Last Week’s Tornado Damage Still Leaves Many Without Cable, Internet Service in NY Boroughs

Phillip Dampier September 23, 2010 Cablevision (see Altice USA), Consumer News, Video 1 Comment

Big Apple Day

Thousands of New Yorkers impacted by last week’s tornado outbreak face indefinite wait times for restoration of cable and broadband service from the area’s two biggest providers — Time Warner Cable and Cablevision.

Last week’s storms have left debris from thousands of downed trees and utility poles still in the streets in some parts of the impacted areas, leading to criticism of city officials and cable providers for slow cleanup efforts.

In particular, calls to Time Warner Cable have been a frustrating experience, reports the NY Post.  Cable subscribers cannot get through to the cable company, and when they do, they receive little or no information about when exactly their service will be restored.  The company added a recorded message to help get customers off the phone, telling subscribers “technicians are doing everything they can” to restore service and that actual representatives can’t provide any other information.

Jayant, one of our readers in the hard-hit Flushing area in Queens made sure to request service credit for his cable outage, knowing many providers won’t provide service outage credits if they are not specifically requested.

“Considering the enormous amount of damage here, I can understand being without service over this past weekend — restoring power should and does come first, but since Tuesday Verizon and ConEd cleared out of this area after finishing repairs and some of us are still waiting for the cable company to show up,” he writes.  “Forget about calling them — it’s busy signals or ‘extended hold times’ that I suspect run into days at this point.”

He’s using Virgin Wireless’ unlimited mobile broadband service he read about on Stop the Cap! for now.

Another Queens resident shared her frustration with the Post:

“I was very tolerant until [yesterday] morning,” said Helen Cassano of Queens, who relies on TV to help entertain her bed-ridden mother who’s under 24-hour care. “It was a big storm. I understand there’s a lot going on, but talking to people in the area now, their cable is on and I want to know why mine isn’t on . . . maybe they’re not working hard enough.”

A TWC spokesperson said that “more than 75 percent” of service has been restored to affected customers, with those in Bayside, Murray Hill, parts of Flushing, Forest Hills and Middle Village being hit the hardest.

“Although a Time Warner Cable truck may not be visible on your street, engineering and technical teams may be working in the vicinity or behind the scenes to restore service,” the spokesperson said.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WABC New York Slow recovery from last week’s tornadoes in some New York neighborhoods 9-20-10.mp4[/flv]

WABC-TV covers some angry New Yorkers who are still waiting for services to be restored from a tornado outbreak a week after the storms hit.  Copper thieves were among the busiest, cleaning up downed cable-TV, phone and power cables to make a quick buck.  (2 minutes)

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/NY Tornado 9-23-10.flv[/flv]

Here is a far more comprehensive and detailed look from New York television stations, including WPIX, WABC, WCBS, and NY1 of the impact of last Thursday’s tornado outbreak in the city.  (51 minutes)

NY City Broadband Advocates Unimpressed With “Free Wi-Fi” Deal in Parks

Phillip Dampier September 23, 2010 Cablevision (see Altice USA), Consumer News, Data Caps, Public Policy & Gov't, Wireless Broadband Comments Off on NY City Broadband Advocates Unimpressed With “Free Wi-Fi” Deal in Parks

Big Apple Day

As part of franchise negotiations between Cablevision, Time Warner Cable, and New York City officials, an agreement was reached to spend $10 million to provide “free Wi-Fi” service in some 32 parks across the metropolitan area.

But “free” access comes to those who can accomplish their wireless usage in ten-minutes, because that’s all the “free” use the two cable giants will allow non-customers on their wireless networks.  Specifically, non-cable customers can access the new Wi-Fi at no charge for up to three 10-minute sessions per month.  If you want more than 30 minutes a month of access, it will cost you $0.99 a day.

Broadband advocates in New York accused the Bloomberg Administration of selling out public spaces to private companies during the city’s closed-door negotiations with the two cable operators.

The NY Daily News:

“There should be totally free wireless in the parks,” said City Councilwoman Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan). As head of the Council’s Technology in Government Committee, Brewer has made the fight for free WiFi one of her signature issues.

“This sounds like a joke,” she said when told of the deal. “I don’t understand how this works logistically. How will they track people’s use and charge everyone?”

“It’s pure bait-and-switch,” said Dana Spiegel, head of NYCwireless, a nonprofit group that has helped set up free WiFi at Bryant, Madison Square and a half-dozen other public parks.

“The way people use WiFi in public spaces is not to hop on and hop off after a few minutes,” Spiegel said. “Real people use it for a half hour or hours at a time, and that means the cable companies will end up charging them.”

The NY Post:

“We think it’s a pretty good deal,” said Mitchel Ahlbaum, general counsel at the [city’s] Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT).

He said the cable companies had wanted to charge “a substantial amount,” but eventually agreed to the minimal fee, which they insisted on so they could offer free access to their subscribers.

The thought of non-cable subscribers subsidizing free, unlimited access for Time Warner Cable and Cablevision’s broadband subscribers infuriated Spiegel:

As a tax-paying resident of NYC, I’m personally offended that DoITT would allow a CableCo to make money off of our tax-funded parks. TWC had revenue of $17.9 billion in 2009, and they are paying part of $10 million to light up NYC parks. That’s less than 0.05% of their revenue. Meanwhile, they stand to make $10’s of millions of dollars per year providing this service. (Central Park gets about 25m visitors per year, and if we ignore all other parks, and figure that fewer than half of those visitors buy one day of internet service, we get $0.99 x 10 million visitors = $10m.)

This seems to be DoITT selling out NYC residents and tax-payers. And we shouldn’t be surprised considering how DoITT and the NYC government have been in the telco’s/cableco’s back pocket for years.

A few more notes:

  1. If its not 24/7 Free, its not Free Wi-Fi. Period. This is clearly not “Free Wi-Fi” but rather government sanctioned subscription Wi-Fi.
  2. That DoITT released this on primary day was a clear attempt to bury this news because it knew it was doing wrong by residents of NYC.
  3. The previous Park Wi-Fi program with WiFiSalon drove that company out of business. See our post: Wi-Fi Salon Shuts Down
  4. What happened to DoITT’s plan to offer a more open and sustainable park Wi-Fi program? They put out an RFI last year ), and we (NYCwireless) had quite a lot to say about it (see Response to City Wireless Internet Access for New York City Parks and Other Open Spaces (DoITT RFI) and Our Take: NYC RFI on “City Wireless Internet Access for New York City Parks and Other Open Spaces”). But at least they were trying to ask the right questions.
  5. And what of security and privacy issues? Isn’t this deal like the city saying that we all should be giving our personal and billing information to TWC and Cablevision? What sort of protection has the city negotiated on our behalf?

Time Warner Cable Has Plenty of Room for Porn, But Not NFL Network

Phillip Dampier September 23, 2010 Consumer News 3 Comments

We're sticking with Time Warner's logo for this story. That's all the imagery you need.

Football fans in New York are fuming Time Warner Cable had plenty of room to add eight new porn channels to its pay-per-view lineup, but still has no room for the NFL Network.

New York tabloids are having a field day over the introduction of racy networks like “Manhandle on Demand” and “Penthouse on Demand,” coming just days after a deal to renew Disney’s family-oriented programming and company-owned broadcast stations.

The NY Post called the affair “Sleeping beauty and peeping booty” and quizzed Time Warner Cable spokesman Alex Dudley about the expanded red light district on the cable dial:

Dudley insists that it’s nothing but a coincidence that it’s suddenly offering the new porn channels.

Asked about the remarkable coincidence in timing, he insisted, “The two are unrelated.”

And he said in a deadpan voice, “We’re always adding a variety of content that we think our subscribers will enjoy.”

To keep children from tuning in to its latest offerings, Time Warner Cable alerted its customers in a recent mailing to the new adult channels.

“You may need to adjust your parental control settings,” the mailing said.

Big Apple Day

The irony of the glut of available channel space for porn wasn’t lost on NFL spokesman Greg Aiello.  He tweeted: “Interesting page 3 story in today’s NY Post. Time-Warner is offering 8 new porn channels [but not NFL Network!]. What a world! What a world!”

The football network, reportedly asking around 80 cents per cable subscriber, has been rejected for carriage on Time Warner Cable lineups because it is too expensive, and the network will not allow itself to be carried in a specialty sports tier interested customers can pay extra to receive.

But one commentator asked, “aren’t the audiences for these two kinds of channels the same people?  What a quandary!”

New Yorkers: If the Cable Guy Arrives Late, You’ll Receive a Free Month of Cable Service

Phillip Dampier September 23, 2010 Cablevision (see Altice USA), Consumer News, Public Policy & Gov't, Video Comments Off on New Yorkers: If the Cable Guy Arrives Late, You’ll Receive a Free Month of Cable Service

Big Apple Day

New York City officials are sick and tired of taking complaints about missed cable appointments and other service problems on its 311 city help line.  Nearly 1,200 calls about cable have been made so far this year alone, with fed up New Yorkers annoyed they took a day off work to wait for a cable technician that never arrived, or one who never solved the problem they were called to fix.

Now city officials are forcing the area’s two incumbent cable operators — Time Warner Cable and Cablevision, to pay for their mistakes.

As part of franchise renewal negotiations, both cable companies have agreed to credit subscribers the full amount of that month’s cable bill if the cable guy arrives late, or not at all.

The penalty decreases to $25 after 2012, when Verizon FiOS service is expected to blanket most of the city.

But consumer reforms extend beyond financial penalties for missed appointments.

Customers will soon be able to request notification by e-mail, phone or text message when a technician is heading to their home.  And calls to either cable company should be answered by a real person no more than 30 seconds after dialing.

Many of these reforms are already a part of the franchise agreement New York City’s Office of Information Technology & Telecommunications worked out with Verizon, allowing the phone company to provide cable television in the city.

Time Warner Cable spokesman Alex Dudley didn’t miss the opportunity to turn the challenging new requirements into an opportunity.  He told area reporters Time Warner welcomes the new customer service standards and appreciates the opportunity to compete for customers in the metropolitan New York area.

As Robert Porto, 38, a Time Warner Cable customer in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, told the New York Times, the new contract will be “the ultimate revenge for the little guy.”

Importantly, none of these consumer-focused reforms would have been possible had New York adopted the kind of “reform” companies like AT&T and Verizon have advocated in other states — statewide video franchising.

Brodsky

New York’s legislature has rejected previous attempts to eliminate local cable and video franchise agreements, citing the loss of control by local municipalities to deal with provider issues that would sail over the heads of a statewide committee in Albany.  New York has been generally hostile to Big Telecom’s deregulation agenda.  One state assemblyman, Richard Brodsky (D-Westchester), even introduced a bill requiring phone companies like Verizon to split the proceeds of asset sales with ratepayers.

Other provisions of the franchise agreements include:

  • The right to terminate franchise agreements with Time Warner Cable and Cablevision Systems if broadband-delivered video significantly erodes cable TV revenue over the next 10 years;
  • Time Warner Cable and Cablevision are required to invest about $10 million to install Wi-Fi access in 32 public parks in all five boroughs, to be operated and maintained by the companies until 2020;
  • At least five new Public, Educational and Government (PEG) community access channels will be added, up from the four that currently exist, by 2012.  At least one must be in HD.  The operators also agree to pay a combined total of more than $9 million, payable in annual installments, plus an additional $2 million of “in-kind” services to pay for equipment and operation expenses;
  • More than $20 million to help finance the upgrade of CityNet, the city government-dedicated network;
  • Time Warner Cable will establish four community broadband access centers per year (40 total), in collaboration with nonprofits, over life of franchise;
  • Time Warner Cable will install 20 miles of fiber per year in underserved commercial/industrial areas over franchise term; and will build-out Brooklyn Navy Yard. Cablevision already serves the commercial blocks in its service areas. Companies will commit to expend $1.8 million per year to bring fiber to commercial buildings of city’s choice.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WABC New York New Yorkers could get money if cable guy stands them up 9-15-10.mp4[/flv]

WABC-TV covers the introduction of pro-consumer cable service reforms for metropolitan New York residents.  (2 minutes)

Cablevision Sticks It to Long Island: No Box? No TV for You!

Phillip Dampier September 23, 2010 Cablevision (see Altice USA), Competition, Consumer News, Video 14 Comments

Big Apple Day

Residents on Long Island are learning what Cablevision subscribers in Bronx, Brooklyn, and Connecticut have known for a few years now — if you want to watch Cablevision’s TV lineup, be prepared to shell out almost $7 a month for every television in your home.

It’s part of Cablevision’s march to an all-digital, encrypted cable lineup.  If you want cable TV, you’ll need to lease one of Cablevision’s digital set top boxes or CableCARD devices.

Cablevision says it will provide customers with free boxes for their televisions for the first year, available in limited quantities at Optimum stores or shipped free to your door by UPS.  But after 12 months, customers with several TV’s will find steep increases to their monthly bills, just to cover boxes many don’t want in the first place.

“It’s just more gouging from Cablevision,” writes our reader Stephanie who lives in Lindenhurst, N.Y.  “We used to watch television box-free at the kitchen table or on the computer with our Slingbox, but now our home will need three more boxes when we already pay them $14 for the two we already have.”

Cablevision's Conversion Schedule for Western Long Island

For customers like Stephanie, that adds up to nearly $35 a month just in equipment fees.

“Our bill is already $170 a month and next year it will probably run over $200 with the boxes we don’t want and whatever their next rate increase turns out to be,” she writes.

Cablevision claims they are not doing anything their competition isn’t.

“In fact, every other TV service provider in the New York metropolitan area already requires digital boxes for each TV,” a Cablevision spokesman stressed.

Those upset with the change are considering making some changes themselves — some by switching to a promotional package from satellite TV or Verizon’s FiOS.

“I am well aware they both want you to use boxes on those services as well, but for a year or two, we could probably knock $30 or more a month off our current cable bill with a promotional deal,” Stephanie says.

What about after the deal expires?

“We’ll just switch back to Cablevision on one of their promotional deals,” she says.  “For this family, it’s about the ‘total amount due’ at the bottom of the bill.”

Cablevision’s ongoing transition to digital caused panic when it blanked out broadcast basic cable service for more than 500 residents of a Coney Island complex housing numerous senior citizens, almost all watching local television signals delivered in analog.  When Cablevision made the digital switch in August, every local channel suddenly disappeared.  The NY Post explained what happened next:

Despite the best efforts of property managers to inform the elderly residents of the Luna Park Houses and the Warbasse Houses about the change, some of them just didn’t get the message.

“It was hell trying to explain this to the elderly people,” said Rochelle Captan, the manager of the Warbasse houses.

“Everyone in the Luna Houses — we think we’re the chosen ones, we don’t have to convert to digital,” said Fikret Deljanin, the property manager of the Luna Park Houses. “I don’t understand the ignorance — we’re just an ignorant population, I guess.”

Both Deljanin and Captan said they had called in favors with Cablevision to keep the analog service going as long as possible — and that now they were having to call in another favor to get some free conversion boxes delivered to calm disgruntled elderly residents.

But Joe M. said many elderly residents — including his mother — are feeling betrayed and confused.

“My mother wants her channels 3, 10 and 12, that’s it. Now the seniors are told they have to get a converter box — I don’t mind that — but my mother is 87! She doesn’t know anything about this!”

And now, it’s simply a matter of picking up the pieces and trying to move on … over to the couch to watch this afternoon’s episode of “Murder She Wrote.”

Cablevision also announced this week it had upgraded its set top boxes to support several new applications and services on the way.  Multichannel News covered the story:

Cablevision Systems has now deployed Zodiac Interactive’s interactive TV platform — including support for the industry’s EBIF specification — across the MSO’s entire New York-area footprint serving 2.9 million digital cable subscribers.

The operator is using Zodiac’s PowerUp framework software, running on Cisco Systems’ native set-top box environment, to run several interactive applications and services. These include iO TV Shortcuts, search, an enhanced program guide, video-on-demand navigation and dedicated ITV channels.

The companies also are working together on Cablevision’s remote-storage DVR — which the operator has been planning to launch this year — and the MSO is using Zodiac’s PowerUp Advanced Messaging Solution (AMS) software to integrate Web and mobile applications with set-top boxes.

Some other families are considering a different change.

“Maybe we just should stop watching TV in the kitchen,” Dominick Galletta of East Northport, N.Y., told WNBC-TV.

[flv width=”597″ height=”356″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WNBC New York No Cable Box No TV for You on Long Island 9-16-10.flv[/flv]

WNBC-TV covers frustrated Cablevision customers on Long Island now forced to obtain digital cable boxes for every television in their home.  (2 minutes)

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