All Arcadia, N.Y. town supervisor Dick Colacino wanted was for Time Warner Cable to consider using some of their profits to expand their cable system by one or two roads a year to offer service where it has earlier refused to go.

Time Warner Cable’s response? No.

But Time Warner might turn that “no” into “yes” if customers offer to cover the cable company’s estimated cost of $22,000 per overhead mile to extend cable service down ignored rural roads. Underground wiring costs much more.

Every year, elected officials in just about every small town and village get an earful of complaints from bypassed residents who cannot get cable broadband service.

Arcadia (pop. 14,900) is a small community in Wayne County, east of Rochester. Time Warner Cable dominates western and central New York, with cable service from Albany west to Buffalo. In Wayne County alone, Time Warner is the only cable provider in the 23 largest municipalities. But the company has routinely skipped over potential service areas it considers not worth a wiring investment. That leaves bypassed residents with one choice for broadband — Verizon Communications, which has not expanded DSL service in the area for some time.

The New York Public Service Commission has mandated that cable service must be available to any area where 35 homes per mile are located within 150 feet of the road.

Time Warner representative Chris Mueller says the cable operator has already cut that benchmark to 20 miles per home, but areas remain that do not meet even that reduced standard. Without an appropriate return on investment within a certain time frame, Time Warner Cable won’t wire those areas for service.

Colacino told Mueller he was very unhappy with that decision and intended to pursue the matter at franchise renewal time, possibly in coordination with other communities that also have a number of bypassed residents. A community can negotiate for changes during franchise renewal talks, but in almost every case, the incumbent cable operator holds the strongest position, knowing a community looking for another provider will be unlikely to find one willing to serve.

Colacino has battled with the cable company since at least 2010 because of complaints from area residents and businesses who cannot get service.

That year, a Time Warner Cable government affairs representative offered Colacino a novel solution to the problem — agree to refund collected franchise fees to Time Warner Cable, after which the company would consider using the money to expand service to more roads in Arcadia.

The only problem with that solution is that it is illegal.

“You can’t do that,” town attorney David Saracino responded. “It’s an unconstitutional gift of public monies.”

Despite findings from an independent consultant that reported West Virginia wasted millions on a broadband expansion effort that effectively built a private, taxpayer-funded fiber network for Frontier Communications, the governor’s office abruptly canceled a 2011 follow-up state audit of the $126.3 million project.

The Charleston Gazette reports Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s office said it dropped the audit because Frontier “answered or addressed” issues raised in a memo produced by an out-of-state independent consulting firm.

ICF’s document was so scathing of the state government’s handling of federal broadband stimulus funds, the governor’s office kept it secret until a copy was independently leaked to the Charleston newspaper. The governor’s office said it initially withheld the “internal memorandum” produced by Vienna, Va.-based ICF International because it proved “embarrassing to some people.”

Among ICF’s findings:

• Taxpayers underwrote the construction of a Frontier Communications’ owned and operated fiber broadband network so fragmented in its construction, the only entity likely to benefit is Frontier Communications;
• ICF found West Virginia’s broadband grant program created an “unintended monopoly” for Frontier Communications, and an unusable ‘open access’ network except for Frontier;”
• Frontier’s documentation and expense reports, submitted for reimbursement by taxpayers were inadequate and could have resulted in double billing;
• Frontier overbuilt its network with excessive numbers of fiber strands three to six times above industry standards, driving up construction costs.

Frontier’s called the ICF report “worthless” and accused the consultant of using inaccurate and stale comments that repeat “previously repudiated allegations.”

Frontier also produced its own company-sponsored “external audit” of its work on the $126.3 million broadband project that found “no material deficiencies.”

But ICF says it is standing by its report, and documented instances where the state authorized Frontier to spend significant sums to build fiber connections to community institutions that were later scaled back by the company. Whether Frontier was paid for the originally scheduled work, or for the scaled back construction eventually completed, is unknown.

At this point, ICF reports it is resigned to the fact Frontier will be a major beneficiary of the taxpayer-funded fiber infrastructure and the state has few options to fix the problems they created. The consultant firm says the only workable option would be a joint effort by Frontier’s competitors to build, at their own expense, a “middle-mile, open-access network” that can interconnect with Frontier’s taxpayer-funded network, assuming Frontier will allow it.

A major critic of the broadband stimulus program in West Virginia, Citynet President Jim Martin, has long said the broadband project was primarily going to benefit Frontier.

In September 2010, Martin told the Gazette, “Frontier is going to have the state’s business forever. No other company will have the money to come in and build the network.”

Two months later, Martin was back ringing the alarm bell before more than $126 million in taxpayer funds were spent.

“The state represented it would build a ‘middle-mile’ network reaching 700,000 homes and 100,000 businesses, and it would be this great new superhighway and do all the things the federal government is seeking,” Martin told the Gazette. “But afterward, Citynet and others got to look and it looks like it is a windfall for Frontier Communications only.”

“We’ll ultimately prove this was a complete sham and didn’t benefit anybody,” Martin said. “We’re here. We’re not going anywhere. We totally recognize this is going to be a long battle unless the Broadband Council or the new governor or the next governor does something. We’re going to be on this for however many years it takes. We’re going to hold the state accountable for every single dollar they’re spending. At the end of the day we will show that no jobs were created, there’s no benefit to the citizens of West Virginia. Hopefully we’ll show this was all about Frontier.”

Three years later, Martin is still trying to get accurate broadband maps that depict exactly where Frontier has laid its publicly funded fiber infrastructure. Apparently they are secret, too.

“I will be dead in the ground before Verizon gets around to restoring my phone line, and I have been their customer for 72 years,” says Irene, 95, one irate now-ex Verizon customer in New Jersey.

She, like many others, lost her Verizon landline during Hurricane Sandy and has waited for its return ever since.

“She has the patience of a saint, but if Verizon was in charge of admitting people beyond the Pearly Gates, there would be a line stretching endlessly across the heavenly clouds,” shares Irene’s daughter Agnes.

Irene and her late husband had their telephone hooked up by Verizon’s predecessor three days before Pearl Harbor. For the non-history initiated, that was Dec. 4, 1941.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt called Dec. 7, 1941 a Day of Infamy. Irene’s family calls Oct. 29, 2012 “The Day After Infamy” after Hurricane Sandy slammed ashore in the northeast and wiped out phone service up and down the tri-state coastal area. She is still waiting for her dial tone to return on her 1972 rotary dial phone.

“Everyday I pick it up just to see if there is anyone there, and of course there isn’t,” Irene tells Stop the Cap! “I used to worry about the cat knocking the phone receiver on the floor, but it does not make much difference anymore.”

Irene cannot understand why Verizon is allowed to get away with such shoddy service.

“Just a few years ago, if your phone was out for three days you would have a supervisor apologizing and sending repairmen out even if their supper was waiting on the table getting cold,” Irene remembers. “Those days are over I suppose.”

Irene lives with her daughter in a home that escaped the worst of the storm, but unfortunately her phone service was not so lucky. Verizon has not provided fiber optics in her part of New Jersey yet either, so FiOS is not an option.

“You call Verizon and they are very apologetic on the phone and keep writing up service calls, but unfortunately nobody ever comes and nobody will tell us anything,” Agnes said. “We even tried praying, but Verizon answers to a different God.”

Irene’s great-grandchildren visit with cell phones in hand and cannot understand why Irene still bothers with her home phone, and the family purchased her a cell phone for Christmas to use in the interim but Irene has thrown it in a drawer.

“My phone has been with me since Richard Nixon was in the White House and it is all I have ever needed or wanted,” Irene says. “Agnes will answer the cell phone and hand it to me but the sound on it is terrible, like everyone is in the shower when they are calling.”

Agnes also dials outgoing calls for Irene, and her grandchildren helped her compose the e-mail sent to Stop the Cap! asking if we could help.

“My kids told me Verizon has installed these wireless boxes and screwing them into the wall and I don’t want that,” Irene insisted. “I just want them to fix the phone line and leave it be.”

Irene adds she has paid The Phone Company more than her fair share during the last seven decades.

But during a recent emergency family meeting, a decision was made to deal with a half-year of the “Verizon Problem” once and for all. After corresponding with us, they are signing up for Comcast phone service instead.

“The man at Comcast said I could keep my current phone and I don’t have to have an ugly box screwed into my wall, which suits me fine, but they should know I don’t care for their prices or all of that nonsense they put on the television.”

Comcast installed the family’s phone service yesterday and all is well, at least until the cat knocked the phone off the hook again.

Irene asked her last name be omitted for privacy.

In response to the deadly tornadoes in Moore, Okla., Cox Communications today said it would lift viewing restrictions for dozens of networks for Cox Cable customers who want to watch cable programming online using Wi-Fi or mobile broadband.

Cox video subscribers in Oklahoma can download the Cox TV Connect app (iOS or Android) to view streamed programming either inside or outside the home for the next three months. The cable operator said it had reached emergency agreements with programmers to lift the usual restrictions preventing online viewing away from home.

“We hope to help those impacted by providing access to TV on some mobile and tablet devices while the area recovers in the weeks and months ahead,” Cox spokesman Todd Smith told FierceCable in an email.

Cox now offers around 90 channels on its TV Connect platform.

Tornado-ravaged customers in Moore will need a lot longer than three months to get cable service back in many areas completely devastated by the storm.

Cox parent Cox Enterprises announced Tuesday that it plans to give $1 million to support relief and recovery efforts in Oklahoma, including a $500,000 cash donation to the American Red Cross and $500,000 of “in-kind support,” including public service announcements.

Stop the Cap! will be monitoring the situation in Moore and other parts of Oklahoma damaged in the storm. Most cable operators waive equipment fees for unreturned cable equipment lost in major storms. If a Cox customer is asked to pay for lost cable boxes, DVRs or cable modems, please use the Contact Us button at the top of the screen and report it to us for further investigation.

Time Warner Cable customers in Central New York will be the first to test the cable company’s newest plan for a nationwide channel realignment that will move almost every cable channel into a new “theme-based” lineup.

Starting June 18, customers in Syracuse and suburbs, Auburn, Cortland, Fulton, Oswego and the Rome/Oneida/Camden/Sylvan Beach area will have to hunt for their favorite networks in a new lineup numbered from channels 1 to 1999. Two days later, customers in Jefferson and Lewis Counties, plus Boonville, Champlain, Malone, Massena, Ogdensburg and Potsdam will see their lineup changed. On June 25, the same will happen in Candor, Hamilton, Ilion, Old Forge, Ithaca, Utica and the Tri-Lakes area.

Channels 1-99, mostly received by analog television customers, will be unaffected for now.

Time Warner Cable has used a theme/genre-based channel lineup for several years, but new or renamed networks have occasionally turned up in unexpected places. The increasing prevalence of HD networks has also made a mess of things, with some markets featuring HD basic cable networks nestled between premium movie channels. The channel realignment is designed to “simplify” things.

Among the welcome changes: HD viewers will automatically receive the HD version of those networks and channels, if available. DVRs will automatically map scheduled recordings to their new channel numbers.

If the channel changes prove successful, which we assume means subscriber backlash is not judged too great, Time Warner Cable customers across the country will begin to see the same channel lineup changes in their areas beginning this August.

Here is a guide to the new lineup. Note the block dedicated to HD networks is gone:

• 1-99: Remain unchanged and are watched mostly by analog viewers with or without a set-top box
• 100s: Entertainment, Life and Style channels
• 200-249: News and Information
• 250-270: Children/Family
• 285-299: Music TV
• 300s: Sports
• 460-479: Religion
• 480-499: Shopping
• 500-649: Premium movie channels
• 650-654: Pay per view
• 670-699: 3D television networks
• 700-799: Premium sports packages
• 800-999: Latino/Spanish programming
• 1000-1199: On-demand channels
• 1200-1399: Local channels
• 1400-1799: International/Ethnic language channels
• 1800-1899: Adult Entertainment
• 1900-1999: Music Choice

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Time Warner Cable CNY Channel Changes 5-22-13.flv[/flv]

Time Warner Cable produced this video to introduce Central New York customers to the new channel lineup that will likely soon be in place across all Time Warner Cable service areas.  (2 minutes)