Panama. Undoubtedly, one of the main problems of pay TELEVISION in Latin America continues to be piracy. Despite government and private enterprise efforts, few cases have had a successful outcome.
Experts in the field do not hesitate to point out that among those few successful cases is Panama. Cable Onda is one of the largest Pay-TV operators in the Central American country and managed to reduce active and passive piracy by 30% in 15 years, going from 32% to 2% in 2015 in 2000.
Marcelina de Lee, director of revenue assurance and corporate security of Cable Onda, explained during the meeting of the Panama Chapter of Certal, that this loss has been the result of a wasteful work to combat piracy, which included the creation of an anti-piracy office of the company.
"Our work began with internal campaigns with collaborators and technicians in ethics and values to create zero tolerance for fraud, because sadly we must recognize that many times pirates are inside the company and we created an investigation office that was always on the streets and another audit office that evaluates the work of technicians," commented.
They also carried out campaigns in which they went to those who were illegally connected accompanied by the company's lawyers and the media, as a way to make the problem visible. And between 2010 and 2013 the digitalization of the service was done.
He added that the company has divided piracy into three categories. The first is active piracy, in which a person illegally connects to the service, which decreased considerably with digitization. The second is passive piracy, in which, due to an organizational disorder, those who requested their cancellation were not disconnected from the service, but neither was the charge made.
The third is premium priratería, in which a person receives a different service than the one he pays. "On the subject of piracy there is always a constant work, because with every development or update we have, the pirates are on top of it seeing how to overcome it. Today our main problem is the theft and cloning of the boxes," concluded Marcelina de Lee.
