It would cost $10 million to $20 million to establish a Holyoke Gas and Electric Department cable TV system.
Miles of fiber optic cables would be needed for a cable TV system at a cost of millions of dollars. This November photo shows fiber optics at the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center on Bigelow Street in Holyoke,
HOLYOKE — The Holyoke Gas and Electric Department is unlikely to establish a cable television system because it would require an investment of up to $20 million, Manager James M. Lavelle said Thursday.
Lavelle was asked about a possible cable TV venture for the department after the idea, which officials here considered in the 1990s, arose during a public hearing about the city's contract with Comcast.
"We don't have a current plan to get into the cable TV business," Lavelle said.
The department provides Internet access to commercial customers. But it would cost $10 million to $20 million to install additional fiber optic lines underground to all homes and to build other infrastructure, making the move unlikely at this point, he said.
Mayor Alex B. Morse held the hearing Wednesday at the Senior Center to get comments from customers about the performance of Comcast and what customers would like to see, as part of the process of city negotiations for a new contract.
The current 10-year contract with Comcast expires in October.
James G. Cartwright, of Knollwood Circle, was among those at the hearing asking about the absence of competition against Comcast and the Gas and Electric Department cable TV discussions that last occurred in the late 1990s.
"All of a sudden the idea dropped," Cartwright said.
It is cost, and not any federal cable TV law, that leaves the city without competing cable TV vendors, said P. Al Williams, a member of the mayor's cable TV advisory committee and the executive director of Northampton Community Television.
Holyoke, with 12,000 Comcast customers, doesn't offer a large enough consumer base to spur another company to spend millions of dollars either on installing cable lines or leasing existing ones, he said.
"That's the standard of the industry," Williams said.
Besides cost, municipally run cable TV systems are opposed by private vendors that want revenue streams to stay unchanged.
But in some places, municipal cable TV has been part of the community for years. The town of Russell provides municipal cable TV. Also, Jackson, Minn., has run its own system since 1947.
"We have 53 channels of quality programming. We receive our signals from seven satellite dishes and three off-air antennas. There are 34 miles of cable planted throughout the city and it is maintained by two employees," according to the Jackson, Minn., website.