Turned on TV for start of evening news and got “Zippo” from Chiang Mai

Cable Service Provider, WETV.

 

Wife phoned just after 17:00 and was told in THAI, “The Government has stopped us from operating.”

 

No further explanation, no idea if and when WETV may be allowed to resume operations.

 

Anyone know anything more? 

Edited December 20, 20187 yr by metisdead
All caps removed from topic title. Bold font reset to normal.

"... 60 video and audio channels through analog and 180 digital channels..."

 

Hmmm...do you think they were paying for the rights to broadcast all of those channels? 

Maybe linked to the new
"anti piracy" agency there's a thread about Netflix being the first to use them.

My Condo has this as part of their provided services. Like others I turned it on this evening to find ... nothing.

 

 

That's odd, I noticed their vans in our soi multiple times over the past few days. I saw them fiddling around in a signal type box; so I guess they must have been switching off their own service !

Went off for half a day earlier in the week.

 

We've been using the service for more than ten years and the price has never gone up; i've often wondered how that's possible with inflational pressures over that period of time.   Used to have BBC World News, that vanished then Sky News from London and that also vanished.  Never any explanation why channels just vanish and if you ask them why they say they may bring them back later.  Of course; this is Thailand where Lies are always told first rather than own up to any problems.

 

Looks like the old Ariel is coming back out tomorrow !

Ours stopped working about 2 weeks ago. We tried calling but could not get through. When we were in the city a few days ago, we stopped by thinking they may have cut us off because we were a month past due. To our surprise, after staring at the computer for what seemed like 15 minutes, the girl handed us a bill for 150 Baht (instead of 700) and told us that service should resume "shortly". It never did.

 

Weird!

Edited December 20, 20187 yr by elektrified

Lots of very pissed off customers (hotel owners and so forth) on their pages!

7 hours ago, Trujillo said:

Hmmm...do you think they were paying for the rights to broadcast all of those channels?

Do you think any of those local cable providers pay broadcasting rights?

 

Before you start thinking about that, most of them have many channels on them for which broadcasting rights for Thailand aren't even available.

2 hours ago, elektrified said:

Lots of very pissed off customers (hotel owners and so forth) on their pages!

 

I don't read Thai, but via Google Translate of the above image file, it looks like there's a dispute over license fees to the government, some enforcement action by the NBTC (had their license revoked?) and a court case over it all. Bottom line, WETV cable TV service suspended for the time being.

 

 

 

Edited December 20, 20187 yr by TallGuyJohninBKK

The letter says there was a big govt/police/army inspection on 20 Dec. resulting in their license being revoked. WETV is one of 44 cable providers throughout the country that have had their license revoked.

Their is an intermediary company called CTH which is responsible for paying the broadcasting license. It doesn't seem particularly clear whether they paid or not although it seems to be the general opinion that they did and the govt kept sending then bills. The case was taken to court and seems has not been finally settled and is still going through the court. However after a big "presence" at their office they found it necessary to "pull the plug". However they say this is only temporary.

2 hours ago, cmsally said:

 

Their is an intermediary company called CTH which is responsible for paying the broadcasting license.

 

CTH isn't just an intermediary company. It has its own long and storied history of Thailand cable TV messes. And at least in the past was headed (board chairman) by a guy who used to be Thaksin's personal lawyer.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CTH_(company)#Downfall

 

I thought they basically went out of business a couple years back, but apparently not...

 

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/Lessons-from-the-rise-and-fall-of-CTH-30291176.html

 

 

 

6 hours ago, hyku1147 said:

The Internet has all the latest movies and commercial free TV shows. With simple hardware and software, you can run them into a big screen TV.

 

Torrents are a reliable source:

http://www.1337x.to

 

Torrent downloader:

Utorrent.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjk-NXqq6_fAhVJKo8KHdG4CgMQFjAAegQIAhAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.utorrent.com%2F&usg=AOvVaw26Fn-pi-_UzxW-ICaIXL6Q

 

Players:

5kplayer

SMPlayer

 

The learning curve is small.

 

Another good source for downloading:

https://www.divxcrawler.club/

 

With a downloader:

https://www.tixati.com/

 

A VPN and serious malware protection is advisable.

 

1337X and divxcrawler seem to be linked so when a search movies is made on divxcrawler, 1337X, YTS and Pirate Bay also show up as download options.