A British advertising firm is paying homeless people to act as mobile hotspots for the 4G-challenged in a controversial pilot project that has left some wondering whether it is appropriate to use the disadvantaged as walking wireless access points.

The project took off at this week’s SxSW Interactive conference in Austin, Tex.  Anyone within 20 feet of a roving homeless person outfitted with a transmitting device can make a wireless connection with a 4G network.

BBH New York says it just wants to fill the need for better Internet connectivity at the convention center site.

“Our hope is to create a modern version of this successful model, offering homeless individuals an opportunity to sell a digital service instead of a material commodity,” BBH New York says. “SxSW Interactive attendees can pay what they like to access 4G networks carried by our homeless collaborators.”

BBH has 13 homeless volunteers walking around the convention center announcing they are available to facilitate immediate 4G access for data-hungry attendees.

“Hotspots, Hotspots! If you need to get online, I am your guy,” yelled one homeless volunteer to hundreds of people passing by.

Those who take them up on their offer can make donations for the access, which volunteers get to keep.

The company admits it has received some criticism from those who think the program exploits the homeless, but the company had no shortage of volunteers willing to participate.

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KXAN in Austin explores the “Homeless Mobile Hotspot” project that has a lot of people talking at this year’s South by Southwest Interactive conference.  (2 minutes)

Frontier Communications left dozens of businesses in the city of Rochester without phone service for well over a week because of a flooded cable the company struggled to repair.

Frontier says a flooded manhole along Interstate 490 was responsible for the outage, which primarily affected customers in the Park/Meigs Avenue District in southeastern Rochester.

But businesses are wondering why it took more than a week to bypass the damage and get phone service restored.

“We haven’t been able to get calls at all,” Stacy Ercan, owner of Stacy K Floral told WHAM News. “They have to forward our calls to the cell phone. But the cell phone can only answer one call at a time, so we’re definitely missing calls.”

“I’ve called 27 times in the last week [about the outage] and every time I get a different answer,” reported another business owner.

Some businesses say the Frontier service outage cost them more than inconvenience.  One owner reported up to an 80% drop in her business while others complained they were unable to process credit card transactions.

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WHAM in Rochester covers Frontier’s extended service outage that afflicted customers in southeast Rochester for over a week.  (2 minutes)

Cable "Digital Phone" Subscriber Numbers (Source: SNL Kagan)

Rick Munarriz has a bone to pick with Comcast after discovering his cable television and broadband service was out of commission.  It was the fourth prolonged outage in four weeks.  But the Comcast customer of more than a dozen years was surprised when he called the cable company and they immediately tried to sell him Comcast’s “digital phone” service:

[…] An otherwise cordial representative tells me that he’s looking into my account. I could save some serious money if I switch my landline to Comcast’s XFINITY Voice offering.

“If I did that, how would I be reporting this outage?” I asked.

“Don’t you have a smartphone?” he responds, not realizing that he has just killed his own sales pitch.

Who needs a landline when you have a wireless phone? Who needs a Comcast triple play — especially when I’m already dealing with two outs?

Although not losing customers as fast as traditional landline phone companies, cable-delivered phone service is no longer growing as fast as it once did.  Most companies picking up “digital phone” customers are winning them these days from product bundling, with aggressively priced triple-play packages of phone, Internet, and cable service.  Many of these packages include the phone line for less than $10 a month more than a double-play package of Internet and cable-TV.

SNL Kagan collects statistics from cable operators who pitch phone service and documents the highest growth in cable-provided phone service came during 2004-2009.  Now that growth has slowed.  Customers who were willing cut their landline phone off in favor of a cell phone don’t need wired phone service from the cable company either.

It seems Comcast is willing to admit the same, even when pitching its own phone product.

While some Internet Service Providers claim their broadband customers don’t need faster speeds, that is not what customers are telling surveyors.  A new British survey of over 800 Internet users found 71% would happily pay extra for a “superfast broadband connection” at speeds of 25Mbps or higher if only they could get it.

Over half of the respondents (55%) reported they could not get fast speeds even if they wanted them.

The survey, conducted by ISPreview, found price was only a barrier for around 16% of customers and only 6.2% of respondents claimed they were satisfied with the speeds they received from their current provider.

Prices in Britain for broadband are historically lower than what North Americans pay, averaging around $27 per month, according to UK regulator Ofcom.  Customers were willing to pay at least $8 more per month if they could get the speeds they crave.

“Ofcom’s own data appears to suggest that the UK is one of the lowest priced countries in the world for broadband,” said ISPreview.co.uk’s Founder, Mark Jackson. “As a result it’s quite encouraging that so many people, most of which will be use to paying very little for their current service, would still be willing to pay more for the next generation of superfast connectivity.”

Jackson reports the highest demand for the fastest speeds actually comes from rural areas in the United Kingdom — areas long deprived of suitable broadband.  Jackson says most operators are focused on upgrading urban areas which already receive better service than rural communities.

The government has plans in place to reach 90% of the country with superfast broadband by 2015.

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At least 750 Verizon Wireless customer service representatives in Michigan will either have to relocate to another state or begin looking for a new job this June, as the wireless phone company announces it is shutting down its call center in Southfield.  WJBK in Detroit reports.  (2 minutes)