ESPN’s ability to bid for expensive sports rights may be threatened if pay television customers finally get a chance to subscribe to only the networks they want to watch.

A recent consumer survey conducted by Civic Science found 56% overall would remove ESPN/ESPN2, with 60% of female respondents and 49% of male respondents thrilled to drop ESPN to save $8 a month on their cable bill.

Richard Greenfield at BTIG Research has tried in vain to warn ESPN parent company Disney it may be on borrowed time.

“We continue to believe ESPN is in serious trouble as they spent far too heavily on long-term sports rights contracts, given the deteriorating state of the multichannel video bundle and accelerating shift of TV ad dollars to mobile,” Greenfield wrote in a note to investors. “Simply put, ESPN has been the largest beneficiary of the ‘BIG’ cable bundle for decades and is now dramatically overearning, with consumers the biggest losers.”

No basic cable network costs consumers more than ESPN, with $5-9 dollars of every cable TV bill paying for ESPN and its sister sports networks, whether customers watch or not. Each year, ESPN rakes in almost $9 billion from American households and advertisers, much of it used to bid for high-profile sporting events which used to appear exclusively on major broadcast networks. With billions on hand from pay television customers, many who also pay surcharges for sports programming and broadcast/over the air stations, sports teams and their owners are flush with cash. Some cable companies have even resorted to launching expensive cable networks in association with team owners just to secure viewing rights as competitors continue to bid up the price.

ESPN’s business model depends on making every cable customer pay for ESPN, so its contracts prohibit cable operators and satellite providers from placing the network on an added-cost tier.But as new online video providers launch, many are trying to omit expensive sports programming to give customers cheaper options. If consumers choose those providers, expensive cable networks are in big trouble.

ESPN president John Skipper admits ESPN’s secret: It rakes it at least $6 billion annually from cable customers, many who never watched ESPN. (Playing time varies)

Greenfield has tangled with Bob Iger, Disney’s chairman and CEO about the risks to ESPN’s future business model in the recent past. Iger has taken the cord cutting threat in stride, claiming ESPN is even prepared to start selling its networks individually, direct to consumers. Greenfield believes Iger is bluffing.

“As soon as ESPN launches a direct-to-consumer offering, it will remove the ‘protection’ they receive from cable/satellite distributors who guarantee ESPN a certain level of penetration,” Greenfield writes. “So no matter what price point ESPN/ESPN2 launch to consumers, it enables their legacy distributors such as Comcast to offer far more robust channel packages without ESPN.”

In an open market where customers get to decide on the channels they pay to receive, more than half of the country would not pay for ESPN, creating an enormous revenue hit for the network. Without adequate funds to compete in sports programming rights auctions, ESPN would likely lose access to many sporting events, further reducing revenue received from advertisers as ratings dropped. To make up for those subscriber losses, ESPN might have to charge consumers up to $30 a month for a Netflix-like ESPN offering. Civic Science asked how many would pay $20 a month for ESPN and found only 6% of survey respondents willing. In contrast, about 80 percent of Comcast customers now take ESPN, but not because they have a choice.

Cord-cutting may already be taking a toll on ESPN’s bank account. Those dispensing with a cable television package in favor of Hulu, Amazon, or Netflix may be partly to blame for ESPN’s decision to layoff 300 employees last fall.

“The math for a direct-to-consumer offering for a basic cable network does not work, especially for channel(s) with very high monthly fees embedded within the current MVPD bundle,” said Greenfield. “Disney cannot take ESPN direct-to-consumer and they know it, whether they admit that publicly or not. Furthermore, if the multichannel video bundle frays faster than expected and the TV ad market continues to weaken, ESPN’s future growth prospects are dim, at best.”

Conditions recommended by Stop the Cap! to protect New York consumers after a merger of Charter Communications and Time Warner Cable are expected to cost the two cable companies almost one billion dollars and will guarantee statewide adoption of Time Warner Cable’s Maxx upgrade, guaranteeing all customers receive speed upgrades ranging from 60-300Mbps.

On Friday, the N.Y. Public Service Commission announced its conditional approval of the merger transaction, but only if Charter agrees to a series of wide-ranging conditions to guarantee that New York customers receive tangible benefits as a result of the merger:

The Commission agrees that in order for the proposed merger to be in the public interest, the Petitioners must agree to make concrete and enforceable commitments to modernize their cable system and services, expand access, address the digital divide and improve customer service. To this end, we find that with the acceptance by the Petitioners of the enforceable conditions, as discussed in the body of this Order and Appendix A, the proposed merger is in the public interest. These conditions are designed to help ensure a near ubiquitous world-class communications network that meets the needs of all New Yorkers. Absent acceptance of these conditions, the public interest standard cannot be met, and the petition for transaction approval is denied.

Stop the Cap! was quoted and footnoted extensively in the PSC order. We provided the PSC with insight beyond the public relations machine of Charter and Time Warner Cable. We exposed the fact Charter’s promised service improvements were actually more modest than what Time Warner Cable has undertaken on its own through its Maxx upgrade program. We educated regulators about the inadequacy of Charter’s initial commitment to offer low-cost Internet access for low-income families. We questioned the consumer benefits of certain upgrades that could actually increase costs for consumers because of additional equipment fees. We alerted the PSC that Charter would discontinue Time Warner’s affordable $14.99 Internet offer. We strongly recommended the PSC consider making rural broadband expansion a part of this transaction. We also sought additional protections from any future compulsory usage caps or usage-based billing.

Although Stop the Cap! was opposed to the transaction from the outset, doubting it was in the public interest, we recognized the chances for approval were greater than the Comcast-TWC merger that was eventually withdrawn. Therefore, we made it a priority to outline multiple conditions we felt should be imposed on Charter if the deal was to be approved.

Our constituency is ordinary consumers and ratepayers. Too often these kinds of mergers are approved with token conditions that only benefit minority or special interests, favored non-profit or government entities, or those with vested business interests (programmers, equipment manufacturers, etc.) It was important to us that any approval bring something beyond free Internet service for schools or community centers, agreements to continue carrying certain cable networks, or a temporary discount or low value coupon that ends up in the mailboxes of customers a year or two from now.

We know what Time Warner Cable customers in New York want: better service, faster speeds, no data caps, no gotcha fees, affordable Internet options, and job protection.

It appears New York regulators understand that as well and intend to force Charter to offer customers a better deal.

Despite publicly saying little about the merger, just a few hours after the PSC’s decision, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office issued a press release taking credit for the merger conditions and unveiling the “tenth signature proposal of his 2016 agenda: dramatically expanding and improving access to high-speed Internet in communities statewide.” Once again, the governor will try to entice providers like Time Warner Cable, Frontier Communications, and Verizon to expand rural broadband in New York using public dollars.

Although lacking a catchy title, the “New New York Broadband Program” includes a $500 million solicitation for private sector partners to subsidize rural broadband expansion with state dollars. The key goals of the 2016 program include:

Much of the funding from earlier years ended up going to Time Warner Cable for modest expansion of its cable service, especially in eastern upstate New York. Likely applicants in 2016 include Time Warner Cable, Frontier Communications, community-owned/co-op broadband providers and rural wireless ISPs. Verizon and Cablevision are unlikely to apply.

Despite the governor’s efforts, most New York homes and businesses will be more affected by the Charter-Time Warner Cable merger, if it wins federal approval.

Gov. Cuomo

The Public Service Commission took its role very seriously, issuing a 93-page decision that took recommendations from consumer groups including Stop the Cap! very seriously. It did not share the industry’s belief that telecommunications providers in New York are heavily competitive.

“Time Warner serves close to 50% of New York State and we have a legitimate interest in ensuring that, when a company of this size provides customers with a service so affected by the public interest, as is communications, that real benefits accrue to consumers as a result of a given transaction,” the PSC wrote.

The PSC had an easier time sorting through comments about this merger, which generated considerably less interest than Comcast’s failed attempt to buy Time Warner.

“Generally, comments supporting the proposed transaction assert that, among other things, the merger will create jobs and provide better products at more affordable rates,” the PSC concluded in its ruling. “Those opposing the transaction state that the merger will inevitably lead to higher rates and potential data caps on broadband services in the future.”

The PSC took a very skeptical approach to Charter’s promised benefits, often finding them vague, questionable, or likely to have occurred with or without Charter’s involvement.

For example, the PSC questioned Charter’s promised network investments and upgrades:

Petitioners, however, decline to specify where in the national footprint of Charter, TWC and BHN these investments will be made or to identify the decisional factors to be used to channel these capital resources to specific areas or customers. There is no analysis to indicate that a reasonable proportion of these investments will be to systems in New York or for the benefit of New York customers. Similarly, there is no proposal by the Petitioners to describe the specific commitments that are being made or the specific enforcement mechanisms that would be used in the event the Petitioners’ implementation fell short of their commitments. Further, in order for these investments to be characterized as part of a net public benefit, Staff concludes, and we agree, that Petitioners would have to establish that these investments would not have been made in the absence of the proposed merger.

In the absence of a demonstration that there is “a tangible commitment to make new investments or invest beyond Time Warner’s current capital investment budgets,” it is difficult to characterize these capital expenditures as a certain benefit to New York customers or a satisfaction of the public interest under the New York statutes.

One of Stop the Cap!’s core arguments in our comments to the PSC was that Charter’s upgrade commitments were not particularly meaningful because Time Warner Cable was gradually upgrading its own systems to a level of service superior to what Charter plans to offer. The PSC clearly understood this and our warning that Charter’s commitments lacked specificity:

Public Benefit Assessment Staff and several commenters suggest that the proposed merger, as described in the Joint Petition and Petitioners’ Reply Comments, does not have sufficient net benefits to warrant a finding that the transaction is in the public interest. We concur. Many of the asserted benefits from the proposed transaction are events triggered by actions taken independently from the merger, and others are likely to be undertaken by TWC in any event, should the merger not be approved. Further, many asserted benefits are only described on a national scale and there is no way to determine if the investments or expenditures will occur in New York. Similarly, many of the projected benefits are described in terms that are too indefinite to permit us to assume that the benefits will occur as described to make a meaningful contribution to the transaction’s net benefits.

Time Warner Cable Maxx speed improvements.

As a result, the PSC has looked more closely at Time Warner Cable’s Maxx program to be the benchmark for New York, not Charter’s proposed upgrades. They have adopted our recommendation that every Time Warner Cable customer in New York get the same kind of service upgrade residents in New York City enjoy today.

Another argument made by Stop the Cap! dealt with affordable Internet access. Time Warner Cable’s Everyday Low Price Internet ($14.99/mo for 2Mbps) is not fast, but it is affordable and free of the kind of revenue-protecting pre-conditions usually placed on Internet access for the poor. Time Warner’s plan is available to every customer at any time with no restrictions or contracts. In contrast, Charter’s originally proposed affordable Internet program required participants have school-age children, enroll only in the late summer, not have current cable broadband service (or be willing to forego it for 60 days), and not have any prior balance. As with Comcast, pre-conditions like this limit participation. The PSC agreed and now customers will be able to keep their more affordable Internet plans without jumping through artificial hoops launched by Charter.

The days of rural New Yorkers being quoted $20,000 to install Time Warner Cable service are also going to be a thing of the past. In addition to a commitment to pay for line extensions reaching 145,000 unserved or underserved customers, Charter is now required to work with New York’s Broadband 4 All program to receive supplementary funding, as available, to complete service extensions to eventually reach every customer that lives within a franchise area and wants cable service.

There are several other benefits outlined below that make this a better (although not great) deal, at least for New Yorkers. If any other state regulator manages to get an even better deal for that state’s residents, New Yorkers will automatically benefit because of a “most favored state clause” in the PSC’s order, which requires Charter to share those benefits with New York residents.

All in all, the New York State Public Service Commission has lived up to its reputation as a consumer-protective body that is responsive to the needs of the public. This is in great contrast to many other states where regulators seem themselves as a business facilitator (and occasionally come directly from the businesses being regulated). In these states, the merger won approval with few, in any, preconditions.

We were delighted to have been extensively quoted and footnoted in the PSC’s order, having proven our case the Charter-Time Warner deal didn’t offer very much for New York. But we’re not happy the PSC punted on data caps. While recognizing they are a concern, the PSC seemed satisfied a three-year guarantee of no data caps was adequate. We disagree. As an increasing number of Comcast customers can attest, data caps are anti-competitive, anti-consumer, and unnecessary. Whatever benefits faster speeds can deliver can be easily curtailed by a data cap. So can online video competition. With much of upstate New York totally dependent on a single provider – Time Warner or Charter – for broadband speeds above 10Mbps, there is plenty of room for mischief that would otherwise be controlled by competitive forces. The PSC saw fit to avoid using its power of approval to get creative on keeping flat rate Internet affordable and available. That is a mistake we predict will be back to haunt us in the future.

Here are the specific conditions, most advocated by Stop the Cap!, that Charter Communications must agree to as a condition of the deal’s approval in New York:

Rural Broadband Access [$355 Million Value]

In addition to the goals accomplished by Gov. Cuomo’s New New York Broadband Program, Charter must agree to unilaterally build-out its network to reach an additional 145,000 “unserved” and “underserved” homes and businesses within four years. This will be an easy target for Charter to reach because the PSC defines “underserved” as any home with less than 100Mbps service. That represents much of upstate New York bypassed by TWC Maxx, so a speed upgrade in just one upstate city will achieve this requirement.

However, the PSC also included a second condition. Subject to the final terms and conditions of the Broadband 4 All Program being comparable to the Connect New York Program, Charter will be required to bid for Broadband 4 All Program funding to offer line extensions to any remaining unserved and underserved home across its entire New York service territory, which means every New Yorker within a cable franchise service area that wants service will be able to get it without being quoted tens of thousands of dollars for construction costs.

This will finally help would-be customers like Stop the Cap! reader Jesse Walser in Jamesville who has tried to get wired broadband in his home for over a decade. Verizon won’t upgrade its network and Time Warner Cable quoted him between $5,900 and $26,000 for installation of a line extension to reach his home.

All Digital Cable System Upgrade

Charter must convert their existing New York systems to an all-digital network (including upgrading the Columbia County Charter cable system to enable broadband communications) capable of delivering faster broadband speeds.

In Columbia County, residents are currently better served by smaller local providers. Both Germantown Telephone and Mid-Hudson Cable offer high-speed access throughout their territories. Berkshire Telephone has almost 100% DSL coverage, and Taconic Telephone has expanded DSL service to much of their huge service territory. Frontier Communications offers some DSL in southern Columbia County. The biggest problem providers are Verizon, which has no plans for DSL service in the area, and Charter Cable, which still runs a basic cable television-only system in the county.

In New York, Charter now provides cable television and other communication services to a relatively small number of customers, from two cable system clusters in and around Plattsburgh (14,000 customers) and Columbia County (2,500 customers). Plattsburgh gets television, phone and broadband service from Charter, but Columbia County is still served by a now-ancient, cable television only system.

Network Modernization and Speed Increases [$305 Million Value]

Charter must convert all of its systems in New York to all-digital within 30 months of the closing of the merger transaction. Charter is also required to offer broadband speeds up to 100Mbps to all customers by the end 2018 and match TWC Maxx speeds of 300Mbps by the end of 2019.

Charter’s all digital upgrade in upstate New York will facilitate faster broadband service, but it will also mean a set-top box or other similar device for every cable connected television in the home.

Broadband Affordability [$250 Million Value]

Despite Charter’s simplified menu of options (two broadband speed tiers and one video package), the PSC has required Charter to allow customers to keep their current plans, at least for the next several years:

• Charter is required to maintain and advance its commitment to an affordable standalone Internet offering through the continuation of the Time Warner Everyday Low Price $14.99
  service throughout the Time Warner New York territory for up to two years and allow existing customers to keep the service for three years.
• Charter is required to offer its 60Mbps standalone broadband product throughout New York at uniform national pricing. [$125 million value]
• Charter is required to allow existing Time Warner customers to retain, without material changes that have the intent to discourage, the standalone and bundled broadband services they subscribe to at the close of the transaction for three years from the date of the closing.
• Charter is required to provide a low-income broadband offering to eligible customers throughout its New York footprint. The PSC-ordered plan will offer 30Mbps for $14.99 a month to any household eligible for the National School Lunch Program and senior citizens 65 years and older eligible for the federal Supplemental Security Income program. No credit check shall be required and conditions requiring current broadband customers to wait 60 days to qualify and cover any past due bills have been deleted.

Customer Service [$55 Million Value]

Within two years after the close of the proposed transaction, Charter shall invest a minimum of $50 million in service improvement programs.

Charter is required to show a 35% reduction in Time Warner Cable’s 2014 cable PSC Complaint Rate by the end of 2020, with a 17.5% reduction due by the end of 2018. If they don’t achieve that, Charter must invest an additional $2.5 million in its service for each failure.

Job Protection

For the next four years, Charter cannot cut the number of customer facing jobs in New York.

Frontier Communications is making a splash in 2016 with a new logo and a press release explaining it:

Frontier Communications Corporation today announced a new logo. The evolved look reflects a transformed typeface, a brighter color palette, and a reimagining of the arc to represent the transfer of data and the importance of connectivity. The logo also uses the name Frontier Communications, instead of just Frontier, to avoid confusion in the marketplace. Today’s launch comes as the 81-year-old company prepares to close a $10.54 billion acquisition of Verizon’s wireline, broadband and FiOS assets in California, Florida and Texas at the end of March.

“2016 is the year of transformation for Frontier,” said Cecilia McKenney, Executive Vice President and Chief Customer Officer, who oversees marketing for the company. “Our company is growing and expanding into new markets: the perfect time to showcase a new logo. We are also in the process of refining a brand promise to be unveiled upon the closing of the $10.54 billion acquisition from Verizon at the end of this quarter.”

Unfortunately, nothing was mentioned about using the new logo as an opportunity to commit to significantly better and faster DSL service for large parts of Frontier’s legacy service areas, still serviced by copper wire networks that are often incapable of delivering anything faster than 3Mbps service.

“A logo change will not bring me usable Internet service at night,” said Ralph Tennant whose wife has struggled with Frontier DSL in her office for years in West Virginia.

“We can either get usage-capped Internet from Suddenlink or unlimited and unusable Internet from Frontier,” said Tennant. “Two bad choices not made better by a pretty new logo.”

Similar to how 3D office signs help companies make a statement in their spaces, Frontier is attempting to create a lasting impression with its reimagined logo. A bold new identity can communicate a company’s evolution and forward-thinking approach, much like these modern signs do for businesses aiming to stand out in a competitive market.

Every once in a while, a brazen utility service company will come to our attention that is so egregious in its conduct and pricing, it makes Comcast’s business practices resemble Amateur Hour.

Not for lack of trying, Comcast’s worst abuses pale in comparison to the conduct of a nasty little firm called Nationwide Energy Partners (NEP). No customer that endures this pseudo-utility will likely ever forget its name, or the $500+ utility bills the company is known to send to renters in Ohio.

Ohio’s deregulated utility market has opened the door to speculators, multi-level marketing scams, and the new and growing practice of “submetering,” — rebilling renters for utility usage charges on behalf of the property owner. The epicenter of some of the worst abuses is in Columbus, where two “submetering” companies with dubious records and close ties to property developers are getting rich charging customers up to 97% more than other Columbus households pay for basic utilities.

Four families are now taking NEP to court, alleging the company is lying about its rates, overcharging customers, and engineering a monopoly business model that does not allow customers to switch utilities, leaving them captive to the threat of eviction and property liens for those that fall behind on their bills.

Ralph Cantore in Columbus is well-acquainted with NEP. It’s the utility company that has billed him $4oo-525 a month for electricity and water service for his three-bedroom apartment.

“I really enjoy the location,” Cantore told The Columbus Dispatch about Olentangy Commons apartments. “I enjoy everything about it, except the ridiculous energy bills.”

Courtney VanSickle, a registered nurse, says her bills have been as high as $450 a month at her two-bedroom apartment.

Those are two of approximately 30,000 customers served by NEP, many in central Ohio where renters served by these third party companies are often shocked by astronomical utility bills. Another firm, American Power & Light, was founded in 2003 by property developer Don Kenney, Sr. The “energy company” shares office space with Kenney’s other ventures, including Ardent Property Management, Village Communities and Metro Development. Kenney’s companies have built more than 35,000 apartments or condominium units, many coincidentally relying on AP&L as the monopoly provider of utility service.

Nationwide Energy founder and CEO Mike DeAscentis Jr., was frank with investors about the real aim of NEP in a 2010 presentation: “How we make money is we buy power at a commercial rate and we resell it at the residential rate and there is arbitrage in the rate structure,” he said, according to a transcript obtained by The Dispatch.

DeAscentis isn’t an energy man from way back. He’s the CEO of Lifestyle Communities, an apartment developer, which coincidentally contracts with NEP for utility services.

NEP pays developers, owners, and/or managers of condominiums, apartment buildings, and multi-family dwellings for contracts offering exclusivity to provide gas, electric, water, and sewer service to tenants. Tenants are informed at closing or move in that NEP is the only utility service provider available to them and they must sign a service agreement with NEP to obtain basic utilities.

NEP is well aware of the favorable position this puts the company, telling customers on its website:

“At NEP we know you choose us because you have to.”

Under Ohio’s deregulation strategy, utilities are still supposed to be mildly regulated to guarantee quality of service, establish proper disconnection policies, and follow basic guidelines to help manage the competitive market. Except NEP was created at the outset to skirt those rules.

“NEP is the new utility,” DeAscentis said in the 2010 presentation. “We do everything that a utility does except generate power. NEP builds electrical-distribution systems for residential communities, and we were very deliberate when we started the business 10 years ago to put it in a place where it was not regulated.”

That is what has allowed NEP to effectively operate as an unregulated monopoly. If customers can’t or won’t pay, the normal protections extended to customers for utility services that protect life do not apply. NEP and AP&L can cut service at will for non-payment, even during winter when a customer’s safety could be at risk. If residents are late with payments, American Power will sometimes evict them, even if the consumer’s rent is up to date and even though American Power is not the landlord. Another contract provision allows companies to place liens on personal property for non-payment. Both companies have sought hundreds of evictions since 2002. Nationwide appeared to have stopped seeking evictions in 2011.

“Once you enter this slippery slope, where a third party has the ability to order evictions, that’s shocking,” Emily Crabtree, a lawyer with Columbus Legal Aid who has defended American Power customers, told The Dispatch in 2013.

The centerpiece of the Ohio lawsuit is the allegation NEP charges residents substantially more that what regulated or municipal providers charge their customers. A 2013 investigation by The Dispatch found that once all the fees and surcharges were calculated, customers paid up to 94% more than if they had an account directly with the regulated or municipal utility serving the area.

“This rate arbitrage is how NEP makes money,” the lawsuit claims.

The plaintiffs claim NEP won’t disclose its energy charges, making it difficult for customers to compare what they are paying for service in contrast with their non-NEP neighbors.

“NEP’s website falsely states that ‘NEP is contractually bound to match the rates of the host utility for both electric and water,’ that ‘rates [customers] are charged by NEP are the same residential rates that are charged by [their] current utility provider,’ and that customers ‘will not pay a higher rate for [their] electric and water as a NEP customer.'”

Ironically, NEP’s CEO stated that NEP “adds value” to services traditionally provided by public or private utility companies.

“The only entity that benefits from NEP’s business model is NEP,” the lawsuit claims.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Columbus Dispatch Submetering 10-20-13.flv[/flv]

The Columbus Dispatch investigated submetering back in 2013, and the large spike in consumer complaints that resulted from the practice. (4:24)

Consumers, when they find out about the submetering practice, are shocked to discover it is completely legal under Ohio law.

Guy Fulcher, a former American Power customer who now lives in Galena, got the pass-the-buck treatment when he complained.

“The attorney general back then was Richard Cordray, and his office just rolled over and said, ‘We don’t regulate that,’” he said. “They said to go to [Ohio’s Public Utilities Commission]. PUCO said, ‘We don’t regulate that.’”

When other renters have complained to regulators, attorneys representing submetering companies argue the complaints should be ignored or rejected for lack of standing.

“This complaint should begin and end with the determination that Mr. Whitt lacks standing to bring a complaint concerning utility services (at his condo) because he is not the utility customer,” said Howard Petricoff, attorney for Nationwide Energy, in a filing.

According to the company, the true customer is the condo association, not each resident, reported the newspaper. Nationwide Energy has a long-term contract with the association to act as the exclusive reseller of utility services.

AE&P spokeswoman Terri Flora said the responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of renters.

“As people make choices to rent in an apartment, they need to be fully aware of what that choice involves,” Flora told the newspaper about the possibility of paying higher prices with a submeter company. “It’s a different environment than consumers are used to.”

Customers in other states beyond Ohio should also be on the lookout because submetering is legal in several other states. Where money can be made, submeterers are sure to expand. NEP is already active in Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Kentucky. Submetering, with an allowance for charging a substantial markup, was legal in Alabama, Georgia, Kansas, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah and Washington as of 2013.

Building in protection from cord-cutting, AT&T today announced it was bringing back its unlimited data wireless plan for customers that subscribe to U-verse TV or DirecTV.

The new AT&T Unlimited Plan claims to offer unlimited data, talk and text for $100 a month. Additional smartphones are $40 per month each, with a fourth smartphone free to add at no extra charge.

“Video traffic continues to grow on our network as fast as ever because people enjoy viewing their favorite video content on their favorite devices,” said Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T Mobile and Business Solutions. “And, they will get a high-quality video streaming experience from the start. No compromises in video quality.”

Except that AT&T discloses in its fine print, “After 22GB of data usage on a line in a bill cycle, for the remainder of the bill cycle AT&T may slow data speeds on that line during periods of network congestion.”

Speed throttles often affect video quality and can stall playback.

It’s the first time in five years AT&T has offered an “unlimited data” wireless option to its mobile customers. Analysts suspect the offer is designed to compete with T-Mobile’s free video streaming “BingeOn” promotion, while also protecting AT&T’s video platforms from cord-cutting. AT&T also gets an opportunity to add new video customers to its recently acquired DirecTV service, because only customers with a qualifying video subscription are allowed to buy the unlimited data plan.

AT&T is tying the unlimited data promotion to its satellite offering DirecTV, not U-verse, with a promotional satellite TV package for new video customers beginning at $19.99 per month for 12 months, with a 24 month agreement. After one year, the base TV package increases to $49.99 a month.

To bring back AT&T wireless customers that left for another carrier, AT&T is offering up to $500 in incentives when customers switch to the AT&T Unlimited Plan with an eligible trade-in and buy a new smartphone on AT&T Next. Customers who combine their U-verse or DirecTV account with AT&T Wireless on a single bill will also get an extra $10 off per month.

AT&T is effectively selling its Unlimited Plan for $60 a month, double AT&T’s original rate for unlimited data of just under $30. With a video subscription pre-qualifier, customers enrolling in the plan can expect a substantial bill.

On the mobile side, customers will be initially expected to pay up to $220 a month for four active lines. The $40 credit for the fourth smartphone only begins after two billing cycles, finally reducing the bill to $180 a month before taxes and surcharges. A required video package will range from $19.99 for a basic DirecTV plan ($49.99 in year two) to as much as $80 or more for U-verse TV, bringing a combined television and wireless bill to more than $300 a month.

Those with 4G tablets can save some money dropping the $40 unlimited data device access fee and choosing a $10 1GB data plan for tablets instead.