An extra 114 channels of cable TV could be on Bermuda?s screens by the end of February, World on Wireless (WOW) bosses have promised.

President Gavin Wilson told yesterday that licences, frequencies and much of the logistics were already in place for the launch of the digital television service.

WOW, which is hoping to capture 20 percent of the monopoly currently held by CableVision, will use a tower at Prospect to transmit the UHF broadcast which can be picked up by a ?Christmas Tree? style antenna linked to a set-top box.

?It is a very exciting time,? said Mr. Wilson, whose company was granted a licence following public hearings last October and initially hoped to be broadcasting by July this year.

?Basically we have located a tower up at Prospect, which having survived Hurricane Fabian we know is pretty well battle-tested, and we also reinforced the foundations there.

?We have also located a retail outlet for the equipment, we will be sharing the Telecom store at the Washington Mall ? a brilliant location ? so a lot of the groundwork has been done.

?We will be looking to broadcast 114 channels, covering pretty much everything imaginable.?

Householders will use 18-inch antennae, on a nine-inch base, which will be attached to the eaves of a house and linked to a set-top box.

?What?s kind of neat,? continued Mr. Wilson, ?is that if you take the equipment with you will be able to pick up the signal anywhere ? people can watch our cable on boats or at campsites.?

He added that although the company is recruiting workers to install the equipment, customers will be able to set up the systems themselves ?without too much difficulty?.

He added that one huge advantage of the ?wireless? broadcast system is that it would not go down during storms, as CableVision?s did during Fabian.

?Our medium is air,? he added. ?If there is a hurricane coming, we can take down our equipment, and customers can take down theirs, and following the high winds we put it up again and start broadcasting again immediately.

?Hurricanes will only stop us for the length of time it takes to bring the equipment down and put it back up again.?

Customers will be able to get the basic set-top boxes at no charge, although there will be more advanced boxes available at a charge with ?all sorts of bells and whistles?. One of the advances that WOW will offer through its digital service will be the ability pause live television, a service that has revolutionised TV watching in other countries.

Bermuda?s potential third broadcaster, Hardell Cable, which applied for a licence back in 1996, is blaming Government inertia for stopping it from offering 40 channels to homes on the Island.The company is said to be ?six month?s from launch? but is currently engaged in a legal wrangle with the Department of Telecommunications over whether or not it has a licence.