ABILENE, Texas -- Suddenlink Cable is trying to give away the 40-thousand digital boxes to customers before they upgrade their service.

On September 29th, the cable provider will make the switch. It's part of a three-year plan worth $350 million.

This is for Suddenlink customers only, in Abilene Snyder and Sweetwater. What we're doing is, we're using these links to reclaim some of our bandwidth, so that we can in turn provide more products, more channels, faster internet," says Jason Gebhart, Director of Operations for the Abilene office.

Suddenlink has sent out multiple fliers to their customers, advising them of the change, and offering to send them a free digital box.

"There's no additional cost, there's no monthly cost, these are free for use for our customers," said Gebhart, "customers that add these links to their tvs, they will see 4 or 5 more channels that we have added, that they will get now."

At the office in Abilene, workers have set up a table just for customers looking to get their box. The devices are free of charge, and do not require a monthly fee, according to Gebhart.

Gebhart says this affects customers who subscribe to their Limited Basic package, including channels 23-83

When a similar change was made in Midland and Lubbock, Gebhart says they distributed half of their boxes in the final four weeks.