The cable television system in residence halls was shut down over the summer, leaving many students on a long waitlist for boxes that let them continue using conventional TVs.
Students can now watch TV using the Internet-based IPTV system, which lets them watch directly on a computer or on a regular television using a converter box. But the Office of Residential Life, which is renting the converter boxes to students, did not initially order enough boxes to meet student demand.
Senior Associate Dean of Residential and Dining Services Richard Bova told The Herald last fall that other Ivy League schools who have an Internet-based system found the demand for cable boxes to be low.
Bova said 185 boxes have been rented out and 75 people are on the waitlist. It costs $40 to rent a box for the year.
Bova said he does not believe the University underestimated the demand.
"You never know," he said. "This is our first time doing it. It's a brand-new adventure."
Bova said that while the waitlist is long, not all students who reserved boxes in the spring picked them up.
"We've been calling and e-mailing them for days," he said.
Bova described the old system as "antiquated," and said IPTV holds twice as many channels. IPTV carries channels such as USA and Fox News which weren't available on Brown's cable system, as well as campus channels like Brown TV.
Despite the long waitlist for converter boxes, some students said they did not notice the absence of cable, and prefer to use IPTV.
"I just brought my TV to watch movies and play video games," said Juan Carranza '12. "I had the TV last year, but I watched IPTV most of the time."
Sam Eilertsen '12, the executive producer of BTV, said he thinks online television is the way of the future, and said he hopes more students will watch BTV since cable is no longer an option.
"TV is moving in the direction of the Internet, and not just in college," he said. "Cable broadcast has to compete with YouTube and Hulu."
