Government and CableVision have until Thursday to settle their differences or else the island's cable TV service could be axed.

Cablevision's bid to overturn an injunction stopping it from pulling the plug was put on hold yesterday after a court hearing was postponed because the Government lawyer was sick.

The company wants to overturn Government's injunction which stopped it from ending the service when their 15-year licence expired 13 days ago.

The injunction made them keep the service for three months while they enter talks with Government which wants them to promise to improve the service.

The company has only been given a one-year licence and says it cannot afford to keep investing millions of dollars with such a short-term deal.

On Friday, company lawyer Alan Dunch said if the company won the case the company would end the service because it does not have a licence and would be operating illegally.

A new hearing is set for Thursday afternoon but Telecommunications Minister Renee Webb said she couldn't see the point of it.

She said the two sides had met three times since last Thursday afternoon and CableVision had hired a consultant to work out a with Government on service level agreement setting out what they would do when customers lost service.

She said: "I have no idea if they can get this sorted out by Thursday.

"We are working together. They are doing exactly what we wanted them to do all along.

"I cannot understand what their objective is as they currently have a year's licence. We in the Ministry are baffled about the court process and what they want to do.

"If we resolve the issue we can extend their licence."

A statement from CableVision said it would not disclose the contents of its legal bid.

But Ms Webb said the CableVision writ claimed her technical team had hinted the firm would get a 15-year renewal.

She said: "The technical team said they never gave that indication. That is not the sort of thing we encourage them to do. It didn't really say much apart from they are trying to get the injunction lifted."

There were also hints from the CableVision side that a deal could be done before the Thursday deadline.

Bermuda Cablevision chairman Rod Hansen said: "We are also pleased to report that an avenue is now open for us to communicate with the Ministry and hopefully resolve the issue of our licence extension.

"We are currently working on the development of a service level agreement as we proposed to do last week.

"Our primary goal is to continue serving our customers and completing our new cable system and training programmes so that we can ensure the highest quality service to our subscribers."