsewhere by Cox, but not here in SB. When will our local provider catch up?
who cares about when cox will catch up with competition in other markets – i want to know when there will be an alternative in santa barbara…
cox is miserable
Cox is my friend in the digital age…who steals my money and my sleeps with my wife
Of all the Cox Communication regions in this country, Santa Barbara is given the absolute worst selection of HD channels. We have 14. The next lowest has over 30. Oddly enough, we also pay the most. Other regions pay $5.25 for HD service, we pay $7.99. We also don’t even have a basic search or menu system on our cable boxes.