BendBroadband is raising its basic cable rates by 3.8 percent on Feb. 1, the company said in a letter sent to its customers last week.

The cable television and Internet provider will increase its basic cable monthly rate from $35.49 to $36.85, a change of $1.36.

Other services, such as the company’s digital cable and Internet connections, are unaffected by the rate change.

BendBroadband President and CEO Amy Tykeson said the new rates are in direct response to cable programmers charging more for their channels. Cable providers are contracted to pay programmers like ESPN for access to their channels.

”We’re struggling to keep the rate as low as we can,” Tykeson said, citing a 13 percent increase in programming costs in this year’s contracts.

”We don’t have a choice but to pay. We can drop a few channels, but it doesn’t really make sense to reduce the product our customers have access to,” said Tykeson.

BendBroadband also announced that is reducing the rental rates for most digital cable equipment. The rate reduction, which only affects digital cable subscribers, ranges from 55 cents to $3 a month.

Tykeson said the rental rate decrease is the result of her company’s switching to less costly rental hardware from manufacturer Hewlett-Packard Development Co. The new equipment does not have the analog tuners that are not needed in digital service.