Despite a significant advertising campaign, Cox’s gigabit Internet service is more a public relations stunt than reality, with only a tiny number of new housing and apartment/condo complexes wired for the fiber to home service.

The high exposure ad campaign doesn’t make sense considering Cox’s new service is available to less than 1% of its customers.

A comprehensive search of addresses actually qualified for Cox’s G1GABLAST tier of service found less than 1% of Cox customers are able to get the gigabit service.

In Irvine, Calif., G1GABLAST is so rare, the Park Place apartments claim exclusivity of the service in the area. A 578-square foot studio apartment with one bedroom and bathroom starts at $1,705 a month, if interested.

Cox has staged press events at the rare locations where the service has turned up in very high-end housing developments in Phoenix, Ariz., with press releases touting the service’s imminent availability in Las Vegas and Omaha, Neb.

The company claims it will make G1GABLAST available to more than 5,000 homes in Phoenix by the end of this year, and has committed to expand that to 150,000 homes by the end of 2015, but there are growing questions whether Cox will meet those targets.

In Phoenix, an Ahwatukee Foothills homeowner was the company’s first residential gigabit subscriber in Arizona. Cox began rolling the service out in new housing developments where installing fiber is less costly than burying service lines in existing neighborhoods. Now it is focusing on other multi-dwelling units and complexes, and a limited number of existing homes in-between those developments.

In Irvine, Calif., Cox gigabit Internet is available exclusively at one complex – Park Place.

In Scottsdale, the only confirmed site where Cox offers gigabit service is the barely finished 440-unit San Travesia Luxury Apartment Complex (rent starts at $1,275 a month for an 815 square foot studio apartment).

G1GABLAST was also confirmed to be available in one extremely wealthy enclave in northwestern Las Vegas, where property values range from $6-50 million. Those who can’t afford that real estate can choose one of a handful of more affordable new housing developments in the area featuring properties valued at $500,000 and up.

The most affordable housing where customers will eventually find G1GABLAST later this spring will be high-end apartment complexes and condos in Omaha, Neb.

Further east, Cox will also be installing gigabit service in the Viridian Reserve at Hickory in Chesapeake, Va. Several hundred homes (starting at $373,000) will be the first in Virginia to qualify for the service sometime this year.

A high-priced publicity campaign for the extremely limited rollout of gigabit service would seem counter-intuitive, unless Cox was seeking an improved image of cable speed competitiveness as new entrants promise and deliver gigabit Internet service around the country. Claiming your company offers 1,000Mbps Internet costs a lot less than actually delivering it.

If you are a long time Optimum customer, the CEO, management, and shareholders of Cablevision would like to thank you for driving average monthly cable revenue per customer 4.8% higher from a year ago to $155.34 a month.

A few years ago, Cablevision developed a Stalinist approach to repeat customer promotions and retentions: nyet.

Despite mounting competition from Verizon FiOS, AT&T U-verse, Comcast and Time Warner Cable, Cablevision has held the line on repeatedly discounting its service for customers who complain their rates are too high.

“Our disciplined approach to pricing, promotional eligibility and customer credit policies has not wavered,” Kristin Dolan, chief operating officer, told investors on a morning conference call.

As a result, the average customer staying with Cablevision paid almost five percent more for service than they did a year earlier — more than $155 a month.

“The main drivers of our increased revenue per customer came from a combination of rate increases, but also lower proportion of subscribers on promotion,” said Brian G. Sweeney, chief financial officer. “We had a number of fixed rate increases January 1 of this year related to cable box fees, an increase in our sports and broadcast TV surcharge, as well as the pass-through of PEG fees to certain customers.”

Cablevision elected to stop competing on price in 2013, telling customers they are entitled to one customer retention deal and that is all. As a result, Cablevision has been losing customers even as it gains revenue. Although it managed to pick up 7,000 net new broadband customers during the quarter, Cablevison lost 6,000 customer relationships, 28,000 video customers — double the number from a year ago, and 14,000 voice customers. That represents 11 consecutive quarters of video subscriber losses.

The customers that remain are meeting Cablevision’s earnings expectations as others leave for better deals elsewhere.

Kristin and James Dolan

Cablevision admits many of its subscriber losses come from customers willing to shop around for a better deal. They usually find one. Although Verizon has tightened customer retention deals itself in response to Cablevision’s retention policies, Frontier U-verse in Connecticut continues to compete for new business on price, at least initially as part of new customer promotions.

Kristen Dolan argues Cablevision’s quality of service keeps customers loyal and brings many ex-customers back.

“We do a significant amount of [customer] win-backs every year and we really focus on why people are coming back and it’s not just about price,” Dolan said.

But some customers believe it is more about the price than Cablevision might think.

“The only reason I left Cablevision was because they wouldn’t negotiate and match a better deal Verizon offered me,” said Rob Hastings of Syosset, N.Y., who canceled service in 2013. “When Cablevision wouldn’t cut their price I left.”

Many of the customers coming back to Cablevision this year are, in fact, their old customers dealing with a rate reset from Verizon as promotions expire.

“When my Verizon FiOS rate shot up, I went back to Cablevision as a ‘new customer’ on a promotion,” said Hastings. “When that expires, I’ll bounce back to Verizon. Whoever gives me the best price gets my business as I am sure not going to pay extra to stay a loyal customer.”

To further combat promotion-bouncing, Cablevision is embracing its broadband product line and marketing new cord-cutting packages to customers that offer reduced-size cable television packages and free over the air antennas for local stations. The cable company also recently announced it would offer cable customers Hulu subscriptions. Jim Dolan, Cablevision CEO, believes broadband is where the money is and customers are willing to pay higher prices to get Internet access even when video package pricing has its limits.

“You’re seeing the video product begin to lose margin and not just among the little operators like us, but even some of the big operators,” said Dolan. “Our philosophy is we think of video as akin to the eggs and the milk in a convenience store. You have to have it, but you don’t make a lot of money on it. Now connectivity is a whole other basket. It’s more like the soda and chips aisle, and if you provide great connectivity, because it provides great value to the consumer, you can differentiate yourself and you can charge more and the margins are good on it.”

Dolan doesn’t think much of his competitor’s slimmed down cable packages either.

“Verizon’s known to embellish [and] use misleading messaging in their marketing to get the phones to ring,” said Dolan. “I think that’s partially how we view these packages. I can tell you that the packages that we’re offering provide a lot more flexibility.”

To further differentiate it from its competitors, Cablevision continues to emphasize its Wi-Fi network of hotspots across metro New York City. The company also recently became the first major U.S. cable operator to launch a mobile phone service that uses its network of Wi-Fi hot spots. Although not willing to divulge customer numbers, Kristin Dolan did say unique weekly visits increased 16% on average to Cablevision’s website, presumably to explore the Freewheel Wi-Fi calling product.

Cablevision’s highlights for the first three months of 2015:

• Fiber to the Press Release: Cablevision was the first cable company to introduce 1-gigabyte residential service in the tri-state area. The service launched to a single new multi-tenant building in Weehawken, N.J. No further expansion is planned at this time;
• Discounted Internet for the Cord Cutter on a Budget: Cablevision expanded the availability of $34.90/mo Internet Basics (5/1Mbps) across its entire service area. It includes an over-the-air antenna.
• Third Party Set-Top Boxes: Cablevision is interested in providing a less expensive, open standard, set-top box platform in the future to customers that don’t want to pay for a large cable box.

Your credit worthiness now plays a more important factor in determining whether you can sign up for service with Charter Communications, and if you fail to pay the company has stepped up collection efforts to bring past due or canceled accounts up to date.

Charter Communications reported to investors it lost more than 7,000 video customers during the first quarter of 2015, many lost to the company’s tightened credit policies. Customers with challenged credit will be asked to pay a substantial deposit before cable service will be provided and those who lost service will have to bring their accounts current before service can be restored.

Thomas Rutledge, CEO of Charter Communications, told investors on the company’s quarterly conference call Charter could no longer depend on picking up video customers that used to steal analog cable service. Charter largely terminated analog service last year, forcing unauthorized customers to subscribe legally or find another provider.

Rutledge

Charter is hoping its new Spectrum Guide software, now being tested, will help improve video service for customers. The new cloud-based user interface is supposed to make search and discovery easier and better supports Charter’s on-demand video offerings. Spectrum Guide is expected to launch in Reno and St. Louis in the next few months.

“Over the coming months, we’ll increase the number of on-demand titles we have on our set-top boxes and on the Charter TV app by a factor of three,” said Rutledge. “The coming months will also see the wider rollout of our Worldbox, our new more advanced and less expensive downloadable security infrastructure in several markets.”

Rutledge emphasized Charter intends to continue emphasizing its full video packages and will not follow others testing slimmed down packages and a-la-carte channel selection. Rutledge told investors he doubts any of the current lower-priced packages with fewer TV channels will prove compelling to customers.

Charter’s chief financial officer reported Charter spent $23 million on transition costs related to the company’s failed deal with Comcast to spin off certain customers to a new entity – GreatLand Connections, which has since been terminated. That contributed to an increase in the company’s expenses, joined by increasing cable programming costs.

Rutledge called the Comcast transaction “distracting” and its all-digital conversion project “very disruptive” to customers.

“I guess when you think about our incentives as a company, our biggest opportunity was the transaction that was in front of us,” Rutledge said. “We were about to divest 40% of our business. And so, our focus was somewhat distracted. But all in all, the operational issues of changing – credit policies changing year-over-year, outcomes as a result of the termination of the all-digital project and the management of the service issues around the all-digital project, we’re comfortable with where we are, and we are comfortable with our growth prospects for the year.”

In the last week, executives from both Charter Communications and Time Warner Cable have talked to the Newhouse Family, controlling owner of Bright House Networks, about an acquisition of the cable company.

Time Warner may hold the stronger hand. In addition to being a much-larger and wealthier cable company, Time Warner has the advantage of a long-standing partnership dating back to the early 90’s with Bright House in which Time Warner shares its volume discounts on cable programming and technology with Bright House in return for an annual fee. As part of that arrangement, Time Warner has the right of first offer if Bright House ever chose to sell. If Time Warner matches or beats a competing offer, such as that now on the table from Charter Communications, it wins Bright House for itself.

Bright House decided it had to sell to someone after the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger threatened to end its arrangement with Time Warner. Bright House would pay substantially more for programming and equipment without the volume discounts Time Warner received. With the Comcast deal off the table, Time Warner remains an acquisition target.

Bright House is coveted by Charter as a stepping stone to a much larger acquisition of Time Warner Cable. Charter’s balance sheet is loaded with debt and its stock isn’t worth as much as that of Time Warner Cable. Combining Bright House’s two-million subscribers with Charter’s own five million customers strengthens Charter’s balance sheet and increases its borrowing capacity as it prepares to acquire Time Warner Cable for a second time.

Time Warner Cable’s interest in Bright House would make life more difficult for Charter, preventing the company from leveraging a quick deal for Time Warner. It also would make Time Warner Cable considerably more expensive (and complex) to acquire. In January 2014, Charter offered $132.50 a share to Time Warner Cable shareholders to acquire the cable company. Time Warner Cable executives immediately recommended shareholders reject the deal as undervalued. Today Time Warner stock is worth around $156 a share, meaning Charter would have to offer at least $160 a share, and probably more than that, to interest Time Warner executives.

The Newhouse family is sitting in a lucrative position as it is courted by the two larger cable operators. One of those familiar with the talks suggested Time Warner was offering the Newhouse family influence in a combined Bright House-Time Warner Cable, because its offer would leave the Newhouse family as the largest individual shareholder of the combined company. Charter’s offer would hand power to John Malone’s Liberty Broadband, and leave the Newhouse family with little, if any voice.

Based on that, the Newhouse family may gravitate towards Time Warner Cable unless Charter significantly sweetens its deal and Time Warner drops out. With the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger in tatters, both sides have a 30-day “good faith” period to renegotiate and tweak their respective offers.

Despite all that, Bright House may decide not to sell after all, at least until after the bigger players settle their own deals and acquisitions. In that case, Charter may have other targets in mind. At the top of the list are Mediacom and Suddenlink.

Time Warner Cable held its first post-merger-flop conference call with investors this morning and reported surprisingly good subscriber numbers for the first quarter of 2015.

Despite disappointing investors for not meeting projected profit and revenue numbers for the first three months of the year, Time Warner managed to add 30,000 net video customers for the first time since 2009. High-speed data customers grew by 315,000, compared with 269,000 a year ago, while voice customers increased by 320,000, compared with 107,000 in the prior-year period. The company also reported $26 million in wasted merger-related costs.

Time Warner’s latest triple play promotion has fewer gotchas in the fine print than usual, but the modem fee is still there so buy your own.

A renewed love for Time Warner Cable was not the reason the cable company added customers. Aggressive pricing with fewer fine print “gotchas” and Time Warner Cable Maxx upgrades helped the company pick up new subscribers. Last October, Time Warner added a $90 triple play offer valid across much of its service area, offering unlimited calling phone, Preferred TV, and 30Mbps broadband with one set-top box for $89.99 a month for one year, an offer Artie Minson, chief financial officer of Time Warner Cable called “clean.”

For the last two years, Time Warner Cable executives decided to de-emphasize promotional pricing on phone service, preferring to draw more attention to its double-play television and broadband offers. This year, that thinking is long gone as the cable company re-emphasizes its triple-play packages and offers current customers the chance to add phone service for as little as $10 a month. The strong growth in new phone customers during the quarter reflects the success of those promotions.

Minson was less impressed with the sales of “skinny bundles” of bare basic cable television, HBO, and broadband service, noting it had little impact on Time Warner’s subscriber growth. The allure of its $14.99 everyday low price, low speed Internet offer has also waned.

“There’s a lot of attraction in the press about skinny packages,” echoed Dinesh C. Jain, chief operating officer of Time Warner Cable. “I think a lot of the times, customers don’t want to get bogged down in a lot of choices to make on those kinds of things. There’s a lot of value in our triple-play packaging right now and it’s a simpler sale.”

Marcus used the conference call to re-emphasize the company has not been distracted by 14 months of merger talks with Comcast and has executed on its pre-merger business plan all along.

Coming in 2017 (If We Live That Long)

Network upgrades under the TWC Maxx program are continuing on schedule.

“New York City, LA and Austin are complete, Dallas, San Antonio and Kansas City are underway and Charlotte, Raleigh and Hawaii on the docket for later in the year,” said Marcus. “We also plan to begin the Maxx process in San Diego this year and finish up in early 2016. It’s still early days, but Maxx certainly appears to be making a difference. Customer feedback has been great and churn among Maxx customers with new DOCSIS 3.0 modems is dramatically lower.”

But it will take another two years to complete the entire Time Warner footprint, of which 40-50% will be upgraded by the end of this year.

“The exact pace at which we continue that process in 2016 and 2017 depends on the experience we have in 2015. We’re feeling better about our ability to roll out all-digital this year than we did last year, which was really the first year of the program,” said Marcus. “And we’ll evaluate, as we go into 2016, how quickly we think we can ramp the next batch of systems.”

In a recurring theme throughout the conference call, executives emphasized Time Warner does not want to pioneer tinkering with the traditional cable package.

For example, Marcus acknowledged Cablevision’s experiment with Wi-Fi calling as a cellular replacement strategy, but said Time Warner Cable will take a wait and see approach.

“I’m inclined to watch and see how that evolves and then we’ll see how best to develop our own strategy on that front,” Marcus said.

Marcus

“There’s a lot of talk and a lot of work going on out there from other guys,” said Jain, referring to slimmed down cable packages and unbundling. “And if any of their things work, we’ll just be fast followers on that stuff because I think there are some segments of our customer base where that is going to have appeal.”

Marcus also complained there was far too much attention being paid on Millennials as an excuse to break up the traditional cable experience.

“There tends to be, in my opinion, an obsessive interest in Millennials, maybe at the expense of the broader customer base,” Marcus said. “For the vast majority of our customers, the way we currently deliver the video product is pretty darn attractive. That said, sure, there’s a group of customers who might very well like to access video via other means. So it is definitely the case that over time, I can see a world where more and more customers consume our offering without needing to lease a set-top box from us. But that doesn’t mean we’re going to abandon the largest portion of our customers who actually do like the current model.”

On other subjects, the implementation of Net Neutrality under Title II regulations will have no impact on Time Warner’s future plans or investments, according to Marcus.

“We’ve said in the past that our normal business practices comply entirely with the notion of the open Internet, no blocking, no discrimination, no throttling, and transparency are fundamental parts of the way we do business. So to the extent that that’s the full scope of what’s getting incremented under Title II, I think you won’t see a change in the way we do business.”

But he warned if the FCC intends to more broadly regulate Internet access, that could have an impact on pricing and future investment.

Marcus also re-emphasized his intention not to change the way Time Warner sells broadband. That means no compulsory usage caps or usage-based pricing.

“We’re very focused on delivering compelling products to customers at a price that delivers real value,” said Marcus. “We can’t think in terms of taking gross margin dollars that are lost because we lose a video customer and somehow embedding those into high-speed data [with usage pricing] and not seeing an impact on high-speed data.”