Despite efforts to improve their reputation, cable companies are hated so much the industry now scores lower than any other according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).

The only reason the industry’s average score or 68 out of 100 ticked higher are some new competitors, especially Verizon’s FiOS fiber optic network, which scores higher than any other provider.

The cable companies you grew up with still stink, ACSI reports, with Comcast (63) and Time Warner Cable (60) near the bottom of the barrel.

At fault for the dreadful ratings are constant rate increases and poor customer service. As a whole, consumers reported highest satisfaction with fiber optic providers, closely followed by satellite television services. Cable television scored the worst. Despite the poor ratings, every cable operator measured except Time Warner Cable managed to gain a slight increase in more satisfied customers. Time Warner Cable’s score for television service dropped five percent.

Customers are even less happy with broadband service. Verizon FiOS again scored the highest with a 71% approval rating. Time Warner Cable (63) and Comcast (62) scored the lowest. Customers complained about overpriced service plans, speed and reliability issues. Customers were unhappy with their plan options as well, including the fact many providers now place arbitrary usage limits on their access.

The best word to describe customer feelings about their broadband options: frustration, according to ACSI chair Claes Fornell. “In a market even less competitive than subscription TV, there is little incentive for companies to improve.”

Other stories of interest:

1. Consumer Reports Rates Your Broadband Provider: Fiber Great, Cable/DSL Meh, Satellite Sucks
2. Verizon’s Anti-Aggression Treaty With Big Cable May Be the End of FiOS
3. A Look at Broadband Numbers in the United States: DSL Hurting Phone Companies
4. HissyFitWatch: Frontier and Comcast Battle Over Billboards in Ft. Wayne, Ind.
5. Competition Breather: Verizon FiOS Rate Hikes Ease Pressure on Cablevision, TWC

CenturyLink’s massive nationwide broadband service outage on May 7 hurt Florida schools trying to administer online testing, small businesses in Nevada that were forced to close for the day, and frustrated nearly six million customers across both states and in Arkansas, Missouri, Louisiana, Texas, Kansas, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Washington, Virginia, Michigan, Montana, Oregon, Tennessee, and Illinois.

An unspecified router failure disrupted broadband service for up to eight hours, and it could not have come at a worse time for Lee County and Cape Charter Schools in Florida that had to postpone state-mandated tests that are completed by students online.

Dr. Lee Bush told WZVN when things like this happen it is not good for the students or area schools.

“There’s a window of time for these tests and there’s a short period of time left. It does affect us,” said Dr. Bush.

The Las Vegas Sun also found itself without Internet access for much of the day, which also brought the newspaper’s website down. Several area businesses that depend on the Internet decided to send workers home late in the morning after it became clear CenturyLink had no realistic expectation of when service would be restored.

The Clark County School District, which serves Las Vegas, also reported their broadband service was interrupted.

In Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin outages created a significant problem for farmers cut off from commodity trading markets during the morning hours.

“An early Tuesday morning in May is definitely not a good time to have a long-lasting service outage for agribusiness,” said Sam Haupmann, who advises small and medium-sized farms on telecommunications matters. “Connectivity is very important for the farm economy these days, and farmers can’t just switch to the cable company or a cell phone. There often is no cable company serving farms and cell phone service can be difficult in rural areas.”

Ask CenturyLink to credit your account for the May 7 outage.

Ed Perrine, the chief of operations of Network Tallahassee, a Florida provider, told the Tallahassee Democrat all of his operations went down in the outage, affecting at least 4,000 customers and the 600 to 700 businesses they serve on the Florida Panhandle alone.

Perrine is not too happy with early reports CenturyLink’s massive outage could have come as a result of botched routine maintenance right before the start of business on a weekday:

Perrine said he spoke with CenturyLink at 6 a.m. where they advised him the company was doing scheduled maintenance. At 7:35 a.m. they told him something had gone wrong during the maintenance and it was affecting customers in 13 states.

By 10:30 a.m., the company advised the outage had spread to 22 states.

Perrine said the company has not told him what is causing the outage, but said that just after 11 a.m., the company advised Perrine that they were in the process of restoring service.

The timing of the update is questionable according to Perrine, who said maintenance is normally scheduled on early Sunday morning so if something goes wrong businesses won’t be affected.

CenturyLink had no plans to issue automatic service credits to affected customers, but you can request a refund for a day of lost service by contacting CenturyLink by phone or e-mail.

WBBH in Fort Myers explains how a nationwide CenturyLink Internet outage on May 7 hurt the local economy, affected area schools, and frustrated area businesses and residents. (2 minutes)

Other stories of interest:

1. New Hampshire’s Comcast Phone Service Outage: Like FairPoint Never Existed
2. Cox’s Massive Weekend E-Mail Outage; Reason #1 to Get An Independent E-Mail Account
3. [Update 2] Time Warner Cable: Major Road Runner/Digital Phone Outage in Northeastern U.S.
4. AT&T’s Network Collapses in South Florida: Broward County to the Keys Without Service for Hours
5. Time Warner Cable Suffers Nationwide Outage, But At Least It Didn’t Last Long

A freak spring snowstorm has stolen CenturyLink’s thunder.

A freak spring snowstorm has covered up much of the anticipated publicity for CenturyLink’s plans to launch a trial of gigabit fiber broadband for 48,000 customers in western Omaha.

The phone company announced the pilot project this week amid a historic spring storm that dumped several inches of heavy, wet snow on parts of Nebraska. The media devoted most of its attention to the weather.

CenturyLink admits its gigabit fiber service is a pilot project designed to test consumer demand and the tolerance of local officials for limiting upgrades to selected neighborhoods and customers most likely to buy the service. CenturyLink has priced the gigabit service comparably to Google Fiber — $79.95 a month if bundled with other CenturyLink products. Standalone broadband is nearly twice as expensive — $149.95 a month.

“CenturyLink is pleased to offer its Omaha customers ultra-fast broadband speeds up to 1Gbps to help keep pace with growing broadband demands,” said Karen Puckett, chief operating officer. “This demonstrates our commitment to deliver communications solutions that provide our customers with the technology they need to enhance their quality of life, now and into the future.”

CenturyLink will not be building the fiber network from scratch. The company already runs a 100Gbps middle-mile/institutional fiber network in Omaha that reaches certain business clients and serves as a conduit for CenturyLink customer traffic. CenturyLink will supplement that by using the remnants of its predecessor’s long-gone Qwest Choice TV service. The company will spend millions to run fiber connections to homes and businesses, but around 9,800 residents formerly served by Qwest’s television service will be able to sign up for CenturyLink Lightspeed Broadband as early as Monday. Others may have to wait until as late as October.

CenturyLink now sells up to 40Mbps speeds in Omaha, with a 300GB monthly usage cap. The company has not said if it intends to apply a usage limit on its fiber customers.

The phone company’s largest and fastest competitor is Cox Cable, which sells up to 150/20Mbps service for $99.99 a month.

Cox Cable cannot match CenturyLink’s speeds at the moment, but does not think most Omaha residents need or want gigabit fiber.

“It is important to note that our most popular Internet package remains the one that provides speeds of 25Mbps, which meets the needs of the majority of customers,” said Cox spokesman Todd Smith. “We will continue to talk with our customers and invest in product enhancements to provide an optimal broadband experience.”

Only around 12% of metropolitan Omaha will have access to the experimental fiber service, primarily those living in West Omaha. The network will bypass residents that live further east. The boundaries of the forthcoming fiber network are notable: West Omaha comprises mostly affluent middle and upper class professionals and is one of the wealthiest areas in the metropolitan region. Winning a right to offer service on a limited basis within Omaha is an important consideration for telecom companies like CenturyLink.

AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink and other telecommunications companies are seeking deregulation that would end universal service mandates that require companies to build their networks in every neighborhood, rich and poor.

Cable and telephone companies have taken careful note Google Fiber is being allowed to provide service only where demand can be found — a significant change in long-standing municipal policies that demand cable and phone companies provide access to nearly every resident.

CenturyLink delivered a “between the lines” message to local officials when it suggested it might expand its fiber network elsewhere in Omaha and beyond, but only after evaluating the project for “positive community support, competitive parity in the marketplace and the ability to earn a reasonable return on its investment.”

In other words, keeping zoning and permit battles (and residential complaints about construction projects) to a bare minimum, allowing the company the right to choose where it will (and won’t) deploy service, and making sure people will actually buy the service are all the key factors for fiber expansion.

AT&T said much the same thing when it vaguely promised a gigabit fiber network to compete with Google in Austin.

Google may have unintentionally handed their competitors a new carrot: deregulate us in return for fancy fiber upgrades that customers crave.

In perspective: CenturyLink’s fiber trial will only impact about 12% of the total population of metropolitan Omaha, primarily in and near affluent West Omaha.

WOWT in Omaha spent less than a minute reporting on CenturyLink’s forthcoming gigabit fiber trial. A spring snowstorm preoccupied most of Omaha’s media instead.  (1 minute)

Other stories of interest:

1. Breaking News: Provo, Utah the Next City Slated for Gigabit Google Fiber
2. AT&T Announces Its Own “Gigabit Fiber Network” for Austin; Details Leave Wiggle Room
3. Time Warner Cable, Verizon Insist You Don’t Want or Need Gigabit Broadband
4. AT&T, Time Warner Cable Claim They Are Ready for Google Fiber in Austin
5. Back to Kansas City: Google Fiber Now Going in the Ground; TV Service Also Announced

To many, Provo, Utah might seem an unusual choice to follow on the heels of Google’s earlier announcement its gigabit fiber network was headed to Austin, Tex.

Provo is only the third largest community in Utah — Salt Lake City and West Valley City are bigger — and the community already has a fiber network called iProvo. So why build another one?

Google won’t have to.

But first some background:

iProvo was envisioned a decade ago as a public-private partnership — a fiber to the home network owned by the public with private service providers using it to sell broadband and other services . iProvo taught an early lesson about municipal broadband — large cable and phone companies routinely boycott participation in any network they do not own and control themselves.

In 2003, the president of Qwest’s Utah division made clear their intentions: “Fiber optic’s capabilities are way more than what most consumers need in their homes. Why provide a Rolls Royce when a Chevrolet will do?”

Comcast, the dominant local cable operator, also “went ballistic” according to former mayor Lewis Billings.

iProvo can be yours for just $1.

“One hired a PR firm and a telemarketing company to make calls to citizens,” Billings recalled. “They also placed full-page ads and ultimately hired people to picket City Hall. It was a bruising fight.  My favorite picket sign had a piece of telephone wire taped to it and read that I and one of my key staff members were, ‘a Twisted Pair.’”

With both Qwest and Comcast wanting nothing to do with the project, smaller independent ISPs had to fill the gap. It was a difficult sell, particularly because Qwest and Comcast blanketed Provo residents with a misinformation campaign about the network and pitched highly aggressive retention offers to keep customers with the phone and cable company. iProvo has been in financial distress ever since.

Former Provo city councilwoman Cynthia Dayton remembers being on the council when iProvo was approved and believes the public-private network was a decade before its time.

“Ten years ago it was worth the vote on iProvo,” she told the Daily Herald. It was one of the most difficult decisions but it was for the future.”

More than a year ago, Google noticed the city of Provo issued a request for proposals on what to ultimately do with iProvo.

Google became interested because Provo is seen as a city with hundreds of technology start-up companies and maintains a vibrant tech hub. The city also ranked highly for the enormous value it places on connectivity and community — something the approval and construction of iProvo demonstrated.

Why Provo? Google considers the city’s rankings. (1 minute)

City officials and Google executives began quietly talking more than a year ago about Google buying the public-private network. A key selling point: the city was willing to let the operation go for a steal — just $1.00. In return, Google promised to invest in and upgrade the network to reach the two-thirds of Provo homes it does not reach. Google says iProvo will need technology upgrades in the office, but the existing fiber strands already running throughout the city are service-ready today.

Val Hale, President of the Utah Valley Chamber of Commerce, said a quick “back of the envelope” estimate put Google’s anticipated investment in iProvo network upgrades at $18 million, according to the Deseret News. Unfortunately, taxpayers will still need to pay off about $40 million in bonds the city accumulated for iProvo’s initial construction costs.

Curtis

Current Mayor John Curtis says he has made the best out of a difficult situation.

“We have maximized what we have here today,” said Curtis. “It’s about maximizing what we have. I believe in the long-term it will pay dividends many times greater than what we paid into it, but it’s going to take a while to realize that dream.”

Google promised free gigabit Internet service to 25 local public institutions including schools, hospitals, and libraries. Residential customers will be expected to pay $70 a month for 1,000Mbps service or get 5Mbps broadband service for free up to seven years.

Google’s investment in Provo is anticipated to be far lower than in Austin and Kansas City — cities where it needs to build a considerable amount of fiber infrastructure from scratch. With existing fiber already in place in Provo, Google’s gigabit service will be available by the end of this year, at least six months faster than in Austin.

With reduced construction costs, Google will only ask new customers for a $30 activation fee, far less than the $300 Google will ask Austin and Kansas City residents to pay if they do not sign a multi-year service contract or only want basic 5Mbps service.

Google sees the opportunity to use its fiber network in an ongoing effort to embarrass other broadband providers into investing in speed upgrades.

KSL in Salt Lake City reports Google Fiber is coming to Provo. Last year Google began talking with the city to acquire its iProvo municipal fiber network.  (3 minutes)

KSTU in Salt Lake City reports taxpayers are still on the hook for around $40 million in bond payments to cover the construction costs of iProvo. But Google Fiber will stop other Internet providers from “cheating everyone” says one local Provo resident.  ”[Other ISPs] give you the slowest connection possible and charge you a ridiculous amount for it,” said Haley Cano. (4 minutes)

http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KTVX Salt Lake City Google Fiber in Provo 4-17-13.mp4

KTVX in Salt Lake had some trouble navigating the difference between a gigabit and a gigabyte, and confused what Google services will be sold and which will be available for free in this report, but the ABC affiliate covered the unveiling with both city and Google company officials on hand.  (2 minutes)

http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KTVX Salt Lake City Google Fiber Details in Provo 4-18-13.mp4

This morning, KTVX did a better job in this interview with the mayor of Provo and Google’s Matt Dunne, who says Google believes speed matters and current ISPs simply don’t offer enough.  A key factor to attract Google’s interest is a close working relationship with the cities that want the service. (2 minutes)

Other stories of interest:

1. Breaking News: Provo, Utah the Next City Slated for Gigabit Google Fiber
2. Back to Kansas City: Google Fiber Now Going in the Ground; TV Service Also Announced
3. Google Fiber Announces Next Gigabit Fiber City: Olathe, Kansas
4. Austin Media Gushing for Google Fiber
5. AT&T Diverts Salt Lake City 911 Calls to Seattle

CenturyLink investors got the shock of their investment lives last week after company executives announced the phone company was slashing its dividend by 26 percent from 72.5 cents to 54 cents per share. The stock immediately tanked, tumbling the most in more than three decades, according to Bloomberg News.

The stock price crash wiped out about $6 billion in market value after the dividend cut was announced and stock analysts lambasted executives for the decision.

But CenturyLink’s move to stop paying out large sums to investors does not mean the company is going to spend the money on network and service upgrades. Instead, CenturyLink executives plan to spend $2 billion in stock purchase buybacks over the next two years.

“This is one of the most unusual capital allocation decisions I have ever seen,”  Todd Rethemeier, an analyst with Hudson Square Research in New York told Bloomberg.

CenturyLink, like Frontier Communications and Windstream, have all been popular “investment-grade” stocks for investors that rely on dividend payouts. All three phone companies have paid extremely high dividends to attract shareholder investment, but the ongoing decline in revenue from landline customers disconnecting service has made high dividend payouts financially untenable. CenturyLink has lost six percent of its landline customers in the 12 months ending last September, a decline of 857,000 lines. In the last two years, the dividend payout has cost CenturyLink 50-55 percent of its free cash flow. That is unsustainable at a time the company is losing upwards of $25 million in operating revenue every quarter.

From: Seeking Alpha

CenturyLink executives told shareholders in the company’s latest quarterly conference call that much of CenturyLink’s investment will continue to build fiber links to serve highly profitable cell towers. The company also plans to further expand its fiber-to-the-neighborhood service Prism, which works similarly to AT&T’s U-verse. Phoenix, Arizona is the company’s next major target for rollout, with the service already soft-launched in certain neighborhoods. But do not expect CenturyLink to begin a spending spree to expand Prism rapidly into other communities, even if it means losing more landline customers.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports CenturyLink, the city’s primary phone company, is now in a race against time in a country where more than a third of Americans rely on cellphones — a service CenturyLink does not provide. In response, CenturyLink has relied on its multi-platform Prism service, which can provide phone, broadband, and cable-TV in its bid to stay relevant and help improve earnings growth. The company also sees corporate customers as a major income source, and has expanded into the business of cloud computing with its acquisition of Savvis.

But the company has a more immediate potential challenge. The Communications Workers of America (CWA), the union representing as many as 13,000 CenturyLink employees, has authorized its executive board to set a strike date. The company’s labor contract expired in October and bargaining has yet to achieve a renewal. Workers are complaining about significant benefits cuts, especially to health care plans.

Other stories of interest:

1. Cash Out: Verizon Wireless Pays $8.5 Billion Dividend to Owners
2. Breaking News: CenturyLink to Buy Qwest In All Stock Deal to Impact Customers in 40 States
3. Windstream Claims It Already Offers Broadband to Every Economically Feasible Part of Its Service Area
4. Windstream Announces 9.4% Dividend – Big Payout Preserves Stock Value, But Employees May Pay With Their Jobs
5. CenturyLink CEO Thinks AT&T Has a Tough Road Ahead Cutting Off Rural Landlines

A CenturyLink official made a remarkable concession in the state of Minnesota last week when he admitted the state’s community-owned broadband networks are better equipped to deliver 21st century broadband speeds that CenturyLink simply cannot provide.

Duane Ring, midwest region president for CenturyLink publicly told an audience at a Minnesota High Tech Association-sponsored discussion in Minneapolis that community-owned networks don’t have to meet shareholder demands for return on investment and other corporate metrics that have left CenturyLink broadband customers with far lower speeds than municipal broadband customers. Minnesota Public Radio was on hand:

Noting that CenturyLink wants every customer it can find, Ring pointed out that the company nonetheless needs a return on investment that satisfies shareholders and meets the demands of larger commitments and fiduciary responsibilities.

The small phone companies that have laid high-speed fiber networks, some of whom are cooperatives whose customers are the owners “can make decisions that maybe the economic return is 25 years,” Ring said. “They can do that.”

CenturyLink concedes Paul Bunyan offers better speeds over a superior network.

Only 62 percent of Minnesotans can today purchase what qualifies as broadband service. Those lucky enough to be served by public providers like Paul Bunyan in the Bemidji area and Farmers Mutual Telephone in western Minnesota benefit from some of the fastest broadband speeds in the state. That is because those cooperatives and public ventures laid fiber optic cables connected to individual homes. Those in rural Minnesota served by CenturyLink or Frontier get much less from slow speed, copper-based DSL, if they can get broadband at all.

CenturyLink has proven itself an obstacle for community broadband, opposing the construction of improved networks in areas they already service, condemning rural customers to substandard broadband speeds indefinitely. While the company says it is not opposed to public-private partnerships, any attempt to bypass them will result in a hornet’s nest of legal protests and blocking actions.

While community-owned networks struggle for financing and approval in a hostile atmosphere created by incumbent providers, the government is handing out money to companies like CenturyLink to get them to extend their slow speed DSL network. CenturyLink is spending $11 million in Connect America funds in Minnesota alone.

In other areas, residents have no interest in waiting around for single digit DSL speeds. In Lac qui Parle County in western Minnesota, local officials have joined Farmers Mutual Telephone to build a fiber network.

CenturyLink’s admission proves it answers first to shareholders, much later to customers.

Other stories of interest:

1. Indianola, Iowa Getting Community-Owned Fiber Service: 25/25Mbps as Low as $5/Month
2. Publicly Owned LUS Fiber Launching Gigabit Broadband for Lafayette, Louisiana
3. Want Rural 21st Century Broadband? Form a Co-Op or Wait Indefinitely for Someone Else to Provide It
4. Stupid Opposition to Community-Owned Fiber Broadband: It Will Raise Your Electric Bill, Blind Your Kids
5. Washington Business Community Fed Up With Comcast/CenturyLink, Expands Community Fiber/Wireless

The business community of Poulsbo, Wash., a Seattle suburb of 9,000 in Kitsap County, is fed up waiting around for CenturyLink and Comcast to increase broadband speeds in the area so several have joined forces to share the city’s underused, existing fiber-optic cables to offer free Internet access for area businesses and residential users.

The Kitsap Public Utility District has launched a public-private partnership that offers free wireless mesh antennas to businesses willing to host them and pay any power costs incurred, so long as they agree to let customers and others in range of the network use it at no charge. The wireless mesh technology, more robust than traditional Wi-Fi, costs the public utility district between $7,000-$12,000 per site, but the resulting wireless coverage is cheap compared to wiring individual homes and businesses with fiber.

Local businesses, community leaders and the public consider it a win-win for everyone, especially because the existing institutional fiber network already in place is underutilized. The comparatively inexpensive wireless technology has not created any significant issues for area taxpayers or ratepayers, which effectively underwrite the antenna purchases, installation, and maintenance.

The wireless network offers speedy connections — as much as six times faster than the current broadband speeds sold by Comcast and CenturyLink in the county.

So far, four antennas have been installed downtown at local restaurants and a Lutheran church.

Stephen Perry, the PUD’s superintendent of telecommunications, says the new network is a pilot program to test if an economic model can be created to sustain the service and eventually expand it.

“The whole idea was to have it be a community network. It’s community based and owned so to have the community step up and want to take ownership of it … thought we’d have to force it on people,” Perry told the Kitsap Sun, noting district workers “can’t go fast enough” responding to fiber-optic interest.

The surprising support from the local business community has helped drive the project and publicize it. Local businesses love the new service, which they consider more reliable than paying for and maintaining a Wi-Fi network and Internet connection from Comcast or CenturyLink. The service does not require a password or complicated setup to access and has proved more reliable than older Wi-Fi solutions. Customers also enjoy the higher speeds.

Ed Stern, a member of the city council, said wireless mesh technology represents a major improvement over traditional Wi-Fi.

“It’s not a typical ‘hot spot’ limited to that business or specific location, but rather like ‘umbrella’ coverage, in that the antennas join together to create seamless coverage of everything and everybody throughout the area,” Stern said, adding network expansion is now inching into residential neighborhoods as well. “It’s really exciting.”

With countless towns and cities equipped with underutilized institutional fiber broadband networks lacking money to install direct fiber connections to homes or businesses, the wireless mesh option can offer an affordable introductory solution to expand service, publicize the community broadband initiative, and build support for even more ambitious public broadband opportunities in the future.

One local resident told the newspaper it was about time.

“The privatization business model has proven a failure,” wrote one reader. “Kitsap PUD needs to offer retail broadband to residents and businesses. These fiber cables are just sitting there doing nothing. There is one at the end of my driveway, but no one will sell me the service. Why would CenturyLink bother when they can continue to get overpaid for very slow speeds. In most places, there aren’t choices.”

Other stories of interest:

1. Community Broadband Works: Knoxville’s High-Tech Jobs Move South For Chattanooga’s Fiber Broadband
2. Comcast Offers $300 Rebate for Comcast Cable + Verizon Wireless Service in Pacific Northwest
3. Indianola, Iowa Getting Community-Owned Fiber Service: 25/25Mbps as Low as $5/Month
4. Customers “Probably Don’t Need Higher (<1Mbps) Speed,” Editorializes N.M. Newspaper
5. CenturyLink Slowly Strangling Independent ISPs; Choices Dwindle in Upper Midwest

CenturyLink CEO Glenn Post does not think much about AT&T’s plans to shift its most rural landline customers to wireless in its efforts to decommission traditional landline service.

“From a regulatory standpoint, that could be a tough go,” Post explained to Wall Street investors on a conference call last week. “There may be some areas that will have better service with wireless in some ways. As far as a competitive threat, we don’t see that being a real issue for us because just the bandwidth requirements and the limited wireless access or capability in a lot of areas.”

CenturyLink, one of four large independent phone companies and owner of former Baby Bell Qwest, is doubling down on its wired infrastructure to reach customers. The company recently announced Phoenix would be the latest city to get its fiber-to-the-neighborhood service Prism TV — the first legacy Qwest market to get IPTV service from CenturyLink. The service soft-launches in Phoenix this month, with a second city in the region or Pacific Northwest slated to get Prism sometime next year.

The company has spent much of 2012 investing in broadband, managed hosting and cloud computing for business customers, and fiber expansion to reach more than 15,000 cell towers across CenturyLink’s national service area, depicted in green on the accompanying map.

But CenturyLink executives stress their investments are “strategic” — made in areas that are most likely to deliver quick returns for the company.

While CenturyLink spends money to secure video franchising agreements in metro Denver and Colorado Springs for Prism TV service, it is moving at “a snail’s pace” to deliver broadband service in northeastern North Carolina’s Northampton County. County officials there anticipate CenturyLink will take years to deploy basic DSL service to communities outside and around Conway and Gaston.

The broadband problem in income-challenged parts of North Carolina illustrate the conundrum for county officials, who have to advocate for broadband improvement while combating misleading broadband maps that suggest access is not a problem in the state.

Donna Sullivan with the Department of Commerce notes that broadband maps in states like North Carolina have a census block granularity which does not always reveal the true picture of broadband availability.

“That means if one household in that census block can receive broadband services, the entire census block is considered covered—even though there very well may be households who cannot receive broadband to that location,” she told the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald.

Northampton County, N.C.

CenturyLink is in no hurry to expand broadband to the 1,921 households in the county of 22,000 who cannot buy broadband service at any price.

Derek Kelly, a CenturyLink spokesman, said the company is working to expand broadband services in the region, but noted the costs to lay down a fiber network to help reach the unserved is “one of the largest costs.”

That cost is much less of a problem if the customer at the end of the line happens to be a wireless company like Verizon or AT&T.

Company officials admit they are spending enormous sums “investing in fiber builds to as many [cell] towers in our service area as economically feasible.” In the third quarter alone, more than 1,000 cell towers received fiber upgrades for a total of 3,300 so far this year. The company hopes to reach 4,000-4,500 cell towers by New Year’s Eve.

The reason why CenturyLink chases wireless business while allowing rural and income-challenged service areas to go without broadband is a simple matter of economics. Cell phone companies sign lucrative, multi-year contracts for fiber connectivity to cell towers to support forthcoming 4G service. In contrast, CenturyLink was surprised to find an astounding 94 percent of families with children in Northampton are qualified for the company’s special Lifeline Program which delivers slow speed, discounted broadband service for families on public assistance.

Post

For CenturyLink’s more urban and prosperous service areas, the news for broadband service improvements is better.

As CenturyLink continues to extend its middle mile fiber network, broadband speeds are gradually improving.

Over 70 percent of CenturyLink customers can receive at least 6Mbps DSL service, more than 57% can receive at least 10Mbps and 29% can access the Internet at 20Mbps speeds or better, according to Post.

But the more urban and prosperous a service area is, the greater the chance a cable competitor has successfully poached many of CenturyLink’s DSL customers with the promise of better speed.

Post said he recognizes the company must do better to remain competitive.

“We’re shooting for 20-25Mbps for a very large percentage of our areas,” Post said. “But with [pair] bonding, we can virtually double the broadband capacity and speeds in our markets. We’re already doing bonding in a number of markets today. So where we have 20Mbps, we could have 40Mbps.”

CenturyLink’s fiber to the neighborhood network, essential where it plans to roll out Prism TV, can also support faster broadband speeds if a customer wants broadband alone and does not care about television service.

Nationwide, the company added 10,000 Prism TV subscribers in the third quarter and has a total customer base of around 104,000 subscribers. But that represents a penetration rate of just over 10%, hardly noticed by still-dominant cable operators.

CenturyLink executives were asked to comment on AT&T’s strategic plan to transform their landline network announced last week in New York. Post found little in common between CenturyLink and AT&T’s vision for the future and does not think the company has to respond to AT&T’s attempt to redefine rural America as wireless territory.

“We don’t see that as a major investment for us or a major risk at this point.”

Other stories of interest:

1. Four Telcos-Four Stories: The Big Money is in Commercial Services — Today: CenturyLink
2. CenturyLink Invests to Reinvent Themselves: Prism IPTV/25Mbps Service Arrives
3. AT&T Will Increase U-verse Speeds to 75Mbps and Beyond In Major National Upgrade
4. CenturyLink Announces Usage Caps; Conveniently Exempts Their Own Video Content
5. CenturyLink Doesn’t Want to Serve Low Income Neighborhoods, Charges Colorado City Mayor

Despite a pledge to run this year’s Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., without a penny of corporate money, a new filing with the Federal Election Commission reveals Democrats raised millions from AT&T, Time Warner Cable, and several big banks and energy companies.

Convention officials originally promised the convention would be self-sustained without corporate money, but that promise was long gone with last week’s quiet report to the FEC. Millions arrived courtesy of a convention civic committee that openly welcomed corporate cash.

The Los Angeles Times reports New American City, which paid for hospitality and administrative costs, raised $19 million — nearly all from corporations.

Digging deeper into the FEC filings, Stop the Cap! reveals where some of the Democrat’s money came from and where some of it went:

• AT&T spent $175,475 on “delegate bags” decked out with AT&T’s logo and $123,087 on “catering for suites.” That was in addition to a straight $1 million cash contribution;
• Time Warner Cable handed over $600,000 . The cable company was also the premier sponsor of the host committee’s media welcome party;
• CenturyLink handed over $10,500 to the DNC via New American City;
• Google Foundation contributed $100,000;
• National Cable Satellite Corporation (parent company of cable-industry financed C-SPAN): $2,500
• Turner Broadcasting System (now owned by Time Warner (Entertainment)): $25,000
• Verizon Wireless handed over $50,000

While accepting the contributions violates the Democrats’ commitment not to accept corporate money, election observers concerned with the pervasive influence of corporate cash are not giving Republicans a free pass. With no restrictions on fundraising, the GOP raised nearly $56 million from AT&T and other telecommunications entities, big oil and gas companies, hedge fund managers, big banks, and wealthy individuals.

Other stories of interest:

1. AT&T: The Official Cell Phone Company of the Democratic National Convention
2. Time Warner Cable Introduces Wi-Fi Service in Charlotte, N.C.
3. AT&T Spends Seven Figures to Boost Cell Network for Tampa Bay GOP Convention
4. North Carolina Taxpayers Underwrite $5 Million for Time Warner Cable’s Charlotte, N.C. Headquarters and Data Center
5. Bought and Paid For – Tea Party & Minority Group Opposition to Net Neutrality