http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/NBC ATT Internet Overcharging 5-24-11.flv

A new consumer investigation by NBC’s Today Show found that AT&T may be systematically overcharging customers for their broadband usage, fleecing customers for countless sums in overlimit fees.  With no government oversight to guarantee usage measurements are accurate and fairly measure usage, customers have to take AT&T’s “word” for the accuracy of their billing, and now that the company has extended Internet Overcharging to its DSL and U-verse customers, AT&T could earn millions in ill-gotten gains if the claims of overestimated usage are true.  AT&T responded, claiming consumers have a misunderstanding of how data is consumed and billed.  NBC quotes AT&T as saying most customers who exceed their limits do not incur fees, which will come as quite a surprise to customers who are routinely billed $15 or more for excessive use charges on wireless plans.  Thanks to Stop the Cap! reader Scott for sharing the news.  (4 minutes)

Stop the Cap! reader Cal believes AT&T cannot be reasoned with about Internet Overcharging until you threaten to cancel.

While a significant number of customers have already pulled the plug on AT&T DSL and U-verse service over their recently-introduced Internet Overcharging schemes, some are telling Stop the Cap! they have no plans to actually disconnect service until AT&T threatens to charge them overlimit fees.

For some AT&T customers, there is no suitable alternative to the phone company.  Rural customers without a cable provider, or those who are faced with two bad choices — AT&T or Charter Communications — say they are going to test AT&T’s resolve to actually overbill them.

Cal is an AT&T customer is Missouri.  His alternative?  Charter Cable, which has an Internet Overcharging scheme of its own and delivers what he calls “third world service” in his community.  Given a choice, he intends to stay with AT&T as long as possible, pulling the plug only after his third warning of exceeding the phone company’s new broadband usage limits.  He thinks AT&T’s customer service won’t ultimately let it come to that.

“My sister works for an AT&T call center where she lives, and there was some training on the subject of handling the company’s usage caps,” Cal reports. “Get the right representative or supervisor and they can make virtually anything go away with a few keystrokes, especially if you are prepared to cancel your service over the issue.  While they may not cancel the caps, they very well may credit back any overcharges.”

Cal says his family does not intend to change their usage habits one bit.  He’ll change providers before he rations his Internet usage.

“I maintain control over our Internet access here, they don’t and sure as hell won’t,” he said.  “We do not do illegal downloads and we don’t allow torrenting or anything else that can get my kids into trouble, but we do use a Roku box and watch Netflix instead of buying pay movie channels with programming not suitable for my family to watch.”

Cal says his five children are home-schooled, which makes daily Internet access an essential part of the education process.  Many companies that provide home-schooling materials increasingly require a broadband connection.  While not as bandwidth hungry as Netflix video streaming, with five children in the home, usage adds up fast.

“It is not hard to do 260GB of usage a month, which puts us just over their U-verse limit, and I’ll be damned if I am going to pay AT&T another $10 for 10GB over,” Cal says.  “This is another reason why the Obama Administration is no better than the last one — they are all masters of big corporations who will rob us blind and use the money to pay off Congress to look the other way.”

Cal used to be a Charter Cable customer, but left when that company implemented its own Internet Overcharging scheme.

“I told Charter with their lousy service they were lucky I was a customer, but after putting usage limits on, I left,” he reports.

Cal’s neighbor thinks he has an even better way to battle AT&T.

“My neighbor will cancel service under his name and sign up under his wife’s and bounce between them whenever AT&T threatens to send him a bigger bill; he has already been doing that for years back and forth between AT&T and Charter on new customer deals,” Cal says.

Cal, and many other readers touching base with us, believe AT&T is not very responsive to customer complaints unless customers threaten to cancel service, and they believe AT&T will only change its mind when shareholders see the usage limits as counterproductive.

“AT&T can buy enough people in Washington to make street protests irrelevant, but their shareholders sure won’t like it when they see customers and revenue dropping,” Cal notes.  “If you can’t get cable, you are stuck with AT&T, so you have to keep the pressure on — file complaints with the Better Business Bureau, the FCC, and Congress.  Make them spend more money defending their policy than they earn from its proceeds.”

Phillip Dampier

Time Warner Cable has completed their DOCSIS 3 upgrade of the Rochester/Finger Lakes region and their new Road Runner Extreme and Wideband services should now be available throughout the region.  Stop the Cap! HQ will receive its upgrade to Road Runner Extreme late this afternoon, primarily for the 5Mbps upstream speed, which will make uploading content to our servers much easier and more efficient.

The cable company is insistent on their installation fee, which amounts to nearly $68 (unjustified in my personal opinion).  Some details for our local readers:

• Customers in the Rochester & Finger Lakes region almost never own their own cable modems — they are provided with Road Runner at no extra charge;
• Upgrading to Extreme or Wideband will mean either a modem swap or a second piece of equipment if you have Time Warner phone service.  The new equipment includes a built-in wireless router;
• You are not obligated to use the cable company’s equipment as your primary router if you favor using your own existing router;
• As part of the installation fee, you have a right to insist they spend the time to configure service the way you want it, especially if you want to continue using your own router;
• It is also a good time to ask them to check signal levels and clean up any wiring or service issues.  Western New York has endured a record-breaking deluge of rain this spring, and degraded outdoor wiring can create havoc for broadband and cable service.
• If you are currently receiving a promotion such as free or discounted Road Runner Turbo service, you will lose the value of that promotion when you upgrade service and will pay full price going forward.

Beyond the installation fee, Road Runner Extreme (30/5Mbps) costs $20 more than Road Runner Standard (10/1Mbps) service.  Road Runner Wideband (50/5Mbps) is priced at $99 a month, but is a much better value bundled with the cable company’s Signature Home ($199) package, which includes complete packages of digital cable, “digital phone,” and broadband service.  For most in the Rochester/Finger Lakes area, the only alternative is Frontier Communications’ DSL combined with an unlimited calling plan and satellite television or a similar package from Verizon or much smaller Windstream.  Verizon’s fiber to the home service FiOS is not available anywhere in this region.

AT&T, one of the country’s most profligate spenders on public policy lobbying, has pulled out all the stops pushing for Washington approval of its proposed merger with T-Mobile.

Bloomberg Government reports AT&T spent $6.8 million during the first quarter of 2011, more than 11 times more than its rival Sprint, which opposes the merger deal.  In fact, AT&T was the nation’s second biggest spender in lobbying dollars, just behind defense contractor Honeywell, which is trying to avoid Pentagon spending cuts.

Sprint’s much smaller lobbying effort had to make do with a budget of just $583,000 during the same period to push back against the telecom giant.

Also raising questions are reports from Bloomberg that AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson direct dialed Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski the weekend before the deal went public.  At the same time, former FCC Chairman Richard Wiley, today a lobbyist for T-Mobile, spoke directly with four of the five FCC Commissioners to directly lobby for the merger’s approval.

Sprint has been trying to beef up its own lobbying star power, recently adding Eddie Fritz, former head of the National Association of Broadcasters as one of their lobbyists.  Sprint has also hired several former high-level Congressional staffers and mid-level employees at the Justice Department, expected to help Team Sprint know how to apply the right pressure to the right people inside the FCC and Justice Department to reject the deal.  The merger hinges on the approval of both agencies.

Left off the speed dial — consumers, who cannot pick up the phone and reach FCC Chairman Genachowski while lounging in his backyard or enjoy lucrative employment opportunities open to government workers in the private lobbying sector.

Bloomberg News breaks down AT&T’s lobbying and strategy for getting its merger deal with T-Mobile approved in Washington.  (2 minutes)

A Time Warner Cable customer in Whitefield, Maine has filed a complaint with the state’s Attorney General charging the cable company is selling customers a product it cannot deliver in parts of the state, and bills customers for it anyway.

The broadband add-on, Road Runner Turbo, is supposed to provide customers with a faster broadband experience, but in communities up and down Maine, it apparently does not, and has not for nearly three years.

The cable company hotly disputes the accusation, made by Michael Panosian, that the company has been overbilling him $10 a month for three years.

Andrew Russell, a Time Warner Cable spokesman, told the Kennebec Journal that the company does not charge for services it cannot provide.

But the cable company’s argument lost a considerable amount of credibility when evidence emerged Time Warner has admitted the problem, and quietly agreed to reimburse Panosian $328.35 for Road Runner Turbo service all the way back to June 2008.

The admission has also become a point of interest inside the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division, which is engaged in discussions with Panosian and the cable company.

Despite Russell’s denials, Time Warner officials admitted there was a problem and told state officials it would be corrected sometime this month.

Panosian thinks the cable company is ripping off Maine residents pitching faster Internet it does not deliver.

Panosian said a Time Warner Cable technician told him Turbo is not available in his area and possibly others in Maine.

“From what the tech told me, it isn’t just Whitefield,” Panosian said. “I went down (to Time Warner’s Augusta office) and talked to them about it, and they’re aware of it.  I said, ‘If you’re aware, why are you taking everybody’s money?’  If they don’t charge for services they don’t provide, why are they reimbursing me?”

Stop the Cap! reader Frederick, who lives in nearby Windsor and shared the story with us, says it is a classic case of Time Warner Cable overselling its service.

“The truth here is actually in the middle; Time Warner actually does deliver a Turbo service in Maine, it’s just that their network is so overcongested, nobody benefits from it during peak usage times,” Frederick reports.  “They have too many customers trying to share the Internet, and Turbo cannot help resolve this problem, only upgrades can.”

Frederick reports he identified the source of the problem running a series of speed tests on his Time Warner Cable connection.  He subscribes to Road Runner Turbo himself.

“The truth is revealed when you examine the upload speed of your connection,” he says. “Even when the network is busy, I can still get nearly 1Mbps upload speeds, a sure sign Turbo is on my account.”

The download speeds are another matter.

“In Windsor during peak usage times, you will easily see even a Turbo connection drop to 5Mbps in download speeds, only returning to normal after people go to bed,” he says.  “That means Time Warner has oversold their network, putting too many people on the same ‘node,’ one inadequate in capacity.”

Frederick suspects the “fix” Time Warner refers to is an upgrade to DOCSIS 3 technology.

“Maine is treated like a backwater by Time Warner Cable,” Frederick charges.  “What other cities got a year ago we just start to receive, so instead of performing periodic upgrades, they are just waiting for DOCSIS 3 to solve all of their problems.”

Frederick thinks customers should be compensated for the poor service, and is considering demanding a refund himself.

“I pay more than $50 a month for my broadband service with Turbo and they deliver what their ads claim only when I’m asleep or at work.”

America’s broadband ranking has fallen once again, mostly at the expense of other countries who have accelerated service and speed upgrades above and beyond what is available in the United States.  That is the conclusion one can reach after reviewing the Federal Communications Commission’s second annual broadband report, delivered to Congress to fulfill obligations under the Broadband Data Improvement Act.

Through a combination of data from OECD broadband rankings and actual speed test results collected by the Commission, the FCC report notes American cities are at risk of losing the broadband speed race.

“This report compares data on average actual download speeds reported by a sample of consumers in a number of U.S. and foreign cities and finds that some large European and Asian cities exhibit a significant edge over comparable U.S. cities in reported download speeds, though reported speeds for some other international cities are roughly comparable to speeds in many U.S. cities,” the report concludes.

“The best currently available data set comparing the United States to other countries appears to be from the OECD, which collects data on various broadband deployment, adoption, and usage metrics and publishes rankings of its member countries. The OECD’s deployment data ranks countries based on particular technologies, rather than overall coverage. The U.S. ranking in these surveys ranges from 27th out of 30 in DSL coverage to 1st out of 28 in cable modem coverage.  The U.S. ranks 6th out of 16 in fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) coverage and 8th out of 29 in 3G mobile wireless coverage.”

Broadband Rankings (click to enlarge)

Most of the countries accelerating far beyond the United States in broadband speed and quality are in Asia and Europe, and many are upgrading their networks to fiber-based broadband.  As these fiber networks come online, the United States can be expected to fall further behind.

The cable industry lobby attacked the report's findings.

Just like last year, the Internet Service Providers turning in poor grades are rejecting the report’s conclusions.

“While the Commission’s headline proclaims that 20 million Americans are denied access to broadband, by that measure private investment has fueled the build-out of broadband networks to nearly 300 million consumers and is responsible for the jobs that flow from that investment,” said Michael Powell, president and chief executive of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association.  Powell used to oversee the FCC as chairman during the first term of the Bush Administration.

Another trade association with ties to the telecom industry, USTelecom, attacked the findings noting most Americans think their existing broadband service is good enough.

Walter McCormick Jr., USTelecom CEO, noted the FCC’s own report found that 95 percent of Americans have access to fixed broadband and 93 percent are happy with their service.

...so did USTelecom, another industry funded group

But McCormick says nothing about the speeds those customers receive, a bone of contention with the Commission.  As part of this year’s report, the FCC is increasingly relying on its own verifiable data about broadband speeds, collected through its SamKnows broadband speed test project.  The Commission has repeatedly noted that broadband speeds marketed by ISPs do not always match the actual speeds customers receive.

Speed tests comparing broadband performance in comparably sized cities found some sizable differences.

The data suggest that mean actual download speeds in some European and Asian cities are substantially higher than in comparably sized U.S. cities (e.g., 24.8 megabits per second (Mbps) in Paris and 35.8 Mbps in Seoul versus 6.9 Mbps in San Francisco, 9.4 Mbps in Chicago, and 9.9 Mbps in Phoenix). Some of the U.S. cities in our sample have higher speeds than some foreign cities (e.g., Chicago with 9.39 Mbps versus Rome with 5.6 Mbps).

The most significant reason for the disparity in speed is the technology used in each respective area.  Fiber to the home service traditionally delivers the fastest broadband speeds.  Cable broadband technology, common in the United States but less so abroad, is responsible for a great deal of speed increases in the United States.  Telephone company DSL and wireless are responsible for some of the slowest speeds, with rural DSL service commonly providing just 1-3Mbps service.  Many European cities still relying on DSL technology have upgraded to bonded DSL, ADSL2+, or VDSL service, which can significantly boost speeds.

Unfortunately, the report concludes, the faster the broadband service delivered, the higher the price — often out of proportion with other OECD countries.

Results [...] suggest that U.S. stand-alone residential broadband prices are generally “in the middle of prices in OECD countries,” after accounting for speed, terms of service, data caps, and service delivery technology. Similarly, prices in the United States for business stand-alone broadband services were fourteenth out of 30 among the OECD countries. A paper by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University found prices for U.S. broadband with download speeds of around 768 kbps to be “very good” by international standards. However, as download speeds increase, the paper found that U.S. prices become more expensive than most other OECD countries.

Some providers unimpressed by the independent research accused the FCC of using biased and inconsistent research methods.  AT&T, for example, was unhappy with comparisons among U.S. cities and those of comparable size abroad.  They accused the Commission of not using “a well-defined or consistent methodology for choosing the ‘communities’ or offers.”  In fact, several providers suggested the Commission’s pricing comparisons ignored significant, albeit temporary, discounts some new customers receive, as well as discounts for bundled service packages.  Promotional pricing factors are acknowledged by the Commission, but the report notes the findings do attempt to collect real world pricing paid by actual customers.

For consumers in the United States, broadband envy is as close as the next news report highlighting broadband expansion efforts abroad.  Some countries are deploying 1Gbps broadband networks that deliver consistently faster speeds than American providers, at dramatically lower prices and without a usage cap attached.

The Triangle -- North Carolina

Just a few days after Gov. Bev Purdue declined to veto an anti-consumer, anti-community broadband bill sponsored by Time Warner Cable, the cable company announced the imminent availability of its Road Runner Extreme and Wideband products — made possible with an upgrade to DOCSIS 3 technology.

The newly available service is officially being rolled out across the Triangle, including the cities of Raleigh-Durham and Chapel Hill over the next several weeks.

“We are empowering our customers with pure online power to save time and boost productivity when multitasking with multiple devices,” said Christine Whitaker, area vice president of operations for Eastern North Carolina. “As customers expand their use of the Internet, our services are evolving to meet their needs.”

Time Warner noted it had spent $8.5 million to upgrade the region to DOCSIS 3 service, and has already rolled out the upgrade in the Charlotte area.  In the Triangle, the company also announced free speed upgrades for existing customers that took effect last week:

• Road Runner Turbo with PowerBoost 15 Mbps/1Mbps
• Road Runner Broadband with PowerBoost 10 Mbps/1 Mbps

North and South Carolina Time Warner Cable customers are among the last to get the speed upgrades Time Warner has completed in many of their service areas.  Some customers formerly received upstream speeds of 512kbps or less.  The cable company said recent fiber upgrades made the faster speeds possible, but DOCSIS 3 upgrades are responsible for allowing the cable company to offer its Extreme (30/5) and Wideband (50/5Mbps) products.

Despite the upgrades, Time Warner Cable still offers slower broadband service than many of its community-owned competitors, and the cable operator has made investments in broadband upgrades across most of its cable systems nationwide as a matter of course.

Verizon customers in Virginia are saying goodbye to automatic delivery of the printed edition of the White Pages after the State Corporation Commission gave the okay to end decades of directory deliveries on doorsteps across the state.

The gradual end of automatic telephone directory delivery has been ongoing throughout the United States as customers increasingly look online for telephone listings.  The directory also isn’t what it used to be as Americans increasingly turn off landlines and turn on cell phones, which go unlisted by default.

Verizon says the printed phone book wastes energy, trees, and money when customers immediately discard them in the nearest recycling bin.  But the company does plan to continue offering free printed copies on request.

While residential directories gradually disappear, the Yellow Pages, filled with business listings, will continue to grace doorsteps for years to come.  They represent an enormous moneymaker for phone companies and directory publishers, so opting out of the bulkier business pages is going to require more effort.

Unfortunately for consumers, while telephone companies realize significant savings not having to print and distribute the phone books, they have no plans to pass those savings on to you in the form of reduced rates.

WTVR-TV has some fun with the imminent demise of Verizon’s Richmond White Pages.  (2 minutes)

Purdue

North Carolina Gov. Bev Purdue today announced she will not veto H.129, Time Warner Cable’s special interest corporate welfare bill because there are too many votes available to overturn her veto:

Her statement:

“I believe that every school, household and business in North Carolina – no matter where they are – should have access to efficient and affordable broadband services.

There is a need to establish rules to prevent cities and towns from having an unfair advantage over providers in the private sector. My concern with House Bill 129 is that the restrictions the General Assembly has imposed on cities and towns who want to offer broadband services may have the effect of decreasing the number of choices available to their citizens.

For these reasons, I will neither sign nor veto this bill. Instead, I call on the General Assembly to revisit this issue and adopt rules that not only promote fairness but also allow for the greatest number of high quality and affordable broadband options for consumers.”

While we would have preferred she make the symbolic gesture of vetoing this horrible piece of legislation, by no means does this mean the battle for better broadband in North Carolina is over.

Stop the Cap!, along with other broadband proponents, will immediately begin our efforts to de-elect legislators who best represented the interests of Time Warner Cable and not their constituents.  Most are Republican, but many are Democrats.  They all need to feel the wrath of angry constituents.

It’s our view we had an uphill battle fighting this year’s bill for two reasons:

1. Big Telecom companies learned from their earlier mistakes;
2. The historic change of power to the very-corporate-friendly Republican Party in North Carolina.  Elections really do have consequences.

"I wish you'd turn the camera off now because I am going to get up and leave if you don't." -- Rep. Julia Howard

While not all Republicans are bad, and several rural North Carolina representatives expressed grave reservations about their areas going unserved, there are not enough good ones in office to offset the anti-consumer lockstep voting we saw on this bill.  Rep. Marilyn Avila, who we have consistently called the “Republican representing Time Warner Cable” is a case in point.  Time and time again, she demonstrated a complete lack of understanding about the technical nature of “her bill” and its implications on cities and towns across the state.  Indeed, a citizen activist even snapped photos of Avila hobnobbing with her cable lobbyist friends, who mopped up any goofs Avila made along the way.

Another major problem can be found in Rep. Julia Howard (R-Davie, Iredell).  She claimed her word is her bond, right before she broke it.  When the media pressed her on the $7000 in campaign contributions she received from Big Telecom and whether that connected to her support for H.129, she threatened to flee the interview if a Raleigh television station didn’t immediately shut the camera off.

There is a real classy example of standing up for your principles, whatever were that week.  The former realtor and appraiser helped foreclose North Carolina’s broadband future, handing it back to the near-exclusive control of Time Warner Cable and CenturyLink.

Appealing for less broadband competition under the guise of smaller government might be fine for some, but big and bigger cable bills are not, and that is what H.129 will deliver to every resident in the state.  We’ll prove it to you soon enough.

Two can play the legislative game.  We’ll be encouraging new legislation in the state to improve and expand competitive broadband opportunities for consumers and businesses.  Real conservatives should agree: competition is a great antidote to Internet Overcharging.

Storm Damage (WBRC)

A firestorm of criticism over reports of Alabama cable companies trying to charge customers for equipment lost or destroyed during April’s devastating tornadoes has forced some companies to rethink their policies, at least for this storm.

As Stop the Cap! reported earlier this week, some Alabama customers of Charter Cable and Bright House Networks were asked to pay the full value of cable boxes lost, damaged, or destroyed by the massive storms that struck last month.  Some customers complained about fees in excess of $200 for the set top boxes.  Fees for lost, stolen or damaged equipment are common at cable companies and customers are routinely asked to file insurance claims to cover the loss or damage.

But when tornadoes devastated several Alabama communities, several upset customers began taking their stories to the media, and now those policies are changing, at least for this storm.

Customers of Charter Cable have shared their stories with reporters at local newspapers and television stations, and a few are sharing them with Stop the Cap! Kelly, who requested we not publish her last name for privacy reasons, lost her home last month and is now living in Georgia.  When she called to suspend service shortly after the storm, she was told she would either have to pay for her cable box or make an insurance claim on behalf of Charter Cable.

But Charter Cable tells Stop the Cap! that policy has now been changed.

“Charter will not charge customers for missing, destroyed, or damaged equipment as a result of the recent tornadoes,” said Dylan Hall, one of Charter’s communications specialists. “We adjusted our policy shortly after the tornado in response to the large-scale and catastrophic nature of this storm. This was the right thing to do for our customers. We understand that this is a difficult time for many in Alabama.”

After Kelly reached out to Charter once again earlier today, the company not only waived the box fee, it also credited her account for an entire month of service, resulting in a substantial refund she says will be a big help for her family.

“I greatly appreciate your website bringing this more attention,” Kelly says.  “Earlier today, one of your readers who claims to work for Charter said I was making the story up, and it felt like being abused all over again.”

But after Kelly called Charter directly, things had changed.

“It was like a whole different company, and the representative I spoke with apologized at least six times and felt very bad about everything,” Kelly reports.  “I want to go back to Alabama in the summer, and the fewer bad memories I have of the last several weeks, the better.  This helps.”

Hall believes customers like Kelly likely encountered the lost or damaged cable box fee because they called right after the storm, before the company adjusted its policy.

“Unfortunately, some time elapsed before our Care agents got word to adapt our equipment policy, as we have in the past during other disastrous storms,” Hall says. “So customers who called immediately following the storm were misinformed. The policy changed to reflect the need and Care agents conveyed that to customers. Our employees continued to delivered water, tarps and other supplies to storm victims and help the Red Cross out with financial aid. The policy was changed because it was the right thing to do.”

Bright House Networks has also changed their policies in light of the horrific storm damage.

Karen Broach, regional vice president of operations for Bright House, reports the cable company has sent crews to assess damage and has automatically suspended billing for all customers it can identify were blown out of their homes by the storm:

• Bright House Networks has proactively credited accounts of customers who experienced a loss of service(s) due to the storms.
• Bright House Networks took the initiative and completed a detailed walk out of the area to identify all known destroyed homes and we suspended their billing.
• This is important for two reasons, one is financial and the second is customer convenience.  For example, if a customer subscribes to Bright House Networks Home Phone or High Speed Internet Service, this will preserve the customer’s phone number and email address so they can transfer it to their new residence.
• Suspended customer bills include suspension of equipment charges so customers can make contact with us at a time convenient to them to address their individual needs.
• Bright House Networks will not charge customers for equipment damaged or lost as a result of the storm.
• Bright House Networks never charges a disconnect fee – no matter what the reason.

Bright House customers with questions or problems can call 1-866-876-1872.

Comcast, which delivers cable service in certain parts of Tuscaloosa and Huntsville, normally requires a police report or copy of an insurance claim for lost, stolen, or damaged cable boxes.  But they too have changed their minds after noting the extent of storm damage.

Comcast has notified customers in the Tuscaloosa and Huntsville areas of the following policies:

• For consumers displaced from their homes due to the storms, their service may be placed on a temporary six-month “hold” status at no cost, which enables those with voice and data services to save their telephone numbers and email addresses.
• Equipment (such as converter boxes and cable modems) that was damaged by the storm may be exchanged at the local Comcast offices at no charge. Consumers should notify Comcast if equipment was lost in the storm and cannot be recovered.  Although routine policy requires that a police report or insurance claim be filed on lost equipment, that requirement is waived for six months due to the extreme nature of the extensive storm damage. Customers will not be charged for the exchange or replacement of equipment under these circumstances.
• Customers who lost service will be automatically credited for that period of time.  It is not necessary to notify Comcast for this credit, which will appear automatically on customers’ next bills.  Customers who still do not have service after their power was restored should contact Comcast.

Stop the Cap! notes these are ongoing issues with some cable companies, and we’ve covered similar stories in other states where customers faced demands for payment of cable equipment lost in fires.  We continue to urge cable companies to abandon lost/damaged box fees for incidents involving natural disasters or fires that are not the fault of customers.  It’s good public relations and it is the right thing to do.

WBRC-TV in Birmingham shares the story of Cleon Spain, a Charter customer who was requested to pay more than $200 for his lost cable box before Charter changed its policies.  (2 minutes)