Cohen

Next time you wonder why Washington politicians bend at the whims of big telecom companies, simply follow the money.

The Washington Post reports Comcast’s executive vice president David L. Cohen hosted nearly 120 people in his home last Thursday evening.  The price of admission?  At least $10,000 targeted for President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign.

The total haul for the current president — at least $1.2 million.

Among the attendees: Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter.

Cohen, who is well-known as a Democratic operative, spent much of his free time earlier this year helping win favor for Comcast’s merger with NBC-Universal.

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So you’re ready to switch from cable or satellite TV to Internet-only video? Beware: many Internet providers limit how much you can download from websites like Netflix or Hulu.  Isn’t that exactly the point?  KRIV-TV in Houston investigates.  (2 minutes)

Frontier's Facts - Frontier's new website to counter Comcast's claims about FiOS. (click to enlarge)

Frontier Communications has fired back at Comcast after the Fort Wayne, Indiana cable company erected billboards telling residents Frontier was pulling the plug on its acquired FiOS fiber optic network.

On Wednesday, Frontier purchased a full-page ad in The Journal Gazette headlined, “Comcast Doesn’t Let the Facts Get in the Way of a Good Story! Here’s the Truth: Frontier Isn’t Pulling the Plug on Anything.”  It also launched a new website — Frontier Facts — telling customers it is not “pulling the plug” on any of its services.

Roscoe Spencer, Frontier’s local general manager, tells customers:

Recently, one of our competitors put up billboards, placed inserts in the newspapers and sent mailings to customers indicating we had pulled the plug on FiOS. This statement is simply not true, and we have taken legal action to insist that these false claims be stopped immediately.

Spencer

The spat began when Comcast began trying to recruit disaffected Frontier TV customers who found a massive rate increase notice in bills sent earlier this year.  Frontier blamed the rate increase on the loss of volume discounts former owner Verizon obtained for its FiOS TV service for television programming.  Frontier has sought to negotiate with programmers directly instead of working through a cooperative buying group, so the prices it pays for popular cable networks are much higher than what Comcast pays for a comparable video package.

Frontier watchers suggest the company is well aware its new video pricing is uncompetitive and customers will take their business elsewhere.  Frontier quickly began marketing DirecTV, a satellite provider, as a suitable replacement for those unhappy with the rate increase.  But Comcast also saw an opportunity to pick up new customers at the phone company’s expense, including through the use of billboards Frontier claims are misleading.

Frontier stresses its FiOS platform will continue to provide telephone, television, and broadband service, despite what Comcast’s billboards might suggest.

Despite the involvement of attorneys, Comcast has continued to thumb its nose at Frontier’s legal department.  Frontier spokesman Matt Kelley told the Journal Gazette Comcast was supposed to remove the billboards by Monday of this week, but they remain in place.

The cable company calls it a case of old fashioned competition.

Stop the Cap! reader Kevin calls Frontier’s marketing to get customers to drop FiOS TV for DirecTV a real blast from the past.

“It remains difficult for Frontier to sell people on its advanced fiber network when it is heavily marketing customers to get off of it and switch to DirecTV, a service that looked ultra-modern in the 1990s but today is just a rain-faded, pixellated nuisance,” Kevin says.  “Frontier blew it, Comcast took advantage of their strategic blunders, and now the whining has begun.”

Kevin is a former Verizon FiOS customer who was switched to Frontier when Verizon exited Fort Wayne.

“Verizon knew what they were doing, but eventually decided a few small cities in Indiana were not worth their time or interest, so they sold us off to Frontier, who ended up with a fiber network they’ve shown little interest in running except as an adopted curiosity,” Kevin adds.  “When we got notice of the rate increase, we canceled the TV service and now watch over the air television for free, supplemented with Netflix and Hulu.”

Kevin says Frontier ultimately did him a favor, discovering he was fine without a pay television package.

“Outside of breaking news and sports, you can get most everything else online.  Why pay more?”

Stop the Cap! reader Danielle spent last Monday night screaming at Comcast when she discovered the vast majority of cable channels she was paying for disappeared off the Dale City, Va. cable system after what she says was “no warning.”

“All I wanted to do was sit down and watch some television, and almost all of my channels were gone, replaced either with snowy nothing or a message telling me I had to upgrade to a set top box to receive the channel,” she writes.  “It was like Comcast conquered the world and took over almost every station.”

Danielle was left with just over a dozen channels, mostly local stations and channels dedicated to public access and her local government.

“Nobody told me they were doing this,” Danielle claims.  “The Comcast lady kept telling me it was on my bill but I don’t get a bill from them in the mail, so how should I know?”

The Comcast system in question, along with many others, has begun the progression to digital to conserve channel space, offer more services and networks, and increase broadband speed for customers.  But when Comcast converted so many channels to a digital platform all at once, it created the potential for chaos and confusion among subscribers.

The News & Messenger newspaper heard from their readers last Monday, and quickly noticed the dramatic change in Comcast’s lineup themselves in the newspaper break room.  Just 17 channels remained untouched after the digital conversion, but Comcast spokeswoman Alisha Martin made it clear customers shouldn’t get too comfortable watching them either.  Those 17 channels are scheduled to be switched to digital as well at a future undetermined date.

News & Messenger reader Stephanie Crenshaw, also in Dale City, was shocked to find her favorite stations gone, and she is an example of a subscriber that may be left in limbo by Comcast’s digital upgrade program.

Dale City, Va.

Comcast is offering impacted subscribers in Prince William, Manassas and Manassas Park digital converters and set top boxes at no additional charge, at least for now, to help customers adjust to the changes.

But Crenshaw isn’t a Comcast subscriber — her homeowner’s association is, providing Comcast Cable to every home in the development, included in the homeowner association fee.  So far, Crenshaw cannot obtain the free equipment because she technically isn’t a recognized customer, and the homeowner’s association has yet to provide access either.

Our reader Danielle was in better shape after Comcast calmed her down.  Her level of service allowed her to get one digital set-top box and two digital adapters for free.  She now uses the set top box in her living room and the two digital-to-analog adapters on her televisions in the bedroom and kitchen.  But she wonders how long “free” will remain “free.”

“There is no guarantee I can find that says they cannot turn around and charge us for these later on,” Danielle complains.  “It also messes up my VCR — an excuse for Comcast to try and upgrade me to a set top DVR box I don’t want to spend that much on.”

“What really irritates me is the only mailings I get from Comcast lately are about their new electronic guide they are launching today — a guide I couldn’t get until I got their box, and one I don’t think I am ever going to use,” she says. “That and those cards trying to get me to cut over my phone line to them.  If the phone company treated me like Comcast, they would have turned off dial phone service on me and told me I had to buy a new push-button phone.”

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A reporter at the News & Messenger flips through channels on the television in the newspaper’s break room and discovers there is very little left to see.  (1 minute)

Click to Enlarge

Frontier Communications’ DSL service delivers abysmal results for customers looking for quality time with Netflix.  For the second quarter running, the independent phone company’s ability to keep up with Netflix’s high quality video is about on par with a garden slug in a triathlon — yes, it may eventually reach the finish line, but you’ll be dead before it happens.  Even more embarrassing for Frontier, their service is occasionally beaten by Clearwire, a wireless ISP with a bandwidth throttler that can reduce your online experience to the painful days of dial-up if deemed to be using “too much.”

“Frontier sucks,” writes Stop the Cap! reader Doug in Charleston, W.V. “After they took over where Verizon fled, my ability to watch Netflix online became a source of endless frustration, so now I limit myself to mailing DVD’s back and forth.”

Remarkably, Charter Cable, which does poorly in customer satisfaction surveys, is again the runaway winner, followed by Comcast, the heavily usage-capped Cable One, Time Warner Cable, and Cox.  Verizon and AT&T only deliver middling performance.