Estonian Internet users are enjoying faster broadband speeds with the announcement cable provider AS Starman has upgraded its broadband packages without a corresponding price hike. Now customers in the Baltic state can get 200/20Mbps service for less than $34 a month.

The cable operator tiers its DOCSIS 3 cable broadband speeds like clothing sizes:

• Small (2Mbps/500kbps): $13.37/mo
• Medium (10/2Mbps): $25.40/mo
• Large (60/10Mbps): $30.75/mo
• X-Large (200/20Mbps): $33.43/mo

The Tallinn-based company was founded in 1992 and offers cable television, phone, and broadband service to about 45 percent of Estonia.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Starman Internet service 8-26-13.mp4[/flv]

Selling broadband in Estonia isn’t much different from selling service in North America. But broadband prices are far lower than what the average customer in Canada or the U.S. pays for equivalent service. Here is a typical ad for Starman service. (1 minute)

State regulators have fined Frontier Communications $41,400 for 414 violations of Washington’s law governing the largest amount a company can charge for a returned check.

The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission gave Frontier 15 days to pay the fine, contest it by requesting a hearing, or seek a reduced penalty settlement.

The state found Frontier guilty of charging customers $20-25 for returned checks from Aug. 1, 2010 – March 31, 2012, despite the fact the maximum penalty Frontier is authorized to levy for a returned check in the state is $15.

Customers who overpaid Frontier for returned check charges should contact Frontier at 1-800-921-8101 to negotiate a partial refund or service credit. The state’s fine will not be used to repay customers.

From the Desk of Ralph Nader

21 August 2013

Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2

Dear Prime Minister:

I read with interest that you are considering allowing Verizon Communications to operate in Canada with unique acquisition rights.

Bad idea.

Before you proceed any further, I suggest that you read a report by the highly regarded Center for Tax Justice and Good Jobs First titled, “Unpaid Bills: How Verizon Shortchanges Government Through Tax Dodging and Subsidies.”

Bottom line: Verizon is one of the country’s most aggressive corporate tax dodgers.

The report found that Verizon enjoyed some $14 billion in federal and state corporate income tax subsidies in the 2008-2010 period, even though it earned $33.4 billion in pre-tax U.S. income during that time. At the federal level, Verizon should have paid about $11.4 billion at the statutory rate of 35 per cent during the three-year period. Instead, it actually got $951 million in rebates, putting its federal tax subsidies at $12.3 billion. Its effective federal tax rate was 2.9 per cent.

The report found that at the state level, Verizon should have paid about $2.3 billion in corporate income taxes during the period but it paid only $866 million. Its aggregate state rate was only 2.6 per cent, far below the weighted state average rate of 6.8 per cent. This gave it state tax subsidies of about $1.4 billion.

Verizon also used a special tax loophole called the Reverse Morris Trust to avoid paying about $1.5 billion in federal, state and local taxes on the sale of its landline assets in various states.

The report found that Verizon also aggressively seeks state and local tax subsidies through credits, abatements and exemptions.

There is no centralized reporting on these subsidies, but the report documents $180 million in special tax breaks and grants Verizon and Verizon Wireless received in 13 states.

In addition to aggressively dodging taxes, Verizon also overtly rips off our federal government.

In April 2011, for example, Verizon paid $93.5 million to settle whistleblower charges that it had billed the government for “tax-like” surcharges it wasn’t entitled to impose on the government. Hidden surcharges on communication services have long been an unwelcome cost to business and consumers, and the General Services Administration had negotiated a firm, fixed-price contract with limited surcharges precisely to avoid being hit with hidden surcharges, the whistleblower alleged.

“Verizon was not only charging the government for the costs associated with communication services, but it also was pumping up its revenues by charging the government for Verizon’s own property taxes and other costs of doing business,” said Colette Matzzie, a Washington, D.C., attorney with Phillips & Cohen LLP, who represented the whistleblower. “Under federal law, Verizon was responsible for paying those costs, not the government.”

The settlement agreement covers the period from 2004 to 2010, when Verizon allegedly billed the government for a variety of surcharges including property tax surcharges, carrier cost recovery charges, state telecommunications relay service surcharges and public utility commission fee surcharges.

Question: why would you allow one of our country’s most aggressive tax dodgers, a company with a track record of overtly ripping off our government, into your country?

What’s bad for the United States will be bad for Canada.

Sincerely,

Nine of the ten lowest ranked firms in America are cable and telephone companies, according to a new report from research firm Temkin Group.

A poll ranking customer service at 235 U.S. companies across 19 industries found cable companies dead last, quickly followed by Internet Service Providers (often those same cable operators).

Participants were asked to rate their satisfaction with different companies on a scale of “1” (very dissatisfied) to “7” (completely satisfied). Not very many participants gave high marks to their telecommunications service provider. Temkin’s resulting net satisfaction score found familiar names in the cable and telephone business scraping the bottom.

America’s worst provider? Charter Communications, which managed an embarrassing dead last 22 percent satisfaction score for television service. Time Warner Cable managed second worst for television at 25%, followed by Cox and Cablevision’s Optimum service (both 28%). Bottom rated Internet service came from Qwest (now CenturyLink), Verizon (presumably DSL), and Charter — all scoring just 31%.

Oddly, Temkin’s survey participants gave top marks to the long-irrelevant AOL for Internet service, which may mean those dial-up customers don’t know any better. Highest marks in television service went to Bright House Communications, which ironically depends on Time Warner Cable for most of its programming negotiations.

Most suspect the ratings show long-term customer dissatisfaction with endless rate increases, poor customer service and reliability, and lack of choice in an increasingly expensive television lineup.

The Temkin Group gathered its data from an online survey of 10,000 consumers in the U.S. during January 2013, all asked to rate their experiences with companies over the past 60 days.