Friday, December 29, 2006

2006 : A Year in Review - LBN

This year turned out to be a very bad year for the subscribers of LBN with the sudden closure of LBN under controversial grounds so lets a look at a summary of things that happened during this year.

  • LBN which has been entertaining their subscribers for several years were thrown into disarray a week after they launched digital cable services when they were closed on controversial grounds just a week after CBNsat shutdown.
  • LBN which took the authorities to court after the shutdown were able to obtain Defense Ministry clearance but are still awaiting the TRC license which has to be signed by the President.
  • LBN Management is constantly being lambasted by their customers for their handling of the crisis. It is also fair to note that LBN customers have been unable to rally themselves to give a helping hand to the company as well as for protecting their investments in the service.
The next court case is scheduled for Jan 9th 2007 and we hope that LBN will be able to resume transmissions soon after.

Well that's all folks for this year since we are taking the weekend and January 1st 2007 off, so we will be back with you from January 2nd 2007. Please keep sending us your valuable emails and also updating this blog with your comments on the latest happenings regarding LBN during the next few days while we are away and also throughout the New Year 2007. For a full review on all the events in the Sri Lankan television and radio media front please read the TV & Radio Sri Lanka Blog post called "2006 : A Year in Review".

We like to take this opportunity to wish all of our fellow Bloggers, the Staff and Management of LBN specially Managing Director of LBN Mr. Shirantha Herath who was keeping in touch with us earlier but not anymore A Happy, Peaceful and Prosperous New Year 2007

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Our Wishes for the season

We would like to take this opportunity to Wish the subscribers of LBN, the management of LBN and all our fellow readers a Very Merry Christmas and we hope that you will be able to enjoy this festive spirit even without your favourite cable television provider.

We are taking a break of one week (we should be back towards the latter part of next week) in view of the festive season so please update this blog with the latest developments regarding LBN. We are also updating this blog to the latest version of "Blogger", so due to this upgrade their may be some difficulties in commenting, so please bear with us if there are some problems while we are away. We are trying our best to make sure that the switch over will be smooth and with minimum interruptions.

In other news LBN is facing a barrage of criticism from its subscribers for not updating its customers on the latest developments or whether they are working on alternatives solutions to their customers. We have sent several emails to the management but they have not been replying to us. Initially LBN did update us on the developments of their court hearings but then abruptly stopped doing that and do not reply to our emails either.

We hope that the management starts to update its 10,000+ subscriber base and works harder to restore services that have been halted for over 6 months now.

We also urge the TRC and all institutions to speed by the issuing of licenses to LBN so that their customers may not be victimized any further.

We would also like to urge the customers of LBN to form a Subscriber Unite similar to CBNsat and we are sure that CBNsat Subscriber Unite will be able to guide you in forming one once there are people who are willing to take the lead in forming this unit.

We hope that this unfortunate crisis that hit the cable television industry in Sri Lanka will be sorted out soon and we will see the restoration LBN services very soon.

Once again we request you to keep updating this blog with the latest news regarding LBN as the days progress.

Friday, December 15, 2006

Form a LBN Subscribers Group

At the moment according to information that is being received by us LBN is not providing information and keeping their customers informed of the present situation.

We think it is time for the subscribers to form a group and approach the relevant authorities and inform them of your grievances.

Requests by us to LBN customers to form a group like the one formed by CBNsat customers have so far gone unheeded so we hope that someone takes up this challenge and makes sure that the customers are adequately protected.

Commenting made easy

Complaints have been made by several of our bloggers that commenting on this blog is now difficult due to the implementation of registration process.

Therefore we have decided to remove this feature but we request everyone not to make anonymous comments.

Please include your name in every comment that you make.


Monday, December 11, 2006

Two month wait for Signature

Over 10,000 subscribers still wait in vain Two-month wait for presidential nod continues to hold up LBN transmission resumption

CBNSat, the satellite broadcasting station which resumed transmission last week after a victorious six-month court battle said the Supreme Court order proved that all allegations made against company were completely false and baseless.

"It was a long fight to clear the name of CBNSat", the cable television provider said in a statement posted on its website.

In an act of solidarity, CBNSat expressed hope that Lanka Broadband Networks (LBN), which still remain sealed, will be permitted by the authorities to resume transmissions soon.

"There are over 10,000 LBN subscribers who are still awaiting transmissions to resume and we hope that the issue will be resolved without any further inconveniences", the company said in a special message titled "Restore LBN".

Notwithstanding Defence Ministry clearance, LBN has still not been allowed to resume operations because the President, under whose purview the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) comes, has so far not signed the relevant documents.

"The documents were sent to the President by the TRC on October 14", LBN Managing Director Shirantha Herath said last week. "Almost two months after, we are still awaiting the green light".

"We have even paid the licence fee", he said. "There are 10,500 customers who have been kept waiting for six months".

The Defence Ministry and TRC have cleared LBN to resume transmission, but a simple formality of granting final Presidential approval has held up the whole process, an industry official said.

Two senior Presidential aides contacted by the Sunday Island were unable to explain the two-month delay in placing a signature on a document, as required by the law.

"Contact the President's Secretary", they suggested but repeated attempts to contact Lalith Weeratunga were futile.

A Media Ministry official said that after CBNSat was allowed to resume transmission following the intervention of the Supreme Court, attempts are apparently being made by those instrumental in sealing CBNSat and LBN to wash their hands off the whole affair.

"We cannot be made the whipping boy because we were not responsible for this situation", he said. "It was the TRC wanted them sealed".

The transmission of CBNsat and LBN cable television were blocked by the CID in June this year for allegedly operating without a valid license.

By Suresh Perera

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Restore LBN soon

After the success of CBNsat and the subsequent take over by Dialog Telekom we hope that the authorities will also allow LBN to resume transmissions soon.

There are over 10,000 subscribers who are awaiting transmissions to resume and we hope that the issue will be resolved without any further inconveniences.

Please update us on the latest on LBN as the days progress. We also hope that the management of LBN will update us on the prevailing situation soon.