Curtis Shaw, general manager of Northwestel, said the company is getting new cable signal boxes to replace the duds.

Kevin Allerston
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Aug 12/05) - NorthwesTel Cable is scrambling to fix a problem that left many Yellowknife digital cable subscribers without service.

On July 5, Northwestel says it received a bad shipment from a dealership in San Diego, California, of the Motorola "set-top boxes" that provide digital cable.

The cable company ordered replacements for the units, but there are still about 40 people left with no digital cable.

Marlene Hnatiw is one of those still with a bad box.

Hnatiw does receive 40 channels, but she is without the 300-plus channels she paid $88 for in advance.

"That's not what I signed up for," Hnatiw said.

Curtis Shaw, general manager of NorthwesTel, said they are working on getting new boxes to replace the duds.

He said they have stopped taking new customers for digital cable until they have replacements or they can find a software solution.

Credits for digital cable will be given to any customers experiencing problems, and most customers have been given full analog cable service until the problem is resolved.