NEWHALL - Sheriff's Department officials will join AT&T Broadbandcompany representatives today in Newhall to destroy about 3,000illegal cable television service decoding devices that have beenconfiscated.
A giant, five-ton steamroller will be used outside the localcable company offices to crush these "black boxes," which are usedto illegally decode AT&T Broadband cable signals.
The decoding devices, seized throughout Los Angeles city andcounty by AT&T Broadband security personnel in conjunction withvarious law enforcement agencies, represent a small portion of cablepiracy, company officials said. Nationally, cable theft costs theindustry more than $6 billion a year.
"This event is only the beginning in our efforts to put an end tothese fraudulent practices," said Debi Picciolo, senior vicepresident for AT&T Broadband in Southern California. "Cable theftharms everyone - cable operators lose millions of dollars inrevenue, cable programmers lose the ability to control access totheir original programming, cities lose valuable franchise fees andworse, honest customers lose from having to subsidize the cost ofthe theft and potentially suffer degraded picture quality from weaksignals caused by tampering with the converters and our network."
AT&T operates an anonymous hotline (1-800-35-THEFT) to reportpossible cable thefts.
AT&T Broadband is the nation's largest broadband servicescompany, providing television entertainment services to more than 13million customers across the nation. The company also providesdigital cable, high- speed cable Internet services and local phoneservice.
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