Inter (Venezuelan broadcaster)

Inter is a Venezuelan television broadcaster and telecommunications provider[1] headquartered in Barquisimeto, Lara, Venezuela. Inter was founded in 1996 as InterCable.[2] Its fiscal name is Corporacion Telemic C.A, and its main shareholder is the investment fund HM Capital Partners.

History

Inter started operations in 1996 in the city of Barquisimeto, and expanded its coverage to more than 100 cities and towns in the Venezuelan territory, being one of the main cable television operators in the country, in addition to providing broadband and fixed telephony services.

Inter has a hybrid network of optical fiber and coaxial cable that allows access to cable television services and broadband internet using the existing CATV networks connecting the subscriber by means of a coaxial cable to a zone node and later Interconnecting the zonal nodes with optical fiber, with a network that encompasses over 4 thousand kilometers of optical fiber.[3]

The Inter platform has bandwidths of 750 and 840 MHz, suitable for bidirectional transmissions. This network has the capacity to transmit more than 500 television channels as well as provide high-speed Internet access and voice and data transmissions for telephone service.

In August 2012, Inter launched a satellite television service based on the platform of the Chilean company TuVes HD adding Venezuelan channels. The platform uses the Telstar 12 satellite signal based on MPEG4 technology that allows high-quality signal compression allowing it to include high definition channels.

Current Situation

Over the last two years, the company has reduced its original offer of satellite and cable TV channels and broadband Internet plans, also, the quality of the service, customer support and the constant rise of fares[4] have changed the perception of the company into one of bad cost-quality relation, specially around the internet services, the company has ceased to cover some areas of the country and degraded service in others.[5] The poor quality of customer and technical support often leave users waiting for an answer or a solution, making some of them leave the company for other providers or hire cable TV only.[6][7]

Products

Inter offers digital cable TV services since 2002 and digital satellite television as of August 2012, currently providing up to 125[8] different channels, some featured products are:

  • Video on Demand (VOD)
  • HD Channels: The company offers sports, series, documentaries and cinema channels in high definition, which can only be seen using a specific digital decoder for this technology.

Broadband Internet

The company currently offers the following internet access plans:[9]

  • 2 Mb
  • 4 Mb
  • 10 Mb (corporative clients, subject to availability)

The company used to offer a wider variety of plans, now narrowed to the three listed above.

Fixed Digital Telephony

Inter offers VoIP (Voice over IP) telephony service, with one basic plan[10] with rates charged in seconds and unlimited calls between telephones of the same company, offering the particularity of moving the Unused second balance the next month.

gollark: The hilarity of a joke is directly proportional to the square of its length, you know.
gollark: (note: I like Linux and this is a joke, do not potato me)
gollark: What do Linux users do to change a lightbulb?First, a user creates a bug report, only for it to be closed with "could not reproduce" as the developers got to it in the day. Eventually, some nights later, someone realizes that it is actually a problem, and decides to start work on a fix, soliciting the help of other people.Debates soon break out on the architecture of the new lightbulb - should they replace it with an incandescent bulb (since the bulb which broke was one of those), try and upgrade it to a halogen or LED bulb, which are technically superior if more complex. or go to a simpler and perhaps more reliable solution such as a fire?While an LED bulb is decided on, they eventually, after yet more debate, deem off-the-shelf bulbs unsuitable, and decide to make their own using commercially available LED modules. However, some of the group working on this are unhappy with this, and splinter off, trying to set up their own open semiconductor production operation to produce the LEDs.Despite delays introduced by feature creep, as it was decided halfway through to also add RGB capability and wireless control, the main group still manages to produce an early alpha, and tests it as a replacement for the original bulb. Unfortunately it stops working after a few days of use, and debugging of the system suggests that the problem is because of their power supply - the bulb needs complex, expensive, and somewhat easily damaged circuitry to convert the mains AC power into DC suitable for the LEDs, and they got that bit a bit wrong.So they decide to launch their own power grid and lighting fixture standard, which is, although incompatible with every other device, technically superior, and integrates high-speed networking so they can improve the control hardware. Having completely retrofitted the house the original lightbulb failed in and put all their designs and code up on GitHub, they deem the project a success, and after only a year!
gollark: Minetest is already a thing.
gollark: It really isn't.

See also
  • Inter (disambiguation)

References
  1. "Inter". Inter. c. 2015. Retrieved 21 February 2015.
  2. "Inter (Corporacion Telemic C.A.)". BNamericas. c. 2015. Retrieved 21 February 2015.
  3. "Diseño del Sistema de Administración y Monitoreo para la Red Híbrida entre Fibra Óptica y Cable Coaxial (HFC) de Intercable región Central". Universia Venezuela. Archived from the original on 26 September 2013. Retrieved 4 May 2017.
  4. "Another exorbitant rise in fares by Inter". sumarium.com. 1 February 2017.
  5. "Pésimo servicio de empresa Inter genera molestias en redes sociales". elimpulso.com.
  6. "The odyssey of the internet in Venezuela". e-softmedia.com. 5 February 2017.
  7. "Inter, the company that rises fares, degrades service and disregards users". sumarium.com. 21 November 2016.
  8. "Television Satelital Residencial de Inter". inter official website. Retrieved 4 May 2017.
  9. "Internet access plans". inter official website.
  10. "Inter VoIP Plans". inter official website.
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