Verizon Wireless is expected to enter the Alaskan mobile market sometime in 2013-2014, according to incumbent competitors, who expect Verizon’s largest impact will be to bleed AT&T of customers.

Alaska’s two primary local providers — Alaska Communications, Inc. (ACS) and General Communications, Inc. (GCI), are telling shareholders to relax because they don’t expect to see Big Red in the Alaskan market for at least 2-3 years.  Both companies reported net losses for the quarter, and GCI lost 2,400 subscribers recently when more than 4,000 soldiers at Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks were deployed to Afghanistan.

Both ACS and GCI have been using the current poor economic climate and their respective stockpiles of cash-on-hand to retire debt or reissue long-term-debt at more favorable low interest rates.  Both companies are also hurrying to outdo each other’s 4G wireless network deployments before Verizon Wireless shows up, making use of spectrum it acquired last August to enter the Alaskan market.  Government rules require Verizon to sign-on its new network by June 13, 2013.  But Verizon admits it will take up to five years after that to completely build a new network from scratch.

Right now, Verizon Wireless customers taking their phones to Alaska roam on ACS’ network, for which the company is compensated with an increasing amount of extra revenue.  ACS boosted earnings in part on that roaming revenue, even as it lost more of its own customers.  When Verizon switches on its own network, that roaming revenue will rapidly decline, but ACS executives reassured shareholders their knowledge and experience of construction seasons in Alaska guarantee Verizon won’t be able to get its network together until 2013 at the earliest.

But when Verizon opens their doors, Ron Duncan, CEO of GCI expects a hard fight on his hands.

“We recognize ultimately they’ll be a significant competitor, although I see AT&T share more at risk because Verizon’s main claim to fame when they get to Alaska is going to be devices. We’ll still outpace them on coverage. We’ll continue to be the only ones with statewide coverage,” Duncan said. “People who want to buy the coverage buy from us today; people who want devices buy from AT&T because AT&T gets much better devices than we do.”

Just months after Verizon announced they were headed north, both ACS and GCI accelerated plans to roll out respective “4G” networks for wireless customers, although each company is deploying different standards.

GCI

GCI’s cell phone network is a combination of some of its own infrastructure, the acquisition of Alaska Digitel, and a resale agreement to use parts of AT&T Wireless’ coverage it acquired from Dobson Communications Systems.  In and around Fairbanks, Anchorage, Glennallen, Valdez, Prudhoe Bay, Wasilla, and Kenai, GCI offers CDMA service.  In those communities and many other rural regions in western Alaska, GCI relies on AT&T Alascom GSM networks.  GCI pitches its CDMA network’s 3G wireless data capabilities, which offer faster wireless data speeds, if you can get coverage.  For wider coverage in Alaska’s smaller communities, GCI markets GSM phones, which currently only offer 2G EDGE/GPRS data speeds.  If you use a cell phone mostly for voice calls, the wider coverage afforded by GCI’s GSM network is a popular choice.  But if you want faster data, CDMA 3G data speeds are required.

Eventually, GCI’s 4G network may help deliver coverage and faster speeds in both urban and rural areas, particularly as GCI plans to invest up to $100 million to construct more of its own network, instead of relying on resale agreements and acquisitions.

GCI has chosen HSPA+ for 4G service on the GSM network, and will introduce the service in Anchorage later this month.  That’s the same standard used by AT&T and T-Mobile in some areas.  It’s not as fast as LTE service from Verizon Wireless, but is much cheaper to deploy because cell sites need not be linked with fiber optic cables — an expensive proposition.

ACS

Alaska Communications has a large 3G CDMA network in Alaska all its own.  Its coverage is primarily in eastern Alaska adjacent to major cities like Anchorage, Juneau, and Fairbanks, and where it does provide 3G data coverage, the company claims it extends further out than GCI.  ACS doesn’t offer much coverage in small villages and communities in western Alaska, however.

ACS expects to skip incremental upgrades and launch its own 4G LTE service in the future.  It may help the company regain its second place standing, lost to GCI last year, and protect it from Verizon Wireless poaching its customers.

Losing customers.

A year after Frontier Communications assumed control of Verizon’s assets in the Pacific Northwest, customers are fleeing the company’s inherited fiber-to-the-home service FiOS, after announcing a massive (since suspended, except in Indiana) 46 percent rate hike for the television portion of the service.  A new $500 installation fee has kept all but the bravest from considering replacing customers who have left for Comcast and various satellite TV providers.

Frontier’s second-quarter financial results revealed the company has lost at least 14,000 out of 112,000 FiOS TV customers in the region (and in the Fort Wayne, Ind. market, where the service is also available.)

Early reaction to the original rate hike announcement started customers shopping for another provider — mostly Comcast, which competes in all three states where Frontier FiOS operates.  Even after the rate hike was suspended in some markets, intense marketing activity by Frontier to drive customers towards its partnership with satellite provider DirecTV managed to convince at least some of those customers to pull the plug on fiber in return for a free year of satellite TV, although an even larger number presumably switched to the cable competition.

D.A. Davidson, a financial consulting firm, told The Oregonian the message was clear.

“They would love to get rid of the FiOS TV customers,” Donna Jaegers, who follows Frontier, told the newspaper. “They’re programming costs are very high compared to the rates that they charge.”

Jaegers said Frontier Communications completely botched their efforts to transition customers away from FiOS TV towards satellite, because most of those departing headed for the cable competition, attracted by promotional offers and convenient billing.

Many others simply don’t want a satellite dish on their roof, and are confounded about Frontier’s message that satellite TV is somehow better than fiber-to-the-home service.

Frontier admits its FiOS service is now underutilized, but claims it will continue to provide the service where it already exists.

Wilderotter

Frontier Claims Its DSL Service is Better Than Cable Broadband

Frontier’s general business plan is to provide DSL service in rural areas where it faces little or no competition, and most of Frontier’s investment has been to upgrade Verizon’s landline network to sustain 1-3Mbps DSL service, for which it routinely charges the same (or more) for standalone broadband service that its cable competitors charge for much faster speeds.

But Frontier Communications CEO Maggie Wilderotter says their DSL service is better than the cable competition.

“A key differentiator between our network and cable competition is that you consistently get the speed you pay for,” Wilderotter told investors on a conference call. “There’s no sharing at the local level. High demand for bandwidth-intensive applications like video are putting pressure on all wired networks. To that end, we want to make sure that we have more than enough capacity to satisfy the expectations of our customers. We’re spending capital in all parts of the network with specific emphasis in the middle mile, which will enable us to consistently deliver a quality customer experience for our customers of today and tomorrow.”

Frontier Communications CEO Maggie Wilderotter defends anemic broadband additions during the 2nd quarter of 2011 and tries to convince investors DSL service is better than the cable competition. August 3, 2011. (4 minutes)
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Netflix Traffic Represents 25% of Frontier’s Broadband Traffic; Online Video — 50%

Wilderotter admitted Frontier’s broadband network is overcongested in many regions, which she partly blamed for the company’s anemic addition of new broadband customers.

She noted Netflix, which has itself consistently rated Frontier the worst wired broadband provider in the country for being able to deliver consistent, high quality access to their streaming service, represents one-quarter of all capacity usage of Frontier’s broadband network.

“Video is about 50 percent,” Wilderotter added.  In an investor conference call, she explained network congestion in more detail:

“In [the second quarter], we had many areas with unacceptable levels of network congestion, which negatively impacted our growth in net high-speed additions.” Wilderotter said. “We believe all of the major congestion issues will be fixed by the end of [the third quarter], and that will enable us to drive higher growth and net broadband activation in [former Verizon service areas.]“

“What we decided to do is to go for fixing the middle mile, which is the [central office] to the [...] neighborhood and to expand that capability by 100-fold. And then also, expand from the [central office] out to the Internet and make sure that we have huge capacity to deliver and receive capability to our customers. So when we sell 6 meg, 10 meg, 25 meg, 50 meg, the customer gets what we sell them and that was extremely important for us.”

“So what we did is in the areas where we saw the congestion increase based upon usage increases, and we’ve built new households. We’ve held off on marketing to a lot of those new households until we fixed the congestion problem because we didn’t want to exacerbate what we had already. We’ve shifted capital in terms of the mix of how we’ve spent capital to fix this problem. I’d say we’re probably 75% of the way there in fixing congestion. This quarter is another big quarter for us to get all of the major issues out of the network, which will allow us in the back end of this quarter through the fourth quarter, to really start pushing the penetration levels where we’ve built new households in the areas that have been affected by congestion.”

Frontier Introduces Line Bonded DSL — Two Connections Can Improve DSL Speeds

Frontier Faster? Frontier announces line bonded DSL.

Frontier Communications also announced the introduction of Frontier Second Connect, a DSL line bonding product that delivers two physical connections to a single household.  Line bonding allows for improved broadband speeds.

“Second Connect gives our customers two exclusive connections in one household, and we’re the only provider in every market that can do that,” Wilderotter claimed.

In more urban markets, Frontier’s DSL speeds are woefully behind those available from most cable competitors.  Frontier has begun upgrading some of their legacy service areas and retiring older equipment in an effort to improve the quality of service.

“The real initiatives that we have underway are called middle mile, interoffice facilities, as well as some of the more aged equipment that’s in the network,” said Dan McCarthy, Frontier’s chief operating officer. “So as we go through, there’s about 600 projects that are underway today that will improve both the speed and capability.”

“We’ve inherited markets that there has not been upgrades to capacity in these markets for many years and fixes to the networks, plus the elements as the DSLAMs, even the DSLAMs themselves are old,” Wilderotter said. “So we’re replacing network elements in the neighborhood. We’re splitting them and moving customers to other network elements to make sure that they have a good experience.”

Frontier executives answer a question from a Wall Street banker about DSL speeds and congestion problems on Frontier’s broadband network. A detailed technical discussion ensues as the company tells investors it is redirecting some capital to fixing Frontier’s overcongested network. August 3, 2011. (5 minutes)
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Frontier Still Losing More than 8% Of Its Landline Customers Every Year

Despite broadband rollouts and incremental improvements, more than eight percent of Frontier’s landline customers disconnect service permanently every year.  Frontier called that disconnect rate an improvement over its line losses last year, which exceeded 11 percent in some areas.

“Total line losses improved to an 8.6% year-over-year decline, our lowest level since taking ownership when the pro forma loss rate was 9.7%,” reported Wilderotter. “We also improved [the] loss rate [in former Verizon service areas to] 10.1% compared to 11.4% in Q2 2010.”

Most of Frontier’s departing customers are switching to cable providers and/or cell phone service.

(Update 8-23-2011: We are now told in many areas, Frontier’s Second Connect service is not actually a bonded DSL product, but rather a “dry loop” second DSL line that carries the same speed as your primary line.  Presumably, household members can divide up who uses which DSL circuit for Internet access.  The charge for Second Connect in ex-Verizon service areas is $14.99 per month plus a second mandatory monthly modem rental fee of $6.99. If the web link does not work, it means the service is not available in your service area.)

AT&T: Suing its own customers

AT&T has filed suit against at least eight of their wireless customers who are opposed to the company’s attempts to buy T-Mobile.

The lawsuits, filed in federal court, include a request for an injunction against what AT&T calls abuse of the court with “meritless” arbitration claims being filed as a class action lawsuit.

Stop the Cap! earlier covered the efforts by law firm Bursor & Fisher to seek an end to the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile, and payments of up to $10,000 in damages per customer if the merger goes through.

Now AT&T is pushing back.

Bursor and Fisher’s legal theory is that customers can use the arbitration provisions found in AT&T’s terms and conditions to seek relief against the company for what attorney Scott Bursor suggests will be a future of higher wireless prices for AT&T Wireless customers.

AT&T’s suit seeks to dispel that legal theory:

“Defendant is among the 1,000 (and counting) ATTM [AT&T Mobility] customers whom the law firm of Bursor & Fisher P.A. (‘Bursor’) has solicited and now claims to have recruited as part of a scheme to pressure ATTM into settling meritless claims.”

“Bursor and Faruqi’s [another attorney partnering with Bursor & Fisher's lawsuit] scheme plainly violates the arbitration agreement between ATTM and defendant. Among other limitations on the scope of arbitration, the agreement expressly precludes ‘any form of representative or class proceeding’ and permits claims for injunctive relief ‘only in favor of the individual party seeking relief and only to the extent necessary to provide relief warranted by that party’s individual claim.’”

Bursor

AT&T may have gotten serious after losing an appeal to the American Arbitration Association to block administration of the cases.  In a rare move, the Association overrode AT&T’s objection and started processing cases last week.  Arbitration has never been considered consumer-friendly, because the arbitration industry is heavily dependent on businesses and their arbitration agreements to survive.

AT&T’s general counsel stated the arbitration actions will “place a $39 billion merger in jeopardy.”

Bursor and Fisher appeared to be unintimidated by AT&T and suggested a wireless company willing to sue its own customers is “desperate.”

“AT&T now realizes it faces a substantial likelihood that one or more of these arbitration [cases] will indeed stop the takeover from happening,” Bursor said. “But AT&T’s legal arguments are frivolous. We expect the courts will reject AT&T’s arguments and dismiss these cases very quickly.”

While wireless providers currently treat Wi-Fi as a friendly way to offload wireless data traffic from their 3G and 4G networks, the wireless industry is starting to ponder whether they can also earn additional profits from regulating your use of it.

Dean Bubley has written a white paper for the wireless industry exploring Wi-Fi use by smartphone owners, and ways the industry can potentially cash in on it.

“It is becoming increasingly clear that Wi-Fi access will be a strategic part of mobile operators’ future network plans,” Bubley writes. “There are multiple use cases, ranging from offloading congested cells, through to reducing overseas roaming costs and innovative in-venue services.”

Bubley’s paper explores the recent history of some cell phone providers aggressively trying to offload traffic from their congested 3G networks to more-grounded Wi-Fi networks.

Among the most intent:

• AT&T, which acquired Wayport, a major Wireless ISP, and is placing Wi-Fi hotspots at various venues and in high traffic tourist areas in major cities and wants to seamlessly switch Apple iPhone users to Wi-Fi, where available, whenever possible;
• PCCW in Hong Kong;
• KT in the Republic of Korea, which has moved as much as 67 percent of its data traffic to Wi-Fi;
• KDDI in Japan, which is planning to deploy as many as 100,000 Wi-Fi Hotspots across the country.

America's most aggressive data offloader is pushing more and more customers to using their Wi-Fi Hotspots.

Bubley says the congestion some carriers experience isn’t necessarily from users downloading too much or watching too many online shows.  Instead, it comes from “signalling congestion,” caused when a smartphone’s applications demand repeated attention from the carrier’s network.  An application that requires regular, but short IP traffic connections, can pose a bigger problem than a user simply downloading a file.  Moving this traffic to Wi-Fi can be a real resource-saver for wireless carriers.

Bubley notes many wireless companies would like to charge third-party developers fees to allow them access to each provider’s “app store.”  Applications that consume a lot of resources could be charged more by providers (or banned altogether), while those that “behave well” could theoretically be charged a lower fee.  The only thing preventing this type of a “two-sided business model,” charging both developers and consumers for the applications that work on smartphones, are Net Neutrality policies (or the threat of them) in many countries.

Instead, Bubley suggests, carriers should be more open and helpful with third party developers to assist them in developing more efficient applications on a voluntary basis.

Bubley also ponders future business strategies for Wi-Fi.  He explores the next generation of Wi-Fi networks that allow users to establish automatic connections to the best possible signal without ponderous log-in screens, and new clients that can intelligently search out and connect to approved networks without user intervention.  That means data traffic could theoretically be shifted to any authenticated or preferred Wi-Fi network without users having to mess with the phone’s settings.  At the same time, that same technology could be used to keep customers off of free, third party Wi-Fi networks, in favor of networks operators run themselves.

Policy controls are a major focus of Bubley’s paper.  While he advocates for customer-friendly use of such controls, sophisticated network management tools can also be used to make a fortune for wireless providers who want to nickle and dime customers to death with usage fees, or open up new markets pitching Wi-Fi networks to new customers.

Bubley

For example, a wireless carrier could sell a retail store ready-to-run Wi-Fi that pushes customers to a well-controlled, store-run network while customers shop — a network that forbids access to competitors or online merchants, in an effort to curtail browsing for items while comparing prices (or worse ordering) online from a competitor.

Customers could also face smartphones programmed to connect automatically to a Wi-Fi network, while excluding access to others while a “preferred” network is in range.  Wireless carriers could develop the same Internet Overcharging schemes for Wi-Fi use that they have rolled out for 3G and 4G wireless network access.  Also available: speed throttles for “non-preferred” applications, speed controls for less-valued ‘heavy users,’ and establishment of extra-fee “roaming charges” for using a non-preferred Wi-Fi network.

Bubley warns carriers not to go too far.

“[We] believe that operators need to internalize the concept of ‘WiFiNeutrality’ – actively blocking or impeding the user’s choice of hotspot or private Wi-Fi is likely to be as divisive and controversial as blocking particular Internet services,” Bubley writes.

In a blog entry, Bubley expands on this concept:

I’m increasingly convinced that mobile device / computing users will need sophisticated WiFi connection management tools in the near future. Specifically, ones that allow them to choose between multiple possible accesses in any given location, based on a variety of parameters. I’m also doubtful that anyone will want to allow a specific service provider’s software to take control and choose for them – at least not always.

We may see the emergence of “WiFi Neutrality” as an issue, if particular WiFi accesses start to be either blocked or “policy-managed” aggressively.

Edgar Figueroa, chief executive officer of The Wi-Fi Alliance, speaks about the future of Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi technology has matured dramatically since its introduction more than a decade ago and today we find Wi-Fi in a wide variety of applications, devices and environments.  (3 minutes)

Two years after Americans dumped analog television in favor of digital over the air broadcasting, in just over two weeks many Canadians will discover their favorite free-TV signals gone from the analog airwaves forever.

Canada’s transition to digital TV will take a substantial step forward on Aug. 31st when many Canadian local television stations cease broadcasting in analog.  Canada’s pay television providers are taking full advantage of the transition, trying to persuade Canadians who watch their television signals over-the-air for free they will be better off paying for those signals going forward.

Part of the problem is that digital television signals, while “snow-free,” are not pixel-free in many areas distant from the transmitter.  As Americans in suburban locations discovered, those trusty indoor rabbit ears may be insufficient to receive an annoyance-free picture.

Digital television signals are not the nirvana some suggest.  The same passing vehicles and aircraft that caused wavy analog pictures or other interference can turn a digital picture into a frightfest of frozen picture blocks, digital raining pixels, and other effects that can make watching a difficult signal near impossible.

For Americans who thought the days of the external rooftop antenna were behind them, digital television changed all that, especially in more rural areas that could live with a slightly snowy analog picture, but found sub-optimal digital signals unwatchable.

Canada’s vast expanse, and its accompanying large network of low powered television repeater stations rebroadcasting signals from major stations in provincial capitals and large Canadian cities may prove to be an even greater reception challenge, especially in the Canadian Rockies and hilly terrain in eastern Canada.

Some Canadians experimenting with digital-to-analog converter boxes have found reception less practical than they originally thought.

Peter, a Stop the Cap! reader who lives near Oshawa, Ontario delivers some difficult news:

“Reception of digital signals from Toronto’s CN Tower has proved to be a lot more difficult in Oshawa than the existing analog signals,” Peter writes.  “We have no trouble getting truly local signals like CHEX-TV, which has a transmitter in analog serving Oshawa, but watching digital signals from Toronto really requires an outside antenna for good reception.”

Snow may be a thing of the past, but bad digital reception like this may be here to stay for many Canadian viewers.

Peter’s decision to erect a rooftop antenna opened the door to reception of analog and digital signals from Toronto and across Lake Ontario, where he can receive digital signals from some stations in Buffalo and Rochester, N.Y.  But it was an expense of several hundred dollars to get the work done.

“Cable and satellite companies are taking full advantage of the digital switch to try and get free-TV viewers to ‘upgrade’ to pay television, and they don’t hesitate to mention the expense and hassle of erecting rooftop antennas to guarantee good digital reception,” Peter says.

Peter can only imagine what digital reception will be like in the Canadian Rockies, where large networks of analog, mostly low-powered UHF transmitters deliver basic reception to important networks, especially CBC, outside of major cities.

“If you visit western Alberta or eastern B.C., good luck to you — we could barely watch over the air signals in most of the mountain towns,” Peter says. “Most people either have cable or satellite already.”

Not every television transmitter is scheduled to switch off analog service at the end of August.  Many rural areas are expected to retain analog signals for some time, in part because of the expense of digital conversion and concerns about reception quality.  But some areas, particularly near the U.S. border, are scheduled to drop analog signals regardless, potentially causing disruptions for plenty of free-TV viewers.  Ottawa is anxious to auction off the vacated frequencies for cell phone, Wi-Fi and wireless broadband use for an estimated $4 billion, and the demand is highest in cities along the U.S. border.

“As many as 1.4 million English-language viewers and 700,000 Francophone viewers may be left without a CBC signal,” Ian Morrison, spokesman for the non-profit Friends of Public Broadcasting, which monitors the CBC and promotes Canadian content on TV and radio told the Toronto Star. “For the most part, these are poorer and older people on fixed incomes who are of no interest to advertisers, but who rely for their news and connection to the community on the CBC, the nearest thing we have in this country to a public broadcaster.”

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission runs a website regarding the transition and includes a list of impacted television stations.  Canadian consumers who elect to purchase converter boxes for their analog televisions will pay full price for them — Ottawa has not followed Washington’s lead subsidizing their purchase with a coupon program.

Meanwhile, many pay television providers are running “digital TV upgrade” specials trying to get Canadians to walk away from free TV in favor of paid video packages:

Shaw Direct: Shaw’s direct to home satellite service has developed the best offer around for qualifying residents in 20 Canadian cities set to lose analog television: free service.

“The Local Television Satellite Solution is [for] households in 20 designated cities that have been receiving their television services over-the-air, and will lose over-the-air access to their local broadcaster because the analog transmitter is being shut down and will not be replaced by a digital transmitter,” a Shaw spokesperson told the Toronto Star. “Shaw will provide a household in a qualifying area with a free satellite receiver and dish that is authorized to receive a package of local and regionally relevant signals from Shaw Direct. There are no monthly programming fees provided that a household qualifies to participate in the program.”

The qualifying cities:

For everyone else, Shaw Direct’s least expensive package is their Bronze – English Essentials tier which runs $41.99 a month.

Rogers Cable: Rogers is marketing a special package called Rogers Digital TV which offers up to 85 channels for $10.14 a month, which includes all fees.  Many of the channels are included for the first year as a teaser.  After that, customers are left with mostly local stations and filler (including — we’re not kidding — the Aquarium Channel, which shows exactly what you think it does.  Remember, this is the same cable company that brought you the Swiss Chalet Rotisserie Channel.)

“It’s a fine way to get people used to paying for television, and Rogers introductory price is sure to increase at some point,” suspects Peter.  “Maybe you can save a few dollars using those Swiss Chalet meal coupons, though.”

Telus: Western Canada’s largest phone company doesn’t offer much, in comparison.  A basic package of Telus IPTV over your phone line — Optik TV — starts at $41 a month for the first six months.  Telus Satellite TV starts at $38.27 a month, for the first half of a year.  Prices run higher after that.  The most Telus will toss in is a $50 credit for a customer referral from a friend or family member.

Look on the bright side: When you pay for Rogers Cable, you can finally get to watch The Rotisserie Channel. The spinning chickens are waiting for you, in digital clarity, 24 hours a day on Ch. 208.

Bell: Another phone company with not a whole lot on offer.  Bell’s basic service, which includes TV stations from the U.S. and Canada, starts at $33.50 a month.

Videotron: Quebec’s largest cable company is pitching a combo mini-pack with basic service for $21.29 a month and a required extra channel package starting at $11.17 a month.  That’s around $33 a month.

Can you watch online?  The CRTC says you may find many of your favorite shows available online for free viewing, but includes the important caveat: most Canadian ISP’s engage in classic Internet Overcharging schemes that include a monthly usage allowance that will curtail substantial online viewing.  It should come as little surprise most of the providers in the pay television business in Canada also happen to be the largest Internet Service Providers as well.

About 93 percent of Canadians currently receive television from some form of pay television provider — cable, telco TV, or satellite, according to the CBC.  But some of the 7 percent who do not are at risk of losing Canada’s public broadcaster after the conversion.  While CBC owns most of the stations and transmitters it broadcasts from, it also affiliates with private stations in certain cities where it does have its own presence.

Come Sept. 1, no over-the-air CBC signals of any kind will be transmitted from London and Kitchener-Waterloo in Ontario; Sherbrooke, Chicoutimi, Quebec City and Trois-Rivières in Quebec; Saint John and Moncton in New Brunswick; Saskatoon, Sask., and Lethbridge, Alta.  These are all cities where private stations provided CBC service.  Viewers in these areas will need a pay television subscription, or simply go without.

For some of those already subscribing to cable, Sept. 1 also signals the end of some of their favorite stations, as CRTC requires cable providers to prioritize local stations over more distant ones.  In southeastern Ontario, for example, a number of viewers will lose access to CBLT, Toronto’s CBC station, and CFTO, Toronto’s CTV affiliate, in favor of “more local” stations in Kingston, Ottawa, and Peterborough.

Verizon's aggressive offers promoting adoption of more profitable smartphones delivers higher average revenue from every customer that is convinced to upgrade.

Verizon Wireless continues on its mission to seek out old customers, to explore new ways of earning more money from them, and going where other carriers have already  gone before to get customers to dump basic phones in favor of more profitable smartphones.

The company begins testing a new basic data plan on Thursday around the nation’s capital that will provide up to 300MB of smartphone data for $20 a month in an effort to reduce sticker shock for would-be upgraders confronting the smartphone fact-of-life: the mandatory smartphone data plan.

Curiously, Verizon is calling its limited promotion a “back to school” special, despite the fact some of the heaviest data users around are school age, likely to blow right past their usage allowance.

Verizon Wireless’ leaked press release:

Starting Thursday, existing Verizon Wireless customers in Maryland, Washington DC, Virginia and North Carolina will be able to add a 300 MB data plan to their smartphone or basic phone for just $20 monthly access when added to a voice plan. All new and existing customers are eligible for the promotional data plan that will be available from Aug. 18 through Sept. 30.

Customers in Maryland, Washington, DC, Virginia and North Carolina can choose from an array of 3G- and 4G LTE-enabled devices that include top sellers on all mobile operating systems including BlackBerry, Android, iOS, Palm and Windows Mobile. The plans are not restricted to specific phones but are geared to customers whose data use falls within the 300 MB allowance. Customers who go over their monthly allowance will automatically receive an additional 300 MB for an additional $20 per month.

If that doesn’t convince you to upgrade, perhaps Verizon’s version of “cash for clunkers” — a cell phone trade-in program, will.  Verizon Wireless is offering up to $100 for customers in their western region to trade-in basic phones for a shiny new smartphone, as long as they upgrade between Aug. 18-Sept. 30.

According to Phone Arena, some customers even under existing contracts may qualify:

• 1) Current customers with a basic phone that are eligible for a 2-year upgrade will have to purchase a new smartphone at the discounted upgrade price, re-sign a 2-year contract and add a smartphone data plan.
• 2) Current customers with a basic phone, but are still under a contract may be eligible for an early upgrade. If so, they purchase the new smartphone, re-sign a 2-year contract, and add a smartphone data plan.

Phone Arena had the benefit of a friendly Verizon Wireless employee willing to share the company’s employee-only documentation about the offer:

Members of the New York City Police Department’s Critical Response anti-terrorism unit have been deployed to monitor Verizon workers on picket lines in several New York locations.  Striking workers wonder how much New Yorkers are paying in tax dollars to provide de-facto security for Verizon.  “The company made $19-billion in profit, they can’t afford to bring out their own security to watch their own men,” asked Jon Granziel, a veteran of 21-years with Verizon.  WPIX in New York has the story.  (3 minutes)

Stop the Cap! reader Larry Posk from Atlanta just threw AT&T overboard, fed up with the company’s anti-consumer policies, and Sprint paid him $125 to walk.

“I can’t think of a single reason to stay with the sharks at AT&T who are spending my money to pay off legislators to drop Net Neutrality, impose usage caps on all of their broadband and wireless accounts, and now try and wipe out T-Mobile; I’ve had enough,” Larry writes.  “I told AT&T goodbye and switched to an unlimited plan from Sprint, who more than covered my early termination fee and gave me a new smartphone for free.”

Larry is a beneficiary of Sprint’s customer win-0ver promotion that covers up to $125 in early termination fees when customers cancel service mid-contract.  Larry owed AT&T around $70, but Sprint gave him the full $125 benefit as a credit on his first Sprint bill.

“All I had to do was transfer my old AT&T number to Sprint, which effectively ended my AT&T service,” Larry says.  “Technically I did not even have to call AT&T to cancel service — the number transfer does the trick, but I felt extra satisfaction giving AT&T a piece of my mind.”

Larry doesn’t want to do business with companies that engage in Internet Overcharging.

“I can basically understand there might be a need for some limitations on wireless service, but when AT&T put the same scheme on their DSL and U-verse customers, it was clear they were simply ripping customers off and I want no part of it,” Larry says.

Sprint also gave Larry another 10 percent off because he belongs to a credit union that qualifies him for additional discounts.  In the end, he’s actually saving about $24 a month and isn’t exposed to a usage limit any longer.

“I recognize the fact Sprint’s network isn’t as wide-ranging as AT&T or Verizon, but I barely travel and Sprint’s coverage in Atlanta is actually better than AT&T because Sprint hasn’t dropped any of my calls,” Larry says. “Data speed is adequate for my needs, and is about on par with what AT&T was delivering here in Atlanta, but it’s not as fast as Verizon.”

Larry says he didn’t know about Sprint’s promotion until he asked, and he recommends customers inquire about Sprint covering their early termination fees before signing up for service.  We found some customers complaining they did not get the credit, but we suspect that might be because they didn’t follow the terms and conditions.  The most important one of all: you have to buy your new phone from Sprint, not a third-party retailer.  Here is the fine print:

Available for consumer and individual-liable lines only. Available online, via telesales, and in participating Sprint stores. Purchases from other retailers are not eligible for the service credit. Requires port-in from an active wireless line/mobile number or landline/number that comes through the port process to a new-line on an eligible Sprint service plan. Excludes $19.99 Tablet Plan. Request for service credit must be made at sprint.com/switchtosprint within 72 hours from the port-in activation date or service credit will be declined. Ported new-line activation must remain active with Sprint for 61 days to receive full service credit. Upgrades, replacements, add-a-phone/line transactions and ports made between Sprint entities or providers associated with Sprint (i.e. Virgin Mobile USA, Boost Mobile, Common Cents Mobile and Assurance) are excluded. You should continue paying your bill while waiting for your service credit to avoid service interruption and possible credit delay. A $125 service credit will be applied for netbooks, notebooks, tablets, mobile broadband devices and smartphones which include BlackBerry, Android, Windows Mobile, Palm, and Instinct family of devices. All other phones are considered feature phones. A $50 service credit will be applied for feature phones and Sprint Phone Connect (when available). Smartphones require activation on an Everything Plan with data with Premium Data add-on charge.

Lebanese consumers and businesses are fed up with Lebanon’s archaic Internet infrastructure and the usage limits that come with it.

Now the country is waiting with anticipation as the government prepares to open up new bandwidth from a 3.84 terabit per second underseas cable that passes through the region, but has been left idle since last December.

Lebanon’s Internet is ranked among the slowest in the world, mostly thanks to an over-controlling state telecommunications authority that has priced broadband Internet access into the stratosphere.  Most Lebanese cannot afford the ridiculously slow and expensive “top speed” DSL connections offered by the country’s phone company, offering “up to 2Mbps” speeds for $200US per month.  Instead, most lower income households still use dial-up access, while Lebanon’s middle class settles for 256kbps DSL that still runs a ridiculous $25 a month.

But the 60 percent of the country choosing 256kbps Internet finds even those speeds less than useful when considering they come with a usage allowance of a paltry 3GB per month.  Going over that limit delivers an expensive lesson.  Excess usage is billed at $17 per gigabyte.

Ghanem

Lebanon’s Ministry of Communications, who made the announcement of the forthcoming access improvements, didn’t impress many consumers with word they would “double or triple” the usage cap to celebrate forthcoming speed increases.

“It [is] like entering [the knowledge economy] through a small window,” said Diana Bou Ghanem, head of the the ministry’s ICT office.

Even with the forthcoming improvements, government controls have kept Lebanon’s Internet in the dark ages.  Broadband statistics reveal war-torn Afghanistan and Iraq enjoy faster broadband than Lebanon, and some of the world’s poorest countries like Zambia and Tanzania enjoy speeds twice as fast as those found in downtown Beirut.

Lebanon’s Daily Star newspaper covered the broadband debacle with some alarming reporting suggesting some of the government’s key officials on telecommunications barely grasp telecommunications networks, policies, and practical realities.

For example, former Telecom Minister Charbel Nahhas, a major booster of Lebanon’s forthcoming foray into 3G wireless broadband, seems to believe such networks will deliver up to 20Mbps to Lebanese cell phone users.

Nahhas considers 3G cutting edge for Lebanon, even as the rest of the world prepares to retire it for faster 4G wireless networks.

Telecom Minister Adviser Antoine Boustani seems to think broadband is a tangible resource that can be exported like oil, gas, or electricity.

“We will have an overflow of capacity with [the new underseas cable],” Boustani told the newspaper. “We could even distribute the excess to other countries.”

Ogero is the state-administered phone company in Lebanon.

The Lebanese government and state run phone company — Ogero — have even been willing to celebrate broadband achievements both have regularly failed to meet:

Ogero had planned to host a huge party announcing the [underseas] cable last December, under the auspices of then Prime Minister Saad Hariri. According to sources close to the affair, it was to feature a seated dinner for some 500 persons at the prestigious Pavillion Biel, prime time live television coverage and even Lebanese Opera singer Hiba Kawas, who was commissioned to write a song for the event, performed with a full orchestra. Despite the fact that the Lebanese leadership failed to deliver broadband to its citizens for the past decade, some 10 trophies were to be crafted by the Lebanese sculptor Rudy Rahme and distributed to various officials.

But all this was cancelled when then Telecoms Minister Nahhas received an invitation and challenged Ogero’s role in managing the [underseas] cable and the prime minister’s patronage of it.

Lebanon is following developments elsewhere in the region where broadband usage limits are becoming a thing of the past. When a cartel of Kuwaiti ISP’s threatened to introduce new usage caps in unison, a full-scale consumer revolt forced the government to ban usage caps in the country.

“The Internet has become a cornerstone in development, economy and everyday life in Kuwait,” the country’s telecoms minister, Salem al-Uthayna, said last month in explaining the decision to abolish caps.

Most observers place the blame for Lebanon’s snail-like broadband development at the feet of the government and the state-run phone company, which has blocked efforts to radically change broadband in the country.

Critics accuse both the government and phone company of fearing major market changes, preferring incremental development over a full-scale broadband revolution.  But not everyone is a critic.

“It’s better to look for solutions – play it in a positive way,” said Abu Ghanem, who has worked at the ministry for 15 years. “I don’t want to blame anyone. Just let us work and let us deliver.”

One member of the private sector trying to put Lebanon’s bottom-rated broadband in a different context suggested citizens look on the bright side.

“OK, we are last in Internet [speed] but we are better at other things,” the source added. “Look at the price of real estate in Beirut.”

Fox has turned off instant access to its network shows effective this afternoon for all but “authenticated” pay television customers.  But with only one partnered provider thus far — Dish Network — that leaves millions on an eight day waiting list.

Fox Network programming on its own website and Hulu is impacted by the new embargo, which means the vast majority will have to wait at least a week for access to new episodes.  Customers paying for Hulu + are not affected by the delay, and the network promises forthcoming partnerships with other cable and satellite providers shortly.

Fox says it’s all a part of “retransmission consent” agreements with pay providers.  Major cable operators don’t want to pay for Fox affiliates and cable networks if the network is willing to give away free access to programs online.  In return for blocking access to “cord-cutters,” cable companies hope to stop consumers from switching off cable television packages.

Viewers who try and access shows are brought to a new authentication page to “unlock” access to programming.  If they can’t because their provider isn’t listed, they can fill out an online form requesting their provider participate in the TV Everywhere project.

Most Fox viewers probably will not encounter the new FoxBlock until late fall.  That’s when new seasons of Glee, House, and The Simpsons get started.