Macau Cable TV (MCTV) has set up its network in
University of Macau (UMac). Faculty members and
students who live on campus can access 44 cable
channels if they sign up for the service, according to
Doris Loi, sales representative of MCTV. 

Promoting its service with a demonstration counter in
front of the old Student Affairs Office in Block I on
February 15, Loi showed some of the channels including
Animal Planet, National Geographic Channel, Discovery
Channel and ESPN Asia. They are both informative and
educational for students, she said. 

Currently, residents in the university quarters have free
access to 20 channels through antenna facilities. 

A demo of MCTV was available in the TV rooms in Block
III for the student residents, said Roberto Antonio Noronha, head of Student Affairs Office. 

"Upon our evaluation of the system and feedback from
the students, we will determine if we will continue this
service which will be paid for by the University," he
added. 

L. L. Alexandria, lecturer of the Faculty of Social
Sciences and Humanities, signed up for the MCTV
service on March 2.  She said that the service was wonderful, but the price of the service was more
expensive and with fewer channels when compared to
those similar services in other Southeast Asian countries. 

MCTV provides five packages for its customers. The
basic package with 39 channels costs $168 monthly.
Four additional packages which include more popular
channels such as HBO, Cinemax, STAR Movies and [V]
International, would add $40 to $88 a month. 

In addition, the service requires a digital decoder to be
connected to television sets. A decoder costs $1688
and is also available for rental service. Customers have
to pay a $800 deposit and a $30 monthly rent for each
decoder. 

Loi admitted that MCTV might not be very popular in a
short period of time, as Macau people are usually slow in
accepting new things.  The aim of their campus
promotion was to let more people know about their
service.