Comcast’s eMTA backup battery. (Image: David Trebacz)

Comcast digital phone customers will no longer receive battery backup and monitoring service free of charge, according to a notification mailed to customers with their bills:

“Effective February 26, 2013, a battery backup and battery monitoring will no longer be provided free of charge. For existing XFINITY Voice customers with backup batteries, Comcast will continue to monitor your current battery at no charge; however, replacement batteries and their monitoring will no longer be provided free of charge. Backup batteries (which include monitoring) will be available for purchase.  Please call 1-888-972-1261 for pricing and details. XFINITY Voice uses the electrical power in your home. If you do not have a battery backup, you will not be able to use this service, including the ability to make emergency 911 calls, during an electrical power outage.”

Comcast customers leasing eMTA modems (which supply the cable company’s phone service) report that before the change batteries were included in the box. But not anymore, even though the packaging and accompanying literature still show the battery is included.

The lithium-ion battery keeps Comcast’s phone service working during power outages, but like other rechargeable batteries, it does eventually wear out. Now customers pay to replace them, even though the modem itself is leased to the customer.

Scott, a Comcast customer in Michigan, told Comcast he was unhappy with what seems like a petty cutback:

“I’m really miffed that they would now suddenly require customers to purchase a battery for a leased device,” Scott said.

Sarah Palin and her Big Gulp were seen on every Comcast channel in mid-Tennessee until technicians could force her off subscribers’ screens.

“If this had been an actual emergency, you would not be seeing Sarah Palin holding a Big Gulp while addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference convention….”

The former vice-presidential candidate got free extra publicity from Comcast cable systems serving middle Tennessee on Saturday night when a test of the emergency alert system went haywire and switched every Comcast channel to Gov. Palin’s speech given to a conservative political group.

Subscribers may have been amused until they discovered she was on every channel, and there was no way to get rid of her and back to regular programming until a Comcast technician could be called on to reset the system.

“The Comcast cable system serving middle Tennessee has experienced a problem with its emergency alert system,” Comcast spokeswoman Sara Joe Houghland said in an e-mailed statement. “Impacted customers had their equipment locked onto C-SPAN until Comcast personnel were able to resolve the problem shortly thereafter. The company is working diligently to find the root cause of the matter.”

Not diligently enough for irritated subscribers, some who missed post-season basketball games or network shows.

The Tennessean reports this is not the first time Comcast has had this problem:

• It happened again on Monday morning when a line of powerful storms moved through the area;
• A similar incident happened when a string of tornadoes hit the Nashville area in late January.

The problem seems to be the “end of warning/test”-signal not being processed properly by Comcast, which then keeps the warning active until the equipment is reset. In January, the newspaper reports the “end of message” disengage signal was missing altogether.

The Tennessee Association of Broadcasters have lost their patience and have asked the FCC to exclude local stations from being overridden by the EAS warning system.

Their argument is that any real emergency will likely be covered by local newsrooms well in advance of any weather or news messages dispatched through the EAS system.

The Oscars viewing party in Shreveport nearly never happened late last month when Comcast dropped the ball and left a “Technical Difficulties” message on subscribers’ screens for several hours. An enterprising technician at a local TV station saved the day when he found old-fashioned rabbit ears and a digital tuner in the back of his truck and was able to get the local ABC affiliate’s over-the-air signal on the big screens at the Robinson Film Center.

The technical foul-up was just the latest embarrassment for Comcast, not only because the outage impacted subscribers across a 75-mile radius, but also because Shreveport has a thriving partnership with the film industry. It also may be the breaking point for city officials tired of hearing complaints Comcast refuses to fix themselves.

Comcast blamed the latest widespread outage on a power problem.

“Comcast experienced a commercial power outage Sunday night,” said Frances Smith, a representative from Comcast’s government and regulatory affairs. “We are investigating and indications are that a resulting power surge damaged the switch that transfers the headend operation to a generator. We restored the majority of service within two hours and deeply regret the inconvenience to our customers.”

No refunds or service credits for customers are planned, unless those affected specifically ask for them within 30 days of the outage.

Comcast’s 15-year franchise with the city of Shreveport expired at the end of 2012 and the company is not making any friends on the Shreveport City Council as renewal discussions plod on while complaints from subscribers continue to pour in.

Most of the problems with Comcast service in Louisiana’s third largest city relate to the length of service outages, unresponsive customer service, and the quality of cable TV reception.

Webb

Comcast officials promised upgrades six years ago to address reliability issues, but city councilman Ron Webb says he hasn’t seen them and Comcast never delivered.

“We’re not trying to run them out of town,” Webb told KTRE-TV. “I want them to provide a good service. I have everything that I own bundled with them, and I’m paying dearly for it. But I’m happy to have the service. But I just want to see those improvements. I have the same problems.”

City officials are expecting Comcast officials to appear before the city council this evening to explain themselves and report on what plans they have to fix ongoing service complaints.

As it stands, Comcast continues to operate in Shreveport on a month-to-month basis until either a new franchise agreement is signed or another cable company responds to the city’s invitations to apply for a franchise. To date, no cable company has been willing to challenge Comcast’s presence in the city. In fact, Dale Sibley, the city’s chief administrative officer told the Shreveport Times no company even responded to their requests.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KTBS Shreveport Comcast Contract Expires 9-19-12.flv[/flv]

Comcast’s problems have been ongoing in Shreveport for years. Last September, KTBS hinted that the city was considering replacing Comcast with a different cable operator. But as other cities have already learned, no major cable operator is willing to challenge another. (Sept. 19, 2012) (3 minutes)

[flv width=”480″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KTBS Shreveport Comcast Outage Contract 2-25-13.mp4[/flv]

The night of the Academy Awards was a low-key affair in Shreveport after Comcast went out of service across the city for at least two hours, leading to questions from city officials. KTBS in Shreveport rescued at least some viewers attending a downtown reception when a station technician hooked up an antenna and picked up the station’s broadcast signal. (3 minutes)

[flv width=”440″ height=”276″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KMSS Shreveport Comcast issues statement about cable outage 2-25-13.flv[/flv]

At least 24 hours after Comcast’s February outage, some subscribers were still without cable service, despite claims from the cable company the outage only lasted two hours. KMSS in Shreveport reports.  (1 minute)

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KSLA Shreveport Cable outage sparks heat between Comcast city official 2-24-13.mp4[/flv]

KSLA in Shreveport says Comcast’s ongoing service problems are being heard by members of the city council. Now some say the company never followed through on service improvements promised six years earlier.  (2 minutes)

[flv width=”480″ height=”288″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Shreveport Times Comcast-talk-council-about-service-improvements 3-12-13.flv[/flv]

The Shreveport Times talks about tonight’s city council meeting which is scheduled to discuss Comcast’s service problems, the company’s franchise renewal, and obstacles that prevent another provider from taking over and delivering better service.  (3 minutes)

Cohen

Comcast executive David Cohen and his wife, Rhonda, raised more than $500,000 for President Obama’s re-election campaign from contributions from friends and corporate associates.

In addition to straight contributions, the Cohens were among the top three money-bundlers for the Obama campaign in the greater Philadelphia area, funneling large sums of cash from a variety of sources to the Obama re-election effort.

Critics contend this level of money in politics assures large corporate donors can get access to top elected officials and bend their ears on administration policies. It also could get donors more favorable treatment from regulators beholden to the administration or Congress.

Although the Cohens have been legendary fundraisers for Democratic candidates for years, the Pennsylvania press buzzed over word Cohen intended to support the re-election of Republican Gov. Corbett in 2014. In January alone, Cohen and his wife raised $200,000 for Corbett at a single fundraiser, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Cohen told the newspaper he has had a long-term relationship with Obama, dating to when Obama was a state senator in Illinois, and a 20-year relationship with Vice President Biden.

“I know them personally, like and respect them, and believed that they were the superior choice,” Cohen said.

Time Warner Cable objects to publicly-owned broadband networks because they represent “unfair” publicly-funded “competition,” despite the fact TWC is also on the public dole.

The next time a cable operator or phone company claims community-owned broadband providers deliver unfair competition because they are government-funded, remind them that quite often that phone or cable company also happens to be on the public dole.

Take Time Warner Cable, which this week won a $5,266,979 grant courtesy of New York State taxpayers to extend their cable system to 4,114 homes in rural parts of upstate New York just outside of the cable company’s current service areas. That equals $1,280.26 in state tax dollars per household. For that public investment, Time Warner will reap private profits for shareholders from selling broadband, cable-TV, phone, and home security services to its newest customers indefinitely.

Now unlike some of my conservative friends, I am not opposed to the state spending money to wire rural New York. It is obvious cable and phone companies will simply never wire these areas on their own so long as Return on Investment conditions fail in these places. What does annoy me are the endless arguments we hear in opposition to public broadband from these same companies, claiming with a straight face that community-owned networks represent “unfair competition” because they are publicly funded. Time Warner Cable is no stranger to public taxpayer benefits itself, having won millions in tax abatements and credits in North Carolina, Ohio and a cool $5 million courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. N.Y. Taxpayer.

Many of the nation’s private telecommunications companies have plenty of love for federal, state, and local officials who have passed favorable tax laws and policies at their behest:

• AT&T not only did not pay any federal taxes in 2011, it actually secured a $420 million taxpayer-subsidized refund;
• Local governments have granted rights-of-way red tape cutting, tax credits and abatements in return for siting important facilities in select areas and hiring an appropriate number of employees to work in them;
• State laws that have made life easy for telecom companies, including statewide video franchising;
• State laws that make life difficult for their would-be competitors, especially public broadband networks.

So let us end the silly rhetoric about public vs. private broadband being a question of fairness. This is really a question about who controls your broadband future,  your community or big telecom corporations.

In states like Georgia, elected politicians like Rep. Mark Hamilton want those decisions made by Comcast (Pennsylvania), Windstream (Arkansas) and AT&T (Texas). His bill would make it next to impossible for a local community to do anything but beg and plead the phone company to deliver something, anything that resembles broadband service. For a good part of rural Georgia (and elsewhere), the answer has always been a resounding “no,” at least until the federal government steps up and kicks in your money to help defray the costs of extending Windstream or AT&T’s sub par DSL service that slows to a crawl once the kids are out of school.

Windstream waited for the federal government to kick in $7.28 million in taxpayer dollars before it would agree to extend its DSL service to rural customers in its own home state of Arkansas.

You have to wonder about the Republicans in Georgia these days who used to fight for local and state control over almost everything. It should be instinctive for any conservative to want out-of-state pointyheads out of their business, but Rep. Mark Hamilton, himself a business owner, seems content forfeiting those rights to companies headquartered hundreds of miles away. If it was the federal government telling Georgia what kind of broadband service it deserves, do you think Mr. Hamilton would be so amenable? Unfortunately, should Hamilton have his way, for the foreseeable future, residents and business owners in Gray, Sparta, or Eatonton to count just a few will have broadband just the way the state’s phone companies want it — super slow DSL, dial-up or satellite fraudband.