Saari, Jr. in 2007, while on patrol in Fallujah, Iraq (Getty Images)

A 27-year old Duluth, Minn. Iraq/Afghanistan war veteran is in the St. Louis County Jail this morning pending felony charges over alleged terroristic threats made against Charter Communications’ local offices and employees.

Steven Saari, Jr. survived repeated patrols in Fallujah, Iraq but couldn’t deal with Charter Cable one more day.

Saari allegedly called Charter this morning regarding problems with his Charter Internet service. According to police reports and a Charter spokesperson, the call degenerated to the point Saari threatened to burn down or blow up the company’s facility at 640 Garfield Avenue in downtown Duluth.

Charter evacuated employees from the facility and local authorities arrived soon after, blocking off Garfield Avenue and deploying officers armed with rifles and shotguns.

Saari was eventually taken into custody after finding him in his vehicle in the Charter facility’s parking lot.

Saari has a remarkable service record, enlisting in the Marines in 2005. According to the Marine Corps, he achieved the rank of lance corporal and served with the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine division. He was a combat veteran in Iraq and Afghanistan and earned the Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, the Navy Marine Corps Achievement Medal, the Combat Action Ribbon, the Afghanistan Campaign Medal, the Iraq Campaign Medal and the NATO medal for serving in Afghanistan.

He was granted an honorable separation from the Marines in 2009.

Some Shaw Cable customers accustomed to their cable FM radio have successfully won the fight to reinstate the service.

Comox Valley in British Columbia appears to be the epicenter of the protests. When several popular FM radio signals imported from western Canada and the U.S. went missing in April, local residents complained loudly the service was dropped without warning.

Cable FM radio has been a part of Shaw Cable for years and years, and long-standing customers have held on to the service. Cable radio works by connecting Shaw’s cable to the antenna input of a traditional FM radio. Cable radio signals then appear up and down the FM dial.  The service has always been a complimentary add-on, and Shaw suspected its time of usefulness had come and gone as consumers gravitated towards satellite and online radio.

They were wrong.

“We certainly listened to the feedback we received,” Greg Pultz, vice president of operations for Shaw told the Comox Valley Echo. “We decided to [restore] the most popular [channels]. We freed up some capacity – we found a way that we could do both.”

That makes listeners like Rosemary Baxter happy.

“All of a sudden one morning I turned on the radio – and it was like a tomb in here,” Baxter told the newspaper.

Baxter’s gain is The Source’s loss. The electronics chain was doing a steady business selling small, portable $40 FM transmitters that allowed Shaw customers to stream radio stations over the Internet and hear them on their FM radios.

Shaw’s restoration of the service brings back a half-dozen of the most-requested stations, mostly non-commercial or public radio stations. Shaw cable radio customers on and around Vancouver Island can find signals on these frequencies:

• 88.1 – CBC Radio One (Victoria, B.C.)
• 88.3 – CBC Radio Two (Vancouver, B.C.)
• 88.5 – KPLU Jazz (Tacoma, Wash.)
• 88.7 – KUOW NPR (Seattle, Wash.)
• 89.5 – KING Classical (Seattle, Wash.)
• 89.9 – CBUF Première Chaîne/Radio-Canada (Vancouver, B.C.)

“We’ve had lots of very positive feedback from customers,” Pultz told the newspaper. “We are just thrilled that we have a good relationship with our customers and that we can make changes when they speak up.”

He also apologized to Shaw customers for any inconvenience.

Verizon has a moratorium on further expansion of its fiber to the home service except in areas where it has existing agreements to deliver service.

A new study predicts an agreement between Verizon and the nation’s top cable companies to cross-sell each other’s products could cost up to 72,000 jobs in the northeastern U.S. and potentially threaten Verizon’s state-of-the-art fiber optics network FiOS.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the U.S. Department of Justice are continuing to review a proposed deal that would allow Verizon Wireless and companies including Time Warner and Comcast to cross-market each other’s products, which critics allege will eliminate competition and job-creating investment.

In the crosshairs of the deal: Verizon’s fiber to the home network FiOS, which has been stalled since 2009 when Verizon signaled it was “winding down” FiOS spending. According to the new report, produced by the Communications Workers of America (CWA), FiOS is at risk of being undercut by Verizon in favor of reselling cable-TV packages from Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and other cable companies. At worst, some critics of the deal contend Verizon will eventually abandon FiOS altogether.

The CWA has already seen the impact of Verizon’s declining interest in expanding FiOS as the company has left several major American cities in its service footprint, including Baltimore, Buffalo, Syracuse and Boston without fiber optic upgrades.

The CWA is calling on regulators to impose conditions on any deal between Verizon and cable operators:

• Prohibit Verizon Wireless and the cable companies from cross-marketing in Verizon’s landline service areas;
• Require Verizon to build the FiOS network to 95% of Verizon households in its landline footprint, including in rural and low-income areas;
• Ensure that Verizon Wireless and other cable companies are not able to lock out competitors.

If Verizon were to maintain the expansion of FiOS to non-FiOS areas, about 72,000 new jobs would be created, the CWA report found. Job growth would be concentrated in eight Eastern states and Washington D.C.

“If done right, the proposed deal would add tens of thousands of new jobs and allow underserved communities access to high quality broadband service,” said Debbie Goldman, telecommunications policy director for the CWA. “The FCC has the obligation carefully to assess this deal in terms of likely job loss.  We expect regulators to reject this deal unless the parties accept conditions that would create jobs, increase network investment, and promote consumer choice.”

Those living in Verizon service areas without FiOS are already upset that they have been effectively bypassed by the phone company.

“It’s an arrogant stand,” Buffalo Councilman Darius Pridgen said in a phone interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer. Verizon has upgraded other areas in upstate New York with FiOS, but not financially distressed Buffalo. “It’s advertised in the city, but it’s not available in the city.”

In Philadelphia, Verizon obtained a 15-year video franchise agreement with city officials and the company agreed to extend FiOS throughout the city by 2016. But residents are complaining that Verizon’s definition of “extending service” has meant wiring cables down major thoroughfares, not wiring up every home that wants the service.

City Councilman James Kenney called for a public hearing in April amid complaints that Verizon was reneging on its commitment to city officials and residents.

Cole

Baltimore councilman William Cole thinks his city was skipped by Verizon for a reason, while more affluent areas are set to get fiber upgrades. Cole told the newspaper his constituents have called Verizon after seeing local ads for FiOS service, but are told they cannot get the service.

Verizon spokesman Edward McFadden said the decision to build the FiOS network was never popular on Wall Street. “We got hammered,” he told the Inquirer, “and our shareholders were punished for this.”

Now that the network is up and running, McFadden says Verizon retains a strong incentive to maintain its FiOS business because of the huge investment and the increased earnings it brings the phone company.

But the CWA’s Goldman remains convinced Verizon has broken its word with regulators and politicians who believed promises from Verizon and other telecom companies that passage of the deregulation-packed 1996 Telecommunications Act would inspire the dawn of a new competitive era in American telecommunications. Now instead, Verizon and the cable companies want to simply sell each other’s services.

“They wanted deregulation, and they said they would compete,” Goldman said. “This marks the beginning of the surrender, this truce.”

Despite concerns from consumer groups that a deal to exchange wireless spectrum in return for collaborative marketing between two competitors will lead to higher prices for consumers, the Federal Communications Commission seems prepared to approve it, according to a report from the Reuters news agency.

Two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters the FCC has taken the lead on the “spectrum transfer” issue, which involves turning over prime wireless spectrum currently owned by large cable operators Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox, and Bright House Networks to Verizon Wireless. The combined licenses the cable industry holds are in the majority of major American cities, which critics charge Verizon will acquire to eliminate any potential competitive threat from a new nationwide wireless carrier.

Verizon’s recent moves to sell off its own “excess” spectrum to its current competitors has garnered favor inside the FCC, according to sources. Verizon Wireless recently agreed to transfer some of that spectrum to T-Mobile USA, which coincidentally was a fierce opponent of the deal between Verizon and cable operators. T-Mobile’s opposition has since muted.

Licenses owned by the cable industry would have been expansive enough to launch a new national wireless competitor. (Image: Phonescoop)

The deal between Verizon and the nation’s top cable companies is worth about $3.9 billion, but the Justice Department continues to signal concerns it would ultimately cost consumers more than that. According to Reuters, Verizon remains in “tougher talks” with lawyers inside the Justice Department who are concerned cooperative marketing between the phone and cable companies would result in decreased competition and higher prices.

One source told Reuters regulators were hoping Verizon’s now-stalled fiber to the home network FiOS would bring major competition to the cable industry, which until then had only faced moderate competition from satellite dish providers. In return, Comcast and other cable operators were expected to invade the wireless phone marketplace, adding needed competition.

Instead, both sides have retreated to their respective positions — Verizon focusing on its wireless service and Comcast and other cable companies abandoning interest in wireless phones and sticking to cable-based products.

The idea that both would begin to cross-market each other’s products is “a problem” according to the Justice source not authorized to speak publicly.

Additionally, concerns are being raised over a proposed “joint operating entity” between Verizon and cable operators that would focus on developing new technologies that could lock out those not in the consortium.

No decision is expected from the Justice Department until August, but Justice officials have signaled they have several options they can pursue:

1. Sue to stop the spectrum transfer;
2. Force the companies to modify their proposal to reduce potential collusion;
3. Approve the deal but monitor how cross-marketing agreements impact on consumer markets for wireless and cable products.

Stop the Cap! reader Joanne wants to see the back of Frontier Communications’ DSL service so she headed to Time Warner Cable to get information about their broadband pricing. Things quickly got confusing when she opened a chat session with a support representative over exactly what the cable company was charging for service and installation. We’re going to participate after the fact (our comments are in blue):

Joanne: I am looking at basic Internet service at $19.95 per month.

TWC: Great choice!

STC: Did anyone think the representative would say anything different no matter what level of service Joanne wanted?

TWC: What kind of questions do you have regarding this one?

Joanne: Is installation included at no charge?

TWC: Not actually there is an installation of 49.99 but you can get a very special discount of $19.99, but if you are not able to pay that you can always get the recurring method of payment or auto payment and you can get free installation!

STC: What?

Joanne: Which is it – 49.99, 19.99 or zero?

TWC: I mean once you order the service we will make a discount of 19.99 for the installation, but if you want you can select the auto payment and you will get free installation.

STC: Joanne should have asked at this point for TWC to waive the installation fee so she need not reach for a bottle of Tylenol and decoder ring to figure all this out. 

Joanne: By auto payment, do you mean automatic via my checking account?

TWC: Yes, or credit or debit card as well.

STC: Joanne could also set up automatic billing on a credit card nearly set to expire and then just drop back to regular billing if she was uncomfortable with Time Warner automatically sipping money out of her accounts. 

Joanne: What is the total including taxes for this plan, per month?

TWC: $19.99 + 2.50 if you need a modem and $2 or $2.50 taxes. No more than that.

STC: Of course she needs a modem. But if Joanne plans to stick around with Time Warner, she might want to buy one herself and avoid the modem rental fee altogether. Why pay that forever?

TWC: Once they process the order you will be getting an email with all the details about it!

Joanne: Thanks, but I prefer to know the details BEFORE I sign up. If I wanted to sign up for two years, or three, could I do that at the 19.95 rate?

TWC: No, it is 12 month promotions with no contract.

STC: Just threaten to leave after the 12 months are up and watch it get extended for another year. By the way, can you say “offshore chat support center?” 

Joanne: What is the current full rate for basic service per month?

TWC: As we do not have a contract involved we do not handle prices after the promo expiration, what we have is a promotional time that will be for 12 month that way we will be always sure you as our customer are taking advantage of the earliest and best promotion by the time your promotion is about to expire!

STC: (banging head on desk)

Joanne: So you can’t tell me what the current full rate is as of today, for your current customers?

STC: Apparently not. More than two minutes passed before Joanne finally asked if the representative was still there.

TWC: Yes, I’m checking into that. Just a moment please. […] That would be 29.99 + 2.50 + taxes.

Joanne also learned there are no usage caps, for now anyway.

Our recommendations is to call Time Warner Cable by phone for anything more complex than a service credit request or address change. The time and unnecessary confusion that is saved could be your own.