Tag: "comcast"

Cities in Kentucky and Massachusetts Want a Say In Comcast/Time Warner Cable Merger

Posted October 24, 2014 by lgonzalez

As the feds continue to evaluate the wisdom of the Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger, local communities in several states are attempting to throw a wrench in the federal approval machine.

In Worcester, Massachusetts, the City Council recently refused to approve the transfer of the city's cable television license to Comcast. In order to sweet-talk the federal agencies concerned the merger may create too much market concentration, Comcast has worked out a deal with Charter Communications to transfer customers in certain geographic areas. Charter is the current incumbent in Worcester.

According to a Telegam & Gazette article, the City Council does not need to approve the transfer for it to take affect. Nevertheless, the City Council voted 8-3 on October 14 to urge City Manager, Edward M. Augustus Jr., not to approve the transfer of the license. If Augustus makes no determination, the transfer will automatically be approved.

The city can only examine the transfer based on four criteria including company management, technical experience, legal experience, and financial capabilities. Management and poor customer service are the sticking points for Worcester:

District 5 Councilor Gary Rosen said the City Council should not welcome Comcast to Worcester because of its "deplorable and substandard" customer service across the country.

"It's a terrible company," he said. "In my opinion, they should not be welcome in this city. Comcast is a wolf in wolf's clothing; it's that bad. They are awful, no doubt about it. Maybe we can't stop it, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't speak out."

A similar scenario is playing out in Lexington, Kentucky. The community is the second largest city served by Time Warner Cable in the state. They are concerned existing customer service problems will worsen if Comcast becomes their provider.

The Urban City Council drafted two resolutions denying the transfer. The resolutions had first reading on October 9. Customer service is, again, a point of contention.

According to an October 9 Kentucky.com article, the city proposed including a fine for poor customer service as part...

Community Broadband Media Roundup - October 17

Posted October 22, 2014 by rebecca

This week, cities took the stage and made some very important moves to restore their local authority. From cities resisting big media mergers, to those choosing to join the new Next Century Cities initiative, it is a good time to be a part of municipal government efforts.

Broadband Cities

Boulder, CO officials are looking ahead at their Longmont neighbor's gig network and exploring ways to make sure their own businesses are not left in the dust. Boulder’s chamber is pushing for an approval of ballot issue “2C”. Gavin Dahl of Boulder Weekly writes that the ballot question would open the way for the city to offer competitive gig services, helping the city keep existing businesses happy, and entice others to move in.

But according to Boulder News’, Erica Meltzer, opponents still seem to have their heads in the sand; The libertarian Independence Institute says if there was a market for fiber in the city, “some business” will find a way. Maybe they think competitive, affordable Internet will just appear.

Meantime, Columbia, Missouri government officials may be facing an uphill battle. The city is exploring how to light its dark fiber infrastructure. Opponents say the plan goes against state restrictions on the city offering such services directly to customers. We believe the move would encourage competition among ISPs that would otherwise not be able to operate because of a lack of capital required to build fiber networks.

Cities choosing to keep ownership of their fiber infrastructures is often a sound decision, and North Kansas City, Missouri residents may soon be appreciating the city’s most recent announcement. In an effort to “give back” to residents, LiNKCity officials say that beginning in 2015 residential customers can get free Internet service. The decision is thanks to a unique partnership with a server farm company.

From GovTech’s Colin Wood:

“I don’t think I’ve...

Crawfordsville Municipal Network Purchased by Metronet in Indiana

Posted October 15, 2014 by lgonzalez

Our Community Broadband Map documents over 400 communities where publicly owned infrastructure serves residents, business, or government facilities. We rarely hear of publicly owned systems sold to private providers, but it does happen once in a blue moon.

Accelplus, the fiber optic FTTH network deployed by Crawfordsville Electric Light & Power (CEL&P) in Indiana was sold earlier this year to private provider Metronet.

According to a July Journal Review article, the transition for customers began this summer with completion expected by the end of 2014. Metronet invested approximately $2 million in upgrades. Metronet will also offer voice services via the network; Accelplus offered only Internet and video.

In the past, we have found that networks that offer triple-play can attract more customers, increasing revenues. In states where munis cannot offer triple-play or administrative requirements are so onerous they discourage it, municipalities that would like to deploy fiber networks sometimes decide to abandon their vision due to the added risk.

A November 2013 Journal Review article reported that the network, launched in 2005, faced an expensive lawsuit commenced by US Bank. Apparently the network could not keep up with the repayment schedule for Certificates of Participation, backed by network revenue, that financed the investment.

Metronet purchased Accelplus and its assets for $5.2 million. The City also provided some economic development incentives. When all is said and done, investors are settling for a total of $5.6 million and the City avoids a $19.6 million lawsuit.

A February Journal Review article reported:

Metronet will receive a 10-year, $24,000 per year lease from CEL&P on property currently used by Accelplus. Metronet can purchase that property for $1 after the lease expires. Accelplus manager John Douglas has segregated those areas and provided AutoCAD drawings to Metronet.

Furthermore, CEL&P will lease 72 strands of fiber to Metronet at the rate of $24,000 per year for...

Verizon CEO: LTE Cannot Replace Fiber

Posted October 7, 2014 by lgonzalez

Verizon Wireless CEO Dan Mead is not doing any favors for Comcast as it pursues approval to acquire Time Warner Cable. In August, he came out and publicly stated that no, LTE is not equal to fiber. The Verge quoted Mead, who was refreshingly honest about technical limitations and Comcast's motivations for making such outrageous claims:

"They're trying to get deals approved, right, and I understand that... their focus is different than my focus right now, because I don't have any deals pending," Mead said, a reference to the fact that Comcast is looking for ways to justify the TWC buy. "LTE certainly can compete with broadband, but if you look at the physics and the engineering of it, we don't see LTE being as efficient as fiber coming into the home."

A number of other organizations also try to educate the general public about the fact that mobile Internet access is not on par with wireline service. For example, Public Knowledge has long argued that "4G + Data Caps = Magic Beans."

Our Wireless Internet Access Fact Sheet dispels common misconceptions, shares info about data caps, and provides comparative performance data between wireless and wired connections. While mobile Internet access is certainly practical, valuable, and a convenient complement to wired connections, it is no replacement. Wireless limitations, coupled with providers' expensive data caps enforced with overage charges, can never replace a home wired connection. Doing homework, applying for a job, or paying bills online quickly drives families over the typical 250 GB limit.

Speaking from experience, my own family of three routinely surpasses 250 GB per month and we are not bandwidth hogs compared to many other families in our social circle. Fortunately for us, the "...

New Report Details Local Government Efforts to Improve Minnesota Connectivity

Posted September 30, 2014 by lgonzalez

In our latest report, All Hands On Deck: Minnesota Local Government Models for Expanding Fiber Internet Access, we analyze how local governments in 12 Minnesota communities are expanding 21st century Internet access to their citizens.

In 2010, the Minnesota legislature set a goal for 2015 - universal access to high speed broadband throughout the state. Even though we have the technology to make that vision a reality, large swaths of the state will not meet that goal. Nevertheless, local folks who have chosen to take control of their connectivity are finding a way to exceed expectations, surpassing the choices in many metropolitan regions.

Some of the communities we cover include:

Windom, which is one of the most advanced networks in the state, built their own network after their telephone company refused to invest in their community.
Dakota County showed how a coordinated excavation policy can reduce by more than 90 percent the cost of installing fiber.
Lac qui Parle County partnered with a telephone cooperative to bring high speed broadband to its most sparsely population communities.

We delved into networks in Anoka, Carver, Cook, Lake, and Scott Counties. The report also shares developments in the municipalities of Chaska, Buffalo, and Monticello. We tell the story of RS Fiber, located in Sibley and part of Renville County. These communities provide examples of municipal networks, a variety of public private partnerships, and "dig once" policies.

This week in Minnesota, the governor’s office began accepting applications for the state’s new $20 million initiative Border-to-Border program. We hope this new report will serve as a resource for potential applicants and other community leaders across the U.S. interested in taking charge of their broadband destinies.

...

Sign Up Early for A Gig in Longmont, Colorado

Posted September 16, 2014 by lgonzalez

If you are in Longmont, you can sign up for gigabit service from LPC for only $49.95 per month. The Longmont Compass reports that customers who sign up within the first three months will retain that price point for an as yet undetermined extended period. AND, that price stays with the home if the customer sells, adding substantial value to the real estate.

The Compass also spoke with General Manager Tom Roiniotis about LPC's decision to offer Internet and voice but not video:

“Cable TV is a dying industry. People want to get the TV that they want, not the TV that the cable companies force them to get.”

When pressed for an example, Roiniotis considered sports. If you want to watch an NFL game, why should you have to pay for two hundred channels you’ll never even tune into? There is a growing consensus that audiences don’t want to watch the movie that happens to be on Showtime right now, they want to choose when to start, when to pause, and what movie they’re interested in. As he put it, “The consumer is finally becoming king in the world of TV.”

…

“In five years, I can see Xfinity (the Comcast content delivery network) using our fiber-optic to deliver their content,” he says. “So instead of investing another $20M in the technology to deliver cable, we save that money and let the consumers drive the future of content delivery.”

LPC began construction on the expansion in August with completion scheduled for 2017. Last fall, voters passed a referendum to bond in order to speed up construction.

Letters to the editor from Longmont locals express impatience. They want better services! P.R. Lambert recently wrote:

It's really sad that the Longmont fiber optic Internet will take so long to be installed. From what I see, the two major competitors (Comcast and Century Link) seem to believe that customers are a bother.

One of those has pricing on their web page that they refuse to honor, while the other will not...

Vermont Draft Telecom Plan Fails to Deliver on Many Fronts

Posted September 12, 2014 by tanderson

Last week, the Vermont Department of Public Service began a series of public hearings on the public comment draft of its State Telecommunications Plan. The plan is intended to asses the current state of the telecom landscape in Vermont, map out goals and benchmarks for the next 10 years, and provide recommendations for how to achieve them. The plan sets a target of 100 megabit per second symmetrical connections for every home and business in the state by 2024.

Oddly enough, achieving that even today would put them behind many metropolitan areas across the United States. The technology needed to deliver 100 Mbps connections is essentially the same that would be used to deliver 1 Gbps, begging the question why such a limited goal?

The 100/100 mbps symmetrical target is for 10 years into the future, but in the nearer term the plan calls for universal 4/1 Mbps coverage, raised to 10/1 Mbps coverage by 2020. While it may at first glance seem reasonable to set gradually rising targets, these long and short term goals actually have the potential to conflict with each other.

As pointed out by Vermont Public Radio, the 100/100 Mbps standard would likely require universal FTTH, or at least fiber to the node combined with other technological advances and investments. Meeting this goal would require a huge investment in next generation fiber optic infrastructure, yet the Telecommunications Plan calls for funding priorities to be focused on achieving universal 4/1 mbps coverage for the next 6 years. This lower standard will likely be met with a combination of last generation technologies like copper wire DSL and wireless that are incapable of meeting the 100/100 standard.

Continuing to build out older systems while deferring investments in fiber, which is adaptable to meet just about any future need, seems illogical. It’s a bit like saying you’re going to put all your expendable income for the next six years into repairing your VCR and buying tapes, while promising you’ll buy a DVD player immediately after.

While the goal of first guaranteeing all Vermonters some basic level of coverage is admirable, Vermont can do better by setting higher goals for...

Department of Delusion: Comcast Takes Credit for Google Fiber, Unicorns, and Kittens

Posted August 22, 2014 by rebecca

In what can only be assumed as a fit of insanity or confusion, several dozen US Mayors came out Friday with a letter to Chairman Wheeler, praising Comcast and demanding that the cable monopoly be allowed to take over Time Warner Cable. Given that Comcast and Time Warner Cable are among the most hated corporations in America, perhaps these math wiz mayors think two negatives will produce a postive?

In light of all the evidence against Comcast’s track record for customer service, its glacial pace at upgrading Internet access, and its false promises for investment, we find the letter absurd, at best. But then it contains this gem:

Since the Comcast Time Warner Cable transaction was proposed, Google has announced plans to expand its high-speed Fiber service to 34 new communities.

Wow! Comcast wants to take credit for Google's investment in fiber networks? An investment by Google that is only necessary because the big cable companies have refused to meet the growing demand of our communities with better services?

This got us thinking, what else can Comcast take credit for since it announced the merger?

Since Comcast announced the merger, the Large Hadron Collider has not created a black hole large enough to destroy the Earth. #thankyouComcast
Since Comcast announced the merger, millions of kittens have been adopted #thankyouComcast
Since Comcast announced the merger, we have a potential Ebola vaccine #thankyouComcast
Since Comcast announced the merger, Bruce Willis has not had to blow up an asteroid to save our planet. #thankyouComcast

Check out our #ThankYouComcast hashtags on Twitter, Retweet them, add your own, and share with friends, family, and all your local officials. And if you’re living in one of the cities where your mayor sold you out for Comcast’s bottom line, make sure they know just how ludicrous their letter is, they’re clearly very out-of-touch with their constituencies.

Read the full letter here. And please, ...

Comcast Responds to "Break-Up" Call With Customer Service Rep

Posted August 9, 2014 by lgonzalez

Comcast's Chief Operating Officer, Dave Watson, recently posted a letter on the Team Comcast employee site in response to the viral customer-retention call from hell, reports the Consumerist. In his letter to Comcast minions, Watson admits:

The agent on this call did a lot of what we trained him and paid him — and thousands of other Retention agents — to do.

Watson also expresses that the call was "painful to listen to" and vows:

We will review our training programs, we will refresh our manager on coaching for quality, and we will take a look at our incentives to ensure we are rewarding employees for the right behaviors. We can, and will, do better.

Just a few days ago, over at the "Comcast Voices" blog, Tom Karinshak, Senior VP of Comcast's Customer Experience, vowed to investigate and wrote:

We are very embarrassed by the way our employee spoke with Mr. Block and Ms. Belmont and are contacting them to personally apologize. The way in which our representative communicated with them is unacceptable and not consistent with how we train our customer service representatives.

Regardless of whether one chooses to believe the response crafted for Comcast employees or the one posted to placate the general public, is this the company we want controlling our online access? If Comcast is allowed to merge with Time Warner Cable, we can expect more of the same.

Comcasts Invests in Theme Parks Rather than Better Broadband

Posted July 26, 2014 by tanderson

While its network continues to offer last generation speeds at high prices and their customer service reps go viral harassing customers who try to leave their grasp, Comcast executives have decided it is time to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade... their theme parks. That's right, as they shift call centers to the Philippines to save money, they are reinvesting it into roller coasters.

Having acquired Universal Orlando Resorts as part of their 2011 merger with NBC Universal, Comcast has decided to step outside its core business of providing Internet access, cable TV, and phone service in noncompetitive markets. According to a March CED Magazine article, Comcast plans to invest hundreds of millions in theme parks in both Florida and California in an effort to challenge Disney’s traditional dominance of the field. Attractions in Orlando will include an 1,800 room beach resort and a new Harry Potter ride.

This investment in rides occurs against the backdrop of falling infrastructure investment in the broadband industry, despite rapidly increasing bandwidth demands and claims by ISPs that services such as Netflix are straining their networks and must pay extra for “fast lane” service.

It is possible to imagine a world in which broadband markets are sufficiently competitive to force Comcast, CenturyLink and other incumbents to invest sufficiently in building out and upgrading their networks, delivering better service to their customers. But in our world, Comcast can spend the comparatively small sum of $18.8 million on lobbying (in 2013 according to OpenSecrets.org), becoming the seventh biggest campaign contributor in the nation and pushing legislation like the recent Blackburn amendment that eliminates potential public sector competitors.

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