BRISTOL, N.H. — A cable television company providing service in five Franklin County towns will cease the service to customers in four of those towns — Chesterville, New Sharon, Temple and Weld — as of Oct. 15 but will continue service to Rangeley customers, Andrew Bauer, vice president of business and marketing for Argent Telecommunications said Monday.
About 200 customers in the four towns, many of whom subscribe only to the minimum cable package, will be affected by the change, he said. The company has provided service to these customers for about a year, continuing the service of first Time Warner then Windjammer Cable. Plans to renovate the service were set aside due to economic reasons, he said.
The company has talked with other cable servers including BeeLine and Time Warner to see if they would pick up the customers but that didn’t work out. Customers options are probably limited to seeking a satellite service, he said.
“We hate to quit. I feel badly for the people, especially the elderly,” he said.
Continuing to pay for receiving sites with a small customer base makes the economics of the service difficult to continue operating. The company also has too many projects going to run the service properly, he said.
There is a good base of customers in Rangeley and the company can service that area through their service in Milan, N.H. They hope to expand and offer Internet service eventually to Rangeley, he said.
They are also working on expanding Internet and phone service in their New Hampshire markets.
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