Cable operator Flow says it will complete roll out of its “triple play services” — subscriber television, landline telephone and Internet — throughout the wider St Catherine area by early this year, having already completed full roll out throughout Kingston and St Andrew, Portmore, and Mandeville.

Flow’s director of marketing, Sharon Roper told the Business Observer that the company was “moving very rapidly” but added that the process had been slowed by very “labour-intensive build-out” that contradicted the “cutting-edge” nature of the technology being used.

Meanwhile Flow — the Jamaican arm of the Barbados-based Columbus Communications Group — is also said to be growing rapidly in western Jamaica, especially in Montego Bay.

“We are actually building out the whole of Montego Bay so by early this year we will have all three services in that city,” Roper explained at Monday night’s official launch of HBO services in Jamaica, held at the Spanish Court Hotel in Kingston, adding that Flow services are also available in Negril and Ocho Rios.

Of the three services, cable remains the fastest growing, although Roper explained that there is also a great demand for Internet service.

“With broadband we are to bring down the cost of Internet as we know it, so we are offering up to 15 megabits per second (Mbps) of Internet speed for less than what our competitors are offering the four Mbps service for,” she said.

And as the company gets ready to increase rates for its cable service effective March 1, Roper blamed the imminent upward adjustment to a 25 per cent devaluation of the Jamaican dollar against hard currency since 2009 — Flow’s service costs are calculated in US dollars.

“We have just put through a price increase on the cable side of the business which we haven’t done for a few years as we really try our best to manage our cost,” she said.

Roper explained further that they are holding back on an increase for Internet service, or at least for now, having increased the price of that service last year.

“We are conscious of the market we are in and so we went through a heavy cost cutting exercise internally in order to not pass on price to our customers,” she said.

Flow now controls eight of the 48 cable companies said to be operating across the island.

Meanwhile, Javier Figueras, sales vice president of HBO Latin America Group, who was in the island to launch the Caribbean specific package with Flow said Jamaicans will be able to access HBO programmes for less that what it cost in the US.

“I think it is very great programming for the money and it is actually cheaper than the US,” he said.

The new HBO package includes channels such as HBO, HBO Plus, HBO Family, Cinemax, Max Prime and HBO HD and the Warner Channel among others.

He told the Business Observer that the negotiation process took some time as they had to ensure that the Caribbean specific programme would be welcome in the region.

“We were not sure if putting a HBO specific for Caribbean was something people would like even though we are very sure of the content… but there has been a lot of piracy and so it was something we needed to assure the business partners that it was going to be good for the region.”

He said a lot of other English speaking Caribbean islands have expressed satisfaction with the HBO package.

“Right now we are talking to the Bahamas and we are very close to getting to an agreement to launch it there as well,” he said.

In the meantime, he lauded the Broadcasting Commission which he said had insisted that cable companies comply with HBO’s request to cease from broadcasting its programmes without permission.

“It took some time for all the parties to understand each of the situation but after understanding each other… they know it is about the industry not about one cable system or the other or one programmer or another but one industry,” Figueras said.

He explained that they have also been able to reach an agreement with Telstar and Logic One cable companies.

Roper explained that it took some time to reach an agreement as Flow wanted to be able to offer a package to fit every budget.

“We were able to negotiate everything from buying one HBO channel for $275 and all the way to the full 11 channels,” Roper said.

Flow advertise HBO packages that range in price from $450 for Cinemax basic to 950 for all the channels, not inclusive of tax.

She said also that one of the challenges faced by HBO was they needed to clear the right to broadcast the content as the content for the US is not cleared for broadcast in the Caribbean and Latin America.

“So they have gone in an re-negotiate the contract to allow this content to be cleared,” she said.

This programme, she said has many advantages among them less repeats

Michele English president and chief operating officer at Flow said “we see this agreement with HBO as a further re-enforcement of our commitment to meet international standards as it relates to programming and subscription procedures and to provide our customers with the best content available in our market.”

She explained that through the arrangement with Flow the company will be able to offer residential customers an extensive suite of HBO services that have been cleared for broadcast in Jamaica.

As such a total of 11 HBO/Cinemax channels, Warner TV and HBO HD will be available to customers.

Flow customers, she said have been enjoying a free viewing of the HBO channels over the past couple of months. However to help customers in deciding which package they want, they will be given an additional free month for February.