Optimum Wi-Fi is available from thousands of “hotspots” across New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. You can find them by starting your Wi-Fi device and viewing the available networks in range. The network name will be ‘optimumwifi’.

Cablevision broadband subscribers may soon get free Optimum Wi-Fi service on New Jersey commuter trains and inside railway stations, if the NJ Transit board approves an agreement with the cable company.

On Wednesday, the board will vote on a 20-year contract with Cablevision to build and maintain a wireless network entirely at the cable company’s expense and offer NJ Transit free use of its facilities to assist in its operations.

With more than two-thirds of all rail commuters using Internet service during their travels, the network will vastly improve Wi-Fi access and offload data traffic from nearby cellular towers.

Providing Wi-Fi on trains has proved more difficult than Cablevision and the transit group originally thought.

The NJ Transit system first issued a “request for proposals” from interested Wi-Fi vendors back in 2010. Three years later, the transportation agency finally chose Cablevision over Illinois-based RAILband Group.

Cablevision has also been dragging its feet installing Wi-Fi on the Long Island Railroad and Metro North, despite agreeing to offer service by 2011.

“Wi-Fi on the trains is complicated,” explained Tad Smith, Cablevision president of local media.

On a March 2013 conference call with Wall Street analysts, he admitted the service is still not up and running, but should be sometime in the future.

“We are in active, productive, very positive conversations with the trains,” said Smith. “I am optimistic for the future.”

The project in New Jersey is not anticipated to be complete until 2016. Wi-Fi will first be made available in railway stations. Individual railway cars will then gradually get the service.

Cablevision now provides its Optimum Wi-Fi service as a benefit exclusively for subscribers. Non-subscribers are limited to three 10-minute sessions per 30-day period, with a further limit of one 10-minute session per day.

The MTA required Cablevision to provide “reasonable” access to non-Cablevision subscribers, which may include daily, weekly, or monthly access passes at an additional cost. But no pricing or further details are now available.

NJ Transit is the nation’s largest statewide public transportation system providing more than 895,000 weekday trips on 240 bus routes, three light rail lines and 12 commuter rail lines. It is the third largest transit system in the country with 165 rail stations, 60 light rail stations and more than 18,000 bus stops linking major points in New Jersey, New York and Philadelphia.

One of America’s lowest-rated cable companies and an industry legend labeled by consumer advocates as the “Darth Vader of cable” may be joining forces to buy Time Warner Cable, according to Bloomberg News.

The blockbuster buyout would leap Charter Cable from fourth largest cable operator to second place, although still behind Comcast in terms of revenue and number of subscribers.

The spectacular return of Malone to the top echelon of the American cable industry was the talk of the industry’s Cable Show, ongoing this week in Washington, D.C. Those attending are reportedly buzzing Malone’s imminent return is likely to spark a massive consolidation of the U.S. cable industry to as few as three major cable operators serving more than 95 percent of the American cable marketplace.

Malone

Driving momentum to merge, in Malone’s view, is increasing cable video programming costs, which are cutting into profits. Having a fewer number of cable operators could hand the industry more leverage over broadcasters and unaffiliated cable programmers, but could also cut costs through marketplace efficiencies and volume discounts.

“If you’re John Malone, you’re thinking: we’ve got to get bigger,” Jim Boyle, managing director of SQAD and formerly a cable equity analyst for more than 19 years, said in a telephone interview with Bloomberg News. “The bigger Charter can get, the more economies of scale discounts it can get,” he said. “If everyone else is playing checkers, Malone is playing three-dimensional chess.”

For many on Wall Street, the only thing left to do is plan the funeral for the country’s second largest cable company.

“If you’re going to do a transformational deal, your choices are Time Warner Cable, Time Warner Cable and Time Warner Cable,” Craig Moffett, a veteran industry observer told Bloomberg. “You can roll up all the little guys if you want to, but even if you did, you haven’t built something that’s truly large-scale.”

“Time Warner Cable is gone,” Chris Marangi, a money manager at Gamco Investors Inc., said. “I think Charter will buy them eventually, whether it’s Liberty facilitating that or Charter doing it directly or the two companies doing it in partnership.”

Industry observers predict Malone will signal his dream deal by initially launching smaller mergers and acquisitions before attempting a buyout of a cable company considerably larger than Charter itself.

The first target: perennially bottom rated Mediacom, where any buyer is likely to be hailed as a rescuer by beleaguered subscribers who have regularly dismissed the cable operator as incompetent. Next, the Washington Post’s Cable ONE, which may already be plumping itself up as at attractive takeover target through investment in improving its network infrastructure.

But the most obvious foreshadowing of a big deal with Time Warner would most likely come if Charter first successfully acquires always-rumored-for-sale Cablevision, where the controlling Dolan family is rumored to be holding out for an exceptionally attractive buyout package other cable companies aren’t willing to offer. Time Warner itself has been rumored as a buyer, but current management has repeatedly stressed it will not pay a premium price for acquisition targets.

Malone may not be able to help himself. His long history in the cable industry includes a voracious appetite for merger and acquisition deals. For more than two decades, Malone led Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI). When he arrived in 1972, TCI was a rural Texas and western states cable operation with 100,000 subscribers. By 1981, through mergers and acquisitions, he built TCI into America’s largest cable operator. In 1998, AT&T bought out TCI Cable. The phone company later exited the cable business and sold most of the operation to present owner Comcast.

The level of consolidation proposed by Malone is unheard of in the United States, but is familiar in Canada where two major cable operators — Rogers and Shaw — control the majority of cable subscriptions. Third largest Vidéotron leads in Québec and Cogeco serves pockets of Ontario and Québec bypassed by Rogers and Vidéotron, respectively.

Cablevision will maintain unlimited Optimum Online broadband service to all of its customers and will not introduce usage-based pricing, according to Gregg Seibert, chief financial officer.

“I don’t see usage-based billing as something that we have plans for at this time,” Seibert told investors attending this week’s Bank of America/Merrill Lynch Global Telecom and Media Conference in London. “I think it would take a broader industry shift for that type of metered pricing to come in. At this point we don’t see that in the future.”

Cablevision has a long history opposing usage pricing or caps. In 2009, Jim Blackley, Cablevision’s senior vice president of corporate engineering and technology, said usage caps were not in the cable company’s plans:

“We don’t want customers to think about byte caps so that’s not on our horizon,” he said. “We literally don’t want consumers to think about how they’re consuming high-speed services. It’s a pretty powerful drug and we want people to use more and more of it.”

Cablevision’s announcement may also be in response to its biggest competitor. Verizon earlier this year repeated it had no plans for usage-based pricing for FiOS customers either.

Cablevision continues to attract new broadband customers, primarily from customers canceling DSL service but not moving to FiOS.

Image: Bloomberg News

Elections don’t have consequences if you happen to be a favored board member overseeing Cablevision.

For the third time in four years, the cable company has decided to keep several board members that shareholders voted against.

Vincent Tese will keep his board seat despite the fact 54.8 percent of shareholders wanted to show him the door. Leonard Tow was given a thumbs-down by almost 52 percent of voters and Thomas Reifenheiser squeezed by with a margin of just 0.5 percent.

Tese and Reifenheiser failed to win a majority of shareholder support in 2010, 2012, and again last month, but they will keep their board seats because Cablevision’s other board members said so. The zombie board members may be dead to those who hold shares in Cablevision, but as long as the board can collectively override shareholder wishes, they can stay.

That prompted New York City comptroller John Liu to recommend shareholders vote against all five Class A directors this year, because they are responsible for allowing the losing board members to stay.

“Shareowners delivered a stinging rebuke to the five Cablevision directors we opposed for being ineffective and unaccountable, including majority votes against two of them,” Liu said. “Both Mr. Tese and Dr. Tow, should immediately step down. In Mr. Tese’s case, this is the third majority vote against his directorship in the past four years. Enough is enough.”

“As fiduciaries, we can’t sit by and let the board make a mockery of our fundamental right to elect directors,” Liu added. New York City owns more than 530,000 shares of Cablevision stock, part of the pension fund portfolio Liu oversees. “Share owners need accountable directors who will ensure the company isn’t being run for the benefit of insiders at our expense.”

The New York Times reports shareholders have plenty to grumble about:

Over the last two years, while the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index has rallied to a new high, Cablevision shares have dropped from more than $36 a share to under $15, where they were trading this week. Yet Cablevision’s chief executive, James Dolan, earned $16.9 million last year, and his father, Charles, earned $16.6 million as chairman — an unusually high amount for a chairman who is not serving as chief executive. Both payments were about 50 percent higher than the year before. In addition to their compensation, the two Dolans get a full-time car and driver as well as access to a helicopter and jet for personal use. Institutional Shareholder Services noted there was a “disconnect” at the company between performance and executive pay.

Mr. Tese, Mr. Ryan and Mr. Reifenheiser make up the compensation committee of the board, which approves the Dolans’ compensation.

Mr. Tese, a former chief executive of the New York State Urban Development Corporation and former director of economic development for New York State, was also Bear Stearns’s lead director before its collapse in 2008 and served on its finance and risk committee. “Given the significant lack of oversight provided by Mr. Tese during his tenure at Bear, particularly in the area of risk management, we believe he should not continue to serve on any public company board,” the proxy advisory service Glass, Lewis & Company said last year. Mr. Tese is a member of four boards, including that of Madison Square Garden, which was spun off by Cablevision and is also controlled by the Dolan family.

Mr. Ryan and Mr. Reifenheiser were both members of a special committee that approved an ill-fated proposed buyout of the company by the Dolans in 2007. Independent shareholders blocked the deal on grounds that the Dolans’ offer was self-serving and too low. “Its improvident support by the special committee is among the reasons we have lost confidence in Messrs. Reifenheiser and Ryan,” Mr. Liu wrote in his recent letter to the company.

Last year, Cablevision paid Mr. Tese $233,967, Mr. Ryan $247,508 and Mr. Reifenheiser $220,786 in cash and stock, according to the company’s proxy statement.

Not so fast, says Cablevision spokesman Charles Schueler.

“These directors have served Cablevision shareholders well and we look forward to their continuing contributions. Our shareholders know that Cablevision is a controlled company and they understand the rules by which our directors are elected.”

Optimum profits.

Cablevision customers that managed to keep now-discontinued television packages will soon have to pay an extra $4-7 a month to upgrade to one of several newer packages this summer.

In March 2012, Cablevision dropped many of their “iO” packages in favor of new ones dubbed “Optimum.” The cable company originally let current customers keep the older, cheaper packages, but starting June 3 that will be no more.

Michael Chowaniec from Cablevision’s Government Affairs department notified Connecticut regulators the company was preparing to force customers into newer Optimum packages at a higher cost.

“Legacy customers migrating to comparable packages will experience a rate increase, but will gain between 6 to 23 linear networks and/or premium channels and enhancements and additional On Demand services,” Chowaniec wrote. “In many cases, the rate change is significantly less than the price of the additional channels and services, if purchased on an a la carte basis.”

“Customers on promotions for a legacy video package that is being eliminated will be able to keep their promotional rate through the end of the promotional period and will be migrated at the end of the promotion,” he added.

The rate increases come after an earlier $5 rate hike for broadband service and the introduction of a $2.95 monthly “sports programming fee” paid by most customers. That represents a total rate increase for some of up to $15 a month in 2013.

Life has been getting tougher for Cablevision customers over the past few months. Optimum Rewards members are losing their “Free Movie Tuesday” and discount ticket benefits with the sale of Cablevision’s 47 movie theater chain Clearview Cinemas.

Cablevision’s ruling family even canceled the July 4 fireworks display run for years from their home on Oyster Bay, N.Y. “for personal reasons.”