They never dreamed it’d be over – The Al Gilkes column

THE DREAM is all over for hundreds – some say thousands – of Barbadians.Now, the majority of them are forced to live with a nightmare which, for a very long time, they had all hoped and prayed they would never haveto experience.For without any fanfare and without even a solitary paragraph or mention in either the printor electronic media, the era of the popular Dreambox with which they were able to enjoy allof the MCTV channels with no monthly charges, after making the one-time payment for the purchase of the box, came to an end a few days ago.CBC had recently warned that they now had the technology to put the Dreamboxes out of operation, but not even after they knocked outthe sports and movie channels in a show of strength did the Dreambox owners believe they could all be shut down. After all, every time they had been out in the past, within minutes, users were provided with the new codes and within a few more minutes were back to watching their favourite movieor sport channel.Dreambox owners and users have been switched from access to MCTV to direct CBCTV 8 – and no other channel. I have been informed that many of the boxes aren’t even showing that solitary channel, and lots of people have found themselves digging through old junk trying to find back the long discarded rabbit ears antenna that their TV set came with. However, with new micro-computer technology being introduced to Barbados whereby persons can have access to twice as many channels on their TV screens via the Internet as they enjoyed via the Dreamboxes, the big concern of most users is that they are stuck with equipment that experts tell me cannot be reprogrammed or reconstructed to access MCTV ever again. Nevertheless, I have heard through the grapevine that the new net TV kids on the block are considering offering a discount for customers whose dream has been unceremoniously disturbed by CBC.I have not been a victim of the nightmare because I remained with my MCTV service. So I have not missed one minute of American Idol, Dancing With The Stars, CNN, ABC, BBC News or any of the other shows which get my attention.That said, you all know that I always havea problem with something. My problem with the action has to do with the fact that in order to get rid of the Dreambox users CBC seems to have also knocked out their own basic channels. As a result, customers with only the basic package seem to have also been switched from MCTV to direct CBCTV 8.I use the word “seem” because that is howit seems to my 96-year-old mother in Checker Hall, St Lucy, who is as mentally alert as someone 40 years younger. She opted for the basic package to keep up to date with the latest localand international news, scientific, ecological and other information on Discovery and History while getting a little religion for her soul via the channels that deal with the Word.Hopefully, CBC will tell her the problem is with reception in Checker Hall, or with her set.