STORY UPDATED. The number of Telenet customers protesting about their set-top box becoming obsolete is growing fast with over 25,000 people signing a petition as per Thursday, April 18 at 4pm CET. The protests concern around 100,000 so-called Digiboxes, which will become obsolete when Belgian cable operator Telenet switches off its SD channels.
Telenet has informed the owners of the first generation cable set-top boxes that their equipment won’t receive any channels from September 2, 2014. It concerns sets sold between 2005 and 2009 (models AD100, AD101, AD110, AD120 and the so-called Digicorder AD1000).
The announcement has fired off a fierce reaction from customers and consumer organisation Test-Aankoop has launched a petition against the move with already over 25,000 people signing up – and still counting.
From September 2, Telenet will only transmit HD signals on its network making HD the default standard. Owners of the SD set-tops are required to buy a new device, which will set them back at least EUR79 for a tuner, or EUR199 for a PVR.
In the petition, the customers ask Telenet to provide either a free new set-top box, or continue distributing SD signals on its network.
This is the second time within a period of a few weeks that Telenet pulls the plug out of a service. The operator recently switched off the DTT DVB-T2 network Teletenne.
On the picture below: the set-top boxes that will become obsolete from September 2, 2014.
