Despite hundreds of consumer complaints from residents in and around Baton Rouge, the Louisiana Public Service Commission has refused to vote itself the authority to threaten AT&T with a fine up to $175,000 for poor service.

Ignoring an agreement by AT&T to adhere to minimum service standards in return for permission to acquire BellSouth Corporation in 2006, the Commission oddly decided not to enforce those conditions for the protection of AT&T customers.  On Wednesday, in a 3-2 vote, the PSC instead decided to “study” the matter and to further consider whether or not it should impose the same minimum service standards on all of Louisiana’s phone companies.

Commissioner Foster Campbell, of Bossier Parish in northern Louisiana, was stunned by the vote’s results.

“You’re telling AT&T that no matter what they do, no matter how bad their service, we’re not going to do anything?” he asked.

Campbell told his fellow Commissioners he’s worn out after taking large numbers of calls from upset residents in northern Louisiana.

Field also voted for the measure. He serves District 2 in southern-central Louisiana

This is the second time the PSC refused to fine AT&T and instead “study” the matter.  Meanwhile, customer complaints from the Baton Rouge area continue to pour into the PSC offices.

Commissioner Jimmy Field, who represents the Baton Rouge area, told AP his office had been swarmed with consumers complaining about the length of time to get service installed and outages lasting more than 24 hours. Field wanted the PSC to hang the fine over AT&T’s head again.

Complaints against AT&T in Louisiana also involve lengthy waits for repair call appointments, delays in getting new lines installed, missed appointments, and extended service outages.

In just four months last summer, the Commission confirmed 435 of the 778 complaints lodged across the state against AT&T.

Apparently if the problems don’t impact the residents you represent, there isn’t a problem.

The three commissioners that voted against the proposal to potentially fine AT&T said as much.

Skrmetta was the ringleader of the three opposed to potentially fining AT&T. He serves District 1 in east Louisiana

PSC Commissioners Eric Skrmetta, of Metairie, Lambert Boissiere III, of New Orleans, and Clyde Holloway, of Forest Hill said it wasn’t fair to single out just one company.

Skrmetta went further and said he hadn’t seen many complaints in his district, north of Lake Pontchartrain.  But he had received complaints about some of AT&T’s competitors.

Boissiere voted against the measure. He represents District 3 in central Louisiana

Boissiere, despite voting against the proposal, delivered a verbal spanking to the AT&T representative on hand.

“I don’t like your methods. I don’t like your style. I understand where my fellow commissioners are coming from,” Boissiere said.

Debbie Canale, the executive director for regulation for AT&T Louisiana, wasn’t much impressed with Boissiere’s comments.

“Our customers vote with their money and would do business with competitors, if they were unhappy with AT&T,” Canale offered.

Our Take

The three commissioners who voted against giving themselves the power to make their regulatory authority count don’t belong on any Public Service Commission.  Any member of a review board should be concerned first and foremost with the interests of the residents they represent.  The three Louisiana commissioners who voted against the proposal failed to do that.  They should be removed immediately.

The only way to impress telecommunications companies under your review is to have the power to make them pay attention to your rulings.  Stiff fines for repeated violations (and 435 in just four months is an incredible number) will make any company sit up, take notice and fix problems.

Without it, verbal scoldings are little more than lip service to a provider that can afford to be arrogant, especially in rural Louisiana where competitive choice is hardly bountiful.

Canale’s response to the Commission boils down to, “if you don’t like our service, leave.”  If only every Louisiana resident could choose another landline provider if they wanted.

Holloway, the third "no" vote, represents District 4 in western Louisiana

Ignoring a company’s problems in one region of the state virtually guarantees those problems will eventually visit another.  It is short-sighted and inexcusable to ignore hundreds of valid complaints,  condemning residents to more of the same in the future.  Voting (for a second time) to “study” the issue is an insult to residents and little more than a stall tactic.

The Commission’s suggestion it wants to impose regulatory fairness comes despite a clear agreement, less than four years old, that AT&T signed onto as part of its buyout of BellSouth.  It says AT&T will commit to certain standards of service in return for regulatory approval of the merger.  AT&T already sought to renege on that agreement in mid-2009 when it asked the Commission to suspend fines as part of their “study” about regulatory policies across the state.

So much for that hard-fought consumer protection deal.  Evidently, what AT&T agrees to one year is fodder for their lobbyists the next.  If AT&T wants changes, can consumers demand some changes of their own that assure this company will provide quality service?

As usual, AT&T’s regulatory affairs never give consumers a good deal.  For 435 residents of Louisiana, it also gave them no dial tone and a lengthy wait to get it back.

At for Commissioners Skrmetta, Boissiere and Holloway, the only question that should be on the table is whether they represent residents or AT&T Louisiana.

That is something worthy of careful study.

Louisiana's Public Service Commission is made up of five commissioners, each with their own district to represent.

Time Warner Cable is offering mobile phone providers a solution to their clogged wireless networks — clog ours instead!

Business Week notes the cable company has been aggressively pitching its broadband network to cell phone companies in New York City, which can be used to transport cell phone calls and mobile data between cell towers and the providers’ operations centers.  The “backhaul” network cell phone companies rely on to move calls and data between the cell tower nearest you and your provider’s distribution network is often the source of the worst bottlenecks, especially when those networks are connected by standard copper telephone wiring, as many still are.

The more customers sharing a low capacity copper line, the slower your data speeds and greater the chance for dropped calls.  Although some providers have expanded their fiber capacity to reach busy cell towers, many more are still stuck with copper… until now.

Time Warner Cable’s offer to offload clogged cell phone networks onto the cable company’s broadband backbone has become extraordinarily profitable to the nation’s second largest cable operator.

In fact, it has become Time Warner Cable’s fastest-growing business after revenue tripled last year, Craig Collins, senior vice president of business services told Business Week.

We are talking $3.6 billion dollars in revenue in 2012 from wireless carriers alone, according to researcher GeoResults, Inc.

“Backhaul is a growth play that we are pursuing aggressively,” Collins said. “These mobile players want to get the bandwidth they need at a cost-effective price and our structure allows them to get that pretty seamlessly.”

U.S. smartphone use has grown almost 700 percent in four years, according to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. Mobile-data volume is more than doubling annually as people use devices like the iPhone, BlackBerry and Google Inc.’s new Nexus One to send photos, watch videos and surf the Web. When networks jam, consumers face dropped calls and may find they can’t access Web pages or TV, analysts said.

The coming "exaflood" doesn't seem to worry Time Warner Cable, except when profits from consumers are at stake

Apparently the “exaflood” scare theory that suggests broadband networks are becoming hopelessly clogged does not apply to Time Warner Cable, because the company easily found plenty of free bandwidth in metropolitan New York City to profit from wireless phone traffic.

Not to be outdone, Comcast expects $1 billion from the wireless backhaul gravy train over time, according to its February 3rd conference call with investors.  Comcast is in a unique position to help ease congestion in San Francisco, where the cable operator provides service to some of the same customers who wander the city with Apple iPhones on AT&T’s overclogged Bay Area network.

Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt doesn’t want to limit the potential revenue to just the wireless big boys — he wants to offer service to carriers large and small:

While Time Warner Cable declined to specify if AT&T, the lone U.S. carrier for the iPhone, is a customer, the New York- based cable company says it wants to sign carriers large and small. Chief Executive Officer Glenn Britt alluded to AT&T’s extra iPhone traffic in a December conference call.

“They want to get that into a cable as fast as they can,” Britt said, referring to overloads. His company began leasing backhaul in 2008 and posted $26 million in sales last year, less than 1 percent of the company’s total sales. Collins declined to give a forecast for 2010.

All this, of course, comes ironically to those Time Warner Cable customers who were subjected to Internet Overcharging experiments from Time Warner Cable just about one year ago.  Apparently, the exaflood only applies to consumers who face enormous broadband pricing increases and/or usage limits because of “overburdened” broadband networks.

Not so overburdened that the company can’t make room for billions in new earnings from cell phone companies, of course.

[Video Fixed!] Craig Moffett discusses wireless smartphone data usage trends and Time Warner Cable’s involvement in transporting mobile phone and data across its cable broadband network (5 minutes)

'Don't worry about our new higher prices.'

AT&T is raising its rates for existing DSL customers.  Stop the Cap! reader Bill writes that his latest bill shows a $3 forthcoming rate hike on his “Elite” DSL service just three months after his one year promotional price expired.

“First, there is nothing ‘elite’ about AT&T DSL.  Their promised 6Mbps speed is really closer to 3Mbps, and worse when the weather is bad,” Bill writes. “Second, I’m going to be paying more than $45 for DSL service that my nearby neighbors pay for 10Mbps cable modem service that actually delivers 10Mbps.”

Bill doesn’t have that option unless he pays $8,000 to his local cable company to install a cable down the street to reach his home.

“I called AT&T and tried to downgrade my service,” Bill adds. “When you call and reach the cancellation department, they’ll offer you all sorts of incentives to stay.”

Bill joined many other AT&T customers who have called the company to complain about the price increase during difficult economic times, and many are getting substantial discounts.

“They gave me another year of service for $24.95, the same promotional price I had before, which saves me $20 a month,” Bill notes.

That’s more meaningful than AT&T’s explanations on customer bills.  Broadband Reports quotes from AT&T: “We’re adjusting our pricing for AT&T High Speed Internet service in an effort to better align our pricing structure across our entire service territory, and to better reflect the value of our broadband service. But don’t worry, even with this adjustment, our pricing is still competitive across the industry.”

Some of our readers are not satisfied with that explanation and have been calling customer service looking for discounts, which they’re finding.  Among the offers:

• Six months of service for $24.95 with a promise of an additional six months at that price if you call and ask at the end of the term;
• Six months of service at $22.95 with a similar six month extension when the first six months are up;
• 12 months of service at $22.95.
• 12 months of service at $19.95 (mostly found in Illinois).

Representatives may first offer to “lower your price” by switching you to a lower speed tier.  Refuse that offer and tell them you simply want a lower price.  Customers who have other competitive options (cable) will find AT&T most amenable to offering a lower price.  Those with no other options may find AT&T less willing to negotiate.  In those cases, some of our readers recommend calling back to speak to a different customer service representative.  If you do not have a standard residential phone line along with your DSL service, getting discounts becomes very difficult.

Trying to negotiate takes less than 30 minutes of your time and often brings you more than $200 in savings over the coming year.  That’s worth the effort.

[Stop the Cap! will be closely following Google's experimental gigabit fiber-optic broadband network. We'll be bringing regular updates about the communities applying, the strategies they are using to attract Google's attention, what the competition thinks, and the impact of the project on American broadband.  You can read our earlier community profiles, and news about the project here.]

Topeka wants Google’s fiber experiment so badly, it is willing to rename itself to Google, Kansas — at least for the month of March, anyway.

Mayor Bill Bunten signed a proclamation Monday rechristening the city “Google, Kansas — the capital city of fiber optics.”

It’s all part of a well-organized effort to bring Google’s fiber optics to 122,000 residents living and working in the capital city of Kansas.

Think Big Topeka, a local group started by three people just a few weeks ago, was launched to promote Topeka as a candidate city.  It includes links to e-mail elected officials, complete Google’s online nomination form, and coordinate upcoming events.

It has since collected more than 10,000 Facebook fans and has gotten a big push from most of the local broadcast and print media, which have run more than a dozen stories about the group and the petition to nominate Topeka.  Several stations even have prominent links back to Think Big Topeka’s website.  The city government is also an enthusiastic supporter of the experimental project.

Think Big Topeka knows how to get media attention.  The group recently started running “flash mobs” — events where hundreds of people silently promote the project by suddenly stripping off jackets to uncover T-shirts promoting the Think Big Topeka campaign.  Engineering events that are “made for television” guarantee plenty of attention on the evening news.

The Google “Think Big With a Gig” experiment has excited communities from coast to coast, convinced advanced fiber optic networks will bring new jobs, high technology business, and improved broadband service for both consumers and area businesses.  Many hope the competition will also finally lower prices.

Incumbent providers Cox Cable and AT&T are the largest local providers.

Cox currently offers three broadband tiers — Essential 3 Mbps/384 kbps ($29.99), Preferred 12/1.5 Mbps ($46.99), and Premier 25/2 Mbps ($61.99).

Cox Cable, when asked by KSNT-TV news what they thought about the project brought a response from Kelly Zega, a representative from Cox Communications: “We have always believed competition in the marketplace is a healthy thing, as it leads us all to improve and innovate in ways that ultimately benefit consumers.”

AT&T offers U-verse in selected areas of Topeka, but most areas are still served by AT&T’s traditional DSL service which offers considerably slower speeds — Basic 768/384 kbps ($19.95), Express 1.5 Mbps/384 kbps ($24.95), Pro 3 Mbps/512 kbps ($24.95), or Elite 6 Mbps/768 kbps ($24.95).  (Note the prices for Express, Pro, and Elite are identical — apparently which plan you get depends on what actual speeds AT&T is capable of delivering to your home.)

If Google can deliver faster speeds and lower prices, it’s no surprise thousands of Topekans are excited.

The Topeka Capital-Journal, the community’s daily newspaper, is also promoting the project on its editorial pages:

This excitement is being created by a lot of people who see opportunities to help the city grow and become an even better place to live, and are determined to do everything they can to make it happen.

Evidence of their enthusiasm and dedication was on display Thursday evening when about 500 of them gathered at the Ramada Hotel and Convention Center to talk about plans to revitalize downtown Topeka. Granted, the audience consisted of two different groups, but each had visions that, if fulfilled, would mean great things for our city.

We’ve written recently in support of Think Big Topeka, a group trying to convince Google that Topeka is the place to test an ultrafast Internet connection that promises to provide Internet service about 100 times faster than anything we are working with now. The effort has attracted about 7,875 supporters in a very short time and some of them turned out for Thursday’s meeting, sponsored by Heartland Visioning, to encourage others to jump on the bandwagon.

Supporters of the Google project and those interested in revitalizing downtown meshed during the evening as the discussion flowed between both issues.

Such a confluence of people and organizations with visions, dreams or plans — call them what you will — is a healthy, and welcome, development itself that bodes well for the city’s future. Most good things start with someone’s vision or dream, and they aren’t to be scoffed at or dismissed out of hand.

Think Big Topeka has more than 10,000 fans on its Facebook page

Dreams can come true… if a city actually applies.  The city of Topeka will.

“The city of Topeka welcomes the opportunity to participate in this unique technological experiment, if selected as Google trial community, to benefit our citizens in providing all opportunities to access Internet technologies,” city officials wrote on the city’s Facebook page.

The city’s information technology department has been tasked with working on what they characterized as a very long and detailed application.  Mark Biswell, IT director for Topeka city government, said his department has been hard at work on the application from the moment Google announced the project.

Shawnee county, which includes Topeka, is conducting an online  survey running until Saturday asking residents about their interest in the Google fiber project.  They are seeking input on what kinds of broadband speeds residents actually obtain, instead of relying on marketing promises made by the incumbent providers.  They also want to learn how satisfied residents are with Cox and AT&T.

For Topeka, a city coincidentally working on its own revitalization plan for downtown development, the prospect of Google gigabit fiber could be the crown jewel of a complete city makeover.

KTKA Topeka aired three reports about the Google fiber experiment, including an interview with one of the founders of the Think Big Topeka group. (3 minutes)

http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WIBW Topeka Group Wants Google's Blazingly-Fast Internet To Come To Topeka 2-17-10.flv

WIBW Topeka has these two reports featuring the Think Big Topeka group and how the city government is involved in the project.  (4 minutes)

http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KSNT Topeka City Renames Itself Google for March 3-1-10.flv

KSNT Topeka has several reports about the organizing effort, a “flash mob” and Topeka city government’s strong belief in the project.  (6 minutes)

http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Think Big Topeka.flv

Finally, Think Big Topeka has some of its own videos on offer, answering residents’ questions and cheerleading the effort to bring better broadband to Topeka.  (3 minutes)

Sprint, America’s third largest mobile phone and wireless company, has launched a marketing war on its bigger competitors AT&T and Verizon Wireless scoffing at both providers’ $69.99 “unlimited” calling plans.

“Recently AT&T and Verizon have attempted to confuse the marketplace by lowering their pricing to $69.99, but theirs are for calling only,” said Mike Goff, Sprint’s vice president of corporate marketing.

Sprint launched a new advertising campaign this morning featuring CEO Dan Hesse calling out both carriers for effectively confusing consumers.

Hesse explains most people use their cell phones for more than just making and receiving calls.  Hesse said his larger competitors charge substantially more to use data services, and that many of the latest handsets don’t qualify for the special pricing.

Both AT&T and Verizon Wireless have started to require consumers with so-called “smartphones” to sign up with a data plan, adding to the customer’s bill whether or not they actually use such services.  Sprint says their unlimited plan also bundles unlimited web browsing, texting, and GPS navigation for the same price — $69.99, available on any phone they sell.

Sprint has had its hands full trying to stem the ongoing loss of its customers to larger competitors.

AT&T has benefited from an exclusive sales agreement for Apple’s iPhone, while Verizon Wireless achieved the top spot among U.S. carriers for its perceived widest coverage area.  Sprint has neither, and historically poor customer service to boot.

Will Sprint’s new campaign make an impact?

Roger Entner, head of telecom research for the Nielsen Co., told Brandweek that AT&T and Verizon are in such a commanding position in the market right now that they are unlikely to respond to Sprint. “They have the luxury of being able to ignore [Sprint],” said Entner, who noted that both AT&T and Verizon added millions of new subscribers in the fourth quarter, many at Sprint’s expense.

Sprint has managed to at least slow customer defections.  In the last quarter of 2009, Sprint lost 148,000 subscribers.  The previous quarter, the company lost 545,000 customers.

Sprint CEO Dan Hesse explains why their $69.99 plan is “better” than the competition in this new advertisement.

Across AT&T’s service areas, the company has lobbied heavily for telecommunications deregulation that, among other things, makes the printing and distribution of telephone directories optional.  In Alabama, AT&T has filed a request with the state Public Service Commission to end automatic delivery of residential listings, the so-called “White Pages,” to reduce costs.

Because telephone companies earn substantial revenue from advertising in the business listings, the “Yellow Pages” will continue to be printed and dropped on doorsteps across Alabama once a year, whether  customers ask for them or not.

AT&T’s filing with the Alabama PSC explains the reasons for stopping the printed residential listings:

The traditional residential white page telephone book no longer provides the same utility it once did. Based on trials AT&T has recently conducted, it appears that the vast majority of customers neither need nor use these often quite large, bound paper directories delivered to their homes each year. AT&T Alabama thus proposes a directory delivery trial whereby AT&T Alabama would initially deliver the AT&T Real Yellow Pages directory in the Mobile market.

In addition to traditional Yellow Pages listings, that directory would also contain the business white page listings, the Government listings, the customer guide information, and other information required under the Commission’s Rules. Also included will be materials informing customers they can receive a printed white pages directory containing residential listings, which will be mailed at no cost to the customer. Customers tend to find their residential listings in today’s marketplace in a manner other than by using the printed white page directories, so publishing largely unused residential white page books is an inefficient use of environmental resources.

If the proposal is approved, AT&T will offer Alabama residents the option of receiving a printed version of the White Pages or a CD-ROM containing the listings mailed to them at no charge.

AT&T’s telephone directories are already online at AT&T’s RealPagesLive website.

The PSC is expected to consider the matter later today.

Charter customers thank the company for the speed increases

Charter Cable has made it clear — no metered billing and no enforcement of its “soft usage caps.”

“We have no plans to introduce metered billing,” Ketzer told Broadband Reports, adding no trials were forthcoming either.

But Charter Cable did say bandwidth consumption is a concern for the company, and a measurement tool to educate customers about their current usage was on the way.

“Right now we are gathering requirements to develop a resource so that customers can monitor and control their bandwidth resources,” said Ketzer. “This was something that our customers have been requesting and we want to meet that need.”

Separately, Charter also announced speed upgrades for many of its broadband customers.  Starting this morning, customers can briefly unplug their cable modems to reset them and enjoy some increased speeds at no additional cost.

Charter's old speed tiers (shown above) got an upgrade this morning. Prices quoted are for new customers. Existing customers: add $15 -- Internet Only customers: add $25

The new speed increases impact three of their broadband plans.  Only “Lite” speeds remain unchanged:

• Lite: Remains the same at “up to” 1 Mbps/128 kbps
• Express: Increases from 5/1 Mbps to 8/1 Mbps
• Plus: Increases from 10/2 Mbps to 16/2 Mbps
• Max: Increases from 20/2 Mbps to 25/3 Mbps

Charter advises Max customers will need to exchange their current cable modem to receive the new speeds.  They come as a result of DOCSIS 3 upgrades, which requires a modem that supports that standard.

Some Charter customers can go even faster with the company’s Ultra60 plan delivering 60/5Mbps service for $139.99 a month.  Customer promotions, typically running six months, can cut the cost to $109.99 during the promotional period.

Increasing speeds and shelving Internet Overcharging schemes like usage limits and usage-based billing build customer loyalty and bring new customers, particularly at the expense of telephone company DSL plans, which cannot compete on speed.  Most DSL providers have stopped increasing speeds beyond the maximum 6-10 Mbps they have advertised for years.  Many barely deliver 3 Mbps.

AT&T, which provides service in many Charter markets, has raised the stakes for competition as it rolls out U-verse, an advanced type of DSL service that can support video, telephone, and faster broadband.  In Reno, where AT&T has conducted usage cap experiments for more than a year, the news that Charter won’t comes as welcome news.

Stop the Cap! reader David canceled AT&T service when he found out the company was testing a usage cap in Reno.

“When we found out they were limiting us (after we signed up), we not only canceled AT&T broadband, but also disconnected our two phone lines as well,” David writes.  “We won’t do business with a company that wants to limit our broadband use and we resented being guinea pigs in the first place.”

David adds a “retention specialist” offered to waive his participation in the trial, but he wasn’t interested and is not looking back.

“Unless you deliver a clear message these ripoffs are unacceptable in a way they understand – money – they will just come back for more once the ‘experiment’ is over,” he said.

David is happy with his Charter Cable service, and estimates AT&T’s experiment cost them nearly $200 a month in revenue they used to earn from his family.

“Their cost control program certainly worked — for me.  I’m saving more money with Charter than what I was paying AT&T,” he adds. “I wouldn’t have switched except for their usage cap.”

Charter itself has some broadband usage limits, but they are almost never enforced.

Charter currently defines “normal” residential usage at around 15 gigabytes per month.  Charter’s usage allowances appear in its “excessive use” clause in the Acceptable Use Policy:

Residential service usage will not exceed 100GB of bandwidth per month for Customers subscribing to Services of 15 Mbps or less per month and 250GB of bandwidth per month for Customers subscribing to Service over 15 Mbps and up to 25 Mbps. Charter reserves the right to revise usage limits or to implement additional usage limits. In the event residential usage exceeds the above-described limits Customer will be notified and required to either limit Customer’s bandwidth consumption to permitted levels/limits or subscribe to a Service with a higher monthly bandwidth limit if a higher limit subscription is available.

Since these limits have not been aggressively enforced, they are known as “soft usage caps.”  Most Internet Service Providers have provisions for such limits in their customer agreements, although they are usually only enforced only when a customer’s usage reaches into the stratosphere (often terabytes of usage are involved) or creates a problem for the provider.

Still, some customers dropped Charter Cable even over the defined “soft caps,” switching to competitors who had no such provisions in their usage policies.  Consumers hate Internet Overcharging schemes, and will readily change providers to avoid them.

Charter Cable created this ad from customer recorded submissions sent over their Internet service (1 minute)

Channel Siberia

Looking for your local town government meeting on Charter Cable?  Missouri residents may have to send out a search party to find their local public, educational, and government (PEG) channels, because Charter has moved them way, way up the dial for some of their subscribers.

A Lewis & Clark-like expedition by Washington, Missouri councilman Guy Midkiff found his — in the channel 900s range:

PEG programing has been given the heave-ho to stratospheric 900 plus channel, closet. Apparently if your TV is more than 4 years old, you can’t even get the PEG channels without a $5 per month additional fee and a converter box.

What happened to them? Seems the state of Missouri took over the regulation of cable franchises back in 2007. What that meant was that local communities – like Washington, lost all leverage to demand cable hold up  the long standing bargain of making PEG programing available on the low channels. This was part of the original basic package of programing. 

If memory serves, 900 channels used to be the domain of online shoppers. How coincidental that these shopping channels are showing up in the old real estate that was once reserved for PEG. I am sure the fact that cable companies get a piece of the pie from shopping channel sales, has nothing to do with the change of addresses.

Midkiff

It’s another intended consequence of AT&T’s statewide video franchising bill, just one of many making their way across the state legislatures where AT&T provides service.  By removing local oversight of video franchising, the power to ensure residents access to local public, educational, and government programming is lost.  Only the benevolence of the pay television provider keeps it on the dial at all, and when shopping channels show providers the green stuff for an envied lower channel position, it’s a safe bet PEG channels will receive the industry equivalent of an eviction notice.

Cable channel real estate has good and bad neighborhoods.  The lower the channel number you secure, the more prestigious the address.  That’s because most viewers who start channel flipping start from the bottom and work their way up.  Most land on a channel below 40.  Channels 41-60, which used to be the cable ghetto, are now firmly in the “affordable housing” realm.  For those unlucky enough to find themselves above channel 60, the cable industry has a term for that landscape — Channel Siberia.

Under those circumstances, you can image how many viewers are brave enough to make the trek all the way to channels 900 and up.

That's not all that expanded in Reno... customer's broadband bills faced $1/GB overlimit penalties as part of an Internet Overcharging experiment

AT&T’s experiment with usage caps appears to have lost them loyal customers, and generated numerous complaints against AT&T with the Better Business Bureau regional offices in Nevada and Texas for false advertising.  Now there are indications AT&T will wrap up the entire experiment by this April and “study the results.”  Stop the Cap! reader John wrote to say the nightmare may be ending… for now.  At least one of our readers arguing with intransigent AT&T executives heard likewise.

AT&T last year subjected Beaumont, Texas and Reno, Nevada to a trial forcing a usage allowance between 20-150 gigabytes per month on customers, depending on the type of broadband plan selected.  The proposed overlimit fee?  $1.00 per gigabyte, although problems with their usage meter often kept overlimit fees off customer bills.

We’ve documented the howls of complaints from customers who were falsely sold an “unlimited” plan from AT&T and were never notified, or notified after signing up, of the existence of the Internet Overcharging scheme.  Some customers received express mail letters officially notifying them of the scheme, others received robocalls.  Complaints to the Better Business Bureau usually got any excess charges refunded, and some managed to secure a complete exemption from the usage cap trial, under threat of canceling their accounts.

Stop the Cap! reader Robin is a typical example of a customer who was sold a bill of goods by AT&T’s marketing, only to be punished with the fine print after signing on the dotted line.

“I just got my Express letter in the mail today. My internet was hooked up yesterday – no one ever said anything about any cap! I was in shock when I received the letter in the mail, I have never heard of anything like this. I live about 30 minutes out of Reno. Needless to say I am very very upset and trying to figure out what I am going to do now as I know I will go over the cap every month, I can’t afford that and I can’t afford cable internet at this time either. AT&T sucks and so does their customer service.”

Robin joins many other customers in both communities stuck in a trial that even some AT&T customer service representatives don’t understand.  Robin’s calls to customer service met with claims the account could not be found, and transfers to four different AT&T departments before being able to address the usage cap surprise.

Albert, another reader, was similarly surprised.

“They are fraudulent in every respect. The state attorney should look into this. They say “unlimited” and when you sign up, they send you a little email saying you are screwed [with the trial],” he writes.

AT&T’s response to Albert was essentially “tough cookies” and if he didn’t like it, he could cancel.

Our readers in Beaumont went through the same AT&T Confusion Circus, transferred between departments until someone recognized the caller was a lucky winner of an Internet Overcharging experiment.

In both cities, delivering an effective message of customer contempt with AT&T’s usage cap scheme means filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.  As an accredited member, AT&T values its rating very highly, and targeting complaints to the Bureau forces them to spend time and money to respond.  Better yet, AT&T executives don’t like it one bit, as Albert writes:

“Go to the Southern Nevada Better Business Bureau and file a complaint. I just had the VP of Regional West of AT&T call.  She was pissed that I filed a complaint, and now she has to personally reply. She hung up on me.”

Being an active consumer willing to make your voice heard is an effective way to deliver the message pricing and usage tricks and traps are unacceptable.  Better yet, it annoys providers with dollar signs in their eyes, especially when canceling your service.

Albert was told the nightmare ends April 1st, when the trial wraps up, but now is the time to deliver the final protest AT&T cannot ignore.

April 1st is an ironic date — the first anniversary of  Time Warner Cable sharing word of its own Internet Overcharging experiment in Austin, San Antonio, Greensboro, NC and Rochester, NY. After two weeks of protest, Time Warner Cable shelved their experiment.

If you’re a resident of Reno or Beaumont, it’s critically important to deliver AT&T a message they can understand:

1. Contact the local media and request they publicize the ongoing controversy over Internet Overcharging schemes;
2. Contact your local and federal elected officials and let them know AT&T’s schemes are unacceptable.  See our “Take Action” section regarding support for legislation that would outlaw such schemes;
3. File a detailed complaint with the Better Business Bureau, particularly emphasizing any lack of disclosure about the experiment, bait and switch advertising, ripoff pricing, etc.  Demand an immediate and full refund for any overage charges and a free pass to cancel AT&T services without any early termination fees.
4. Reno residents — contact Barbara DiCianno at 775-334-3112. She is the mayor’s assistant. Call her and ask to have an investigation launched regarding AT&T’s discrimination against Reno with overcharging schemes that put the city at a distinct broadband disadvantage.  Local elected officials can deliver a strong political message to AT&T that such overcharging schemes will lead to robust support for re-regulation of AT&T’s broadband business to protect consumers.
5. Tell AT&T you will never remain a customer of a provider that has Internet Overcharging pricing schemes.  Tell them in no uncertain terms usage limits and usage based billing are unacceptable, and you will cancel service the moment they attempt to implement either.

A year ago, it was the residents of Beaumont and the other cities impacted by Time Warner Cable’s overcharging scheme that fought on the front line to protect every Time Warner Cable customer from facing a tripling of their price for broadband service.  Today it’s Reno and Beaumont fighting for AT&T customers, both inside their own communities and those nationwide.  As Albert reminds us:

“We will be the ones that determine if this continues or stops here and now.”

When AT&T’s U-verse system arrived in Lawrence, Kansas residents rejoiced at the prospect of finally getting broadband service that didn’t come with Internet Overcharging schemes attached.  Sunflower Broadband, the local independent cable system, tied its fortunes to broadband usage allowances as low as three gigabytes per month.  Exceeding the allowance kicked in an overlimit fee for every extra gigabyte used.

As AT&T continues to make inroads in Lawrence with U-verse, which doesn’t have usage limits, customers noticed and began dropping Sunflower.  The cable system also noticed, and has increased plan allowances.

On the low end, the Bronze plan still charges $17.95 per month for 3Mbps/256kbps service with a three gigabyte allowance .  The Silver plan — $29.95 per month — received a speed and allowance upgrade.  Up from 7Mbps to 10Mbps, the monthly limit has now doubled to 50 GB per month.  Upload speeds remain an anemic 256kbps, however.  The biggest change comes for Gold plan users.  For $59.95 per month, the company offers 50/1Mbps service with a considerably more generous allowance — 250GB per month, up from 120GB.

Sunflower Broadband's Old Pricing/Service Plan (from January 2010)

Sunflower also sells a flat rate, unlimited plan called Palladium that doesn’t offer customers a set speed.  The company cut the price from $49.95 to $44.95 a month, perhaps in response to an underwhelmed customer base.  As we reported in January, Palladium speeds do not impress many Sunflower customers.  But some local residents report speeds are improving for those moved to Sunflower’s new DOCSIS 3 platform, an upgrade from Sunflower’s older system, where most of the speed complaints were noted.

The Lawrence Broadband Observer says AT&T and Sunflower are becoming close competitors in most respects, except upload speeds:

The one area where Sunflower still lags is upload speed, which even on the high-end plan is still limited to 1 megabit. This seems puzzling, and the 50 down to 1 up ratio of is greater then any other DOCSIS 3 cable company I was able to find, and makes it difficult to use services like photo and movie uploading, file sharing and online backup services. If Sunflower ever raises their upload speeds, they might just be able to lure this former customer back into the fold!

They could lure many more back if they dropped the hated usage limits and overlimit fees.  DOCSIS 3 provides substantially improved bandwidth, making such limits unnecessary.

Sunflower's New Broadband Plans & Pricing (February 2010)