Bermuda Cablevision is no longer the company everyone loves to hate, according to CEO Jeremy Elmas.

Mr. Elmas - who has been at the helm of the cable TV company since January, 2001 - said last year Cablevision could have claimed the title of most hated local company, but no more.

Speaking to The Royal Gazette last week Mr. Elmas said that last year Cablevision had the most complaints with the Department of Consumer Affairs of any company, but that a recent conversation with director Karen Marshall indicated the number of gripes against the firm had dropped significantly.

The furore over the company culminated with Cablevision's decision last year to introduce converter boxes - a prequisite for subscribers to access cable service. Consumer Affairs - and the Ministry of Telecommunications who oversees broadcast services - was subsequently flooded with complaints from subscribers.

Mr. Elmas said the company has now started to reap the rewards of its nearly $8 million upgrade that ultimately will result in improved service and better picture quality for the company's 17,000 subscribers. Said Mr. Elmas, the "rebuild" is slated for completion by early in 2003 .

"We have turned the corner. I am not saying we are there yet, but we are on our way," Mr. Elmas said.

Mr. Elmas said that the first step when he arrived on the Island was to assess the company's plant and found it was necessary to "pump a lot of money" in to the company.

Mr. Elmas, who has been working in the cable sector over the past nine years in both the US and Cayman Islands, said technologically Bermuda was far behind North America when he arrived. Now the company is gearing up to build a broad two-way system that will allow it to harness broadband technology - a service that has yet to be introduced.

To that end, the company has been building an Islandwide fibre-optic node network and is up and running with 22 of the fibre-optic nodes.

Each 'node' is a point of interface between the new fibre optic lines and Cablevision's distribution lines, which run to subscribers' homes.

In the next fortnight the company will activate 17 more nodes and eventually have a network of 280 nodes in place. The scope of the project, Mr. Elmas said, has prompted the company to bring in another team of cable construction workers.

The end result of the upgrade, Mr. Elmas said, could be much greater than improved cable TV service. Mr. Elmas said the company - subject to licensing approval from the Telecommunications Ministry - could feasibly, in future, move in to providing Internet service, multiple-channels of commercial-free digital music (DMX) and a much greater choice of programming.