It’s never too early to talk about football in the South, and when the sport kicks off this August it will bring with it a new network for this region of the country.

Andy Cable co-owner Ivan Bishop said when the new SEC Network begins on Aug. 14, it will be a basic channel for his company’s customers.

“CSS network is going away,” Bishop said. “It is going to go dark probably a few months before the SEC Network comes out, so we’re thinking the SEC Network will replace CSS on channel 71.”

While Dish Network and other satellite providers are allowing basic access to the channel based on packages, Bishop said Andy Cable customers shouldn’t expect to have to order the network, but may still see a rise in costs.

“That’s an ESPN network and ESPN is the most expensive,” he said.

Although there were no increases passed along to customers, Andy Cable and other members of the National Cable Television Cooperative, renegotiated a deal with Viacom in April that ended with a rise in subscription fees for the cable providers.

“We had a 40 percent increase from Viacom on eight channels and that’s going to continue to go up every year for the next five years,” Bishop said. “If there is any increase, it will be because of what is going on across the board.”

Bishop said the last rate increase from Andy Cable came in May of 2013.

“We will give customers a 30-day notice of an increase,” he said. “At this point, we just have a wait-and-see attitude about it.”