Time Warner Plans Fiber-Optic Cable Network : Communications: The entertainment giant says the first phase will offer its Queens, N.Y., subscribers 150 channels.

Entertainment giant Time Warner Inc. said its cable television division is taking steps to give subscribers “limitless program choices” ranging from the hottest movies to neighborhood news shows.

The parent of Warner Bros. film and television company, a powerful group of magazines and the HBO pay-cable service said Thursday that the move will give viewers more power over what they can watch and when they can see it.

Media analysts said it should stimulate the company’s cable revenue growth at a time of growing resistance to basic rate hikes, and may doom potential competing efforts to deliver programs direct to home by satellite.

Time Warner said it is installing fiber-optic cable in its system in the Queens borough of New York that will double the number of channels available to about 10,000 of its 270,000 customers by year-end.

Customers in Queens get 75 channels now. Only 24% of the nation’s 54 million cable subscribers get 54 or more cable channels, the National Cable Television Assn. said.

In addition, the Time Warner system will be interactive, allowing viewers to order a movie, buy something from a home shopping service or book a travel package by pushing a button.

Plans are to extend the 150-channel capacity and interactive capability to other parts of the city and other Time Warner systems over the next few years.

“You can never offer people too much choice,” said N. J. Nicholas Jr., the co-chief executive of Time Warner.

Most of the new channels will be pay-movie services. The company plans to show the same film on several channels, but stagger the starting times.

Time Warner offered no estimate of how much the expansion will cost, nor did it identify what specific types of programs would be on the new channels.

“Our system not only has the capacity to deliver limitless program choices, but is equipped to handle high-definition, wide-screen TV, voice interactivity and linkages with computers, fax machines and personal communications networks upon license approval,” said Steven J. Ross, chairman and co-chief executive of Time Warner.