Jamie Oliver

Altice dislikes the cost of cable programming, so the media and cable empire is increasingly turning in-house to launch alternative channels it owns and operates.

In Europe, Altice will launch its own cooking channel “My Cuisine” starting in June.

Offre Media reports the network will initially be distributed in Belgium, France, Luxembourg, and Portugal, but Altice is known for exporting its cable networks across its vast cable empire. The new channel will be accompanied by a print magazine with a digital version, a mobile app, and ongoing recipe blog.

Programming will originate in Altice’s network studios and from a programming partnership Altice has with FreemantleMedia, which is contracted to produce cooking-related shows with Jamie Oliver for at least three years.

My Cuisine will be available on SFR-Numericable in France, Belgium, and Luxembourg and will be made available to cable systems in Switzerland and Francophone Africa.

It will be the second foray into cooking channels by Altice, which already operates one for customers of Hot Cable in Israel.

Altice owns and operates Cablevision and Suddenlink in the United States.

A telecommunications bill largely written at the behest of AT&T now working its way through the Illinois legislature would allow AT&T to discontinue landline telephone service in the state, potentially eliminating traditional phone service that more than a million Illinois residents and businesses still depend on.

“The Illinois Telecom Act is up for review in the 2017 legislative session, and AT&T is pushing two deregulation bills—Senate Bill 1381 and House Bill 2691,” says the Citizen’s Utility Board (CUB) website. “The bills would open the door for the company to end traditional home phone service in Illinois and push consumers onto less affordable and reliable alternatives.”

Consumer advocates urged Illinoisans to visit SaveOurPhoneService.com to send messages to the General Assembly against AT&T’s deregulation bills, or they can also call a special toll-free hotline, at 1-844-220-5552, to talk to their legislators.

With Illinois’ Telecommunications Act under review and set to expire July 1, AT&T’s bills would:

• Abolish the state requirement that AT&T serve traditional landline customers. That authority would be ceded to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and Illinois would be stripped of any meaningful oversight to protect AT&T’s 1.2 million business and residential landline customers from inferior service.
• Abolish low-cost calling plans. The General Assembly mandates that AT&T offer three “Consumer’s Choice” plans, which were created by CUB under a legal settlement. Illinois’ best local phone deals, which cost about $3 to $20 a month, have saved callers millions of dollars, and are under a state-mandated price freeze.

For many in Illinois still bypassed by AT&T’s U-verse fiber-to-the-neighborhood system, the measure could leave customers with just two choices for home phone service – a local cable operator or a wireless mobile provider — both potentially more expensive and less reliable than basic landline service.

“It doesn’t take someone with an economic degree that one option, one unregulated option for people, isn’t very cheap. So I’m sure cable is sitting back licking their chops,” said Citizens Utility Board director of governmental affairs Bryan McDaniel.

Some Chicago-area residents, like Michele Charous and Carol Kolen, prefer traditional landline service for its cost and reliability. A significant percentage of older residents still depend on affordable rotary dial landline phone service from AT&T — a service the phone company now wants to scrap.

AT&T claims more than 90% of Illinois customers have either replaced landline service for a cell phone or have switched to digital U-verse phone service from AT&T or a cable operator. But AT&T doesn’t mention its network upgrades have bypassed large rural sections of the state, and its U-verse phone service can cost more than a traditional landline.

Kolen and Charous claim their AT&T landline service has proven reliable for decades, while cell service has not, especially in an emergency.

Katherine Panny adds she is in her 80s, does not have a cellphone or a computer and has a rotary dial phone on her kitchen wall. She said she likes it.

“I depend on this landline with my life,” she said.

“We are not at the point we can guarantee that this is going to work all the time,” added Kolen.

AT&T’s part supplier.

“I would be just isolated because how would I be able to talk anybody if the battery died or I forgot to charge it what would I do,” Charous said.

“For a lot of people a landline is there most reliable and affordable lifeline to vital services,” said Jim Chilsen, of the Citizens Utility Board. “Our fear is that, what AT&T really wants to do is push consumers onto phone options that tend to be more expensive and tend to be less reliable.”

AT&T Illinois and Midwest president Paul La Schiazza gave some stark admissions to reporters about the state of AT&T’s wireline network in Illinois.

By the end of this year, “less than 10 percent of the households [in Illinois] will have an old style, voice-only line in their home,” La Schiazza said. AT&T is losing about 1,000 traditional landline customers a day. Maintenance on the traditional telephone system is also getting more difficult, and the phone company is turning to some unique sources for parts these days.

“Believe it or not, even AT&T at times, has to go to eBay to scrounge for parts to keep these ‘old-style’ switches running,” he said.

WMAQ in Chicago reports some Illinois consumers are worried AT&T is about to pull the plug on their landline home phone service. (2:38)

Denmark, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands have the most advanced digital economies in the EU followed by Luxembourg, Belgium, the UK and Ireland, while Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Italy are at the bottom of the latest European Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI).

DESI is a composite index that summarizes how well European states are performing in the 21st century digital/knowledge economy and how well they are evolving in digital competitiveness. The index helps countries track the likelihood of their success in the global market, and gives countries relative goals they should achieve to be ready to compete with North America and Asia.

In 2016, every EU Member State improved on the DESI, with Slovakia and Slovenia turning it the biggest growth. However, growth was so slight in Portugal, Latvia, and Germany it appeared almost static.

In general, the best scoring nations also scored highly in all the categories measured in the DESI: Connectivity, Human Capital/Digital Skills, Citizen Use of the Internet, Business Digital Technology Integration, and Digital Public Services.

In terms of internet connectivity scores which track broadband deployment and quality, the Netherlands scored highest in 2016 followed by Luxembourg and Belgium. The weakest EU performers were Croatia, Bulgaria, and Poland. Europe has made better inroads in guaranteeing access to broadband, with 98% of Europeans able to access at least one provider. About 76% of Europeans can today choose high-speed broadband at speeds of at least 30Mbps.

Wireless 4G mobile networks cover on average 84% of the EU’s population (measured as the average of each mobile telecom operator’s coverage within each country). At least 74% of European homes subscribe to wired broadband, and over one-third of these connections are high-speed. The number of high-speed connections went up by 74% in two years.

Having a skilled population comfortable with the digital economy and knowledgeable enough to navigate it are also important for commerce, education, and employment. Denmark, Luxembourg, Finland, Sweden, and the Netherlands scored the highest in 2016, while Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Italy got the lowest scores.

Europeans still do not spend as much time on the internet as their American and Asian counterparts. Last year, 79% of Europeans went online at least once a week, up 3 points compared to 2015. But 44% of Europeans still lack basic digital skills. The most popular online activity in Europe is reading news online (70%), followed by online shopping (66%), social media (63%), and online banking (59%).

A suspicious line item labeled “Mille Lacs Indian Res Tel Lcl Sales Tax” amounting to $0.21 that appeared on the Wahkon City Council’s latest Frontier phone bill was all it took to become a significant topic at the April 10 city council meeting.

City officials and some residents in and around the Mille Lacs County, Minn. were concerned Frontier appeared to be taxing their phone bills and giving the proceeds to a Native American tribe’s nearby reservation that surrounds the southern part of Mille Lacs Lake.

“I can appreciate that some citizens are concerned about what they’re paying. We don’t know anything, it might be a mistake,” said county administrator Pat Oman. “The county is certainly taking this seriously and wants an answer.”

Reviewing prior bills, city clerk Karrie Roeschlein told the council the “new tax” replaced one previously labeled as “Wahkon Telecom Local Sales Tax.” That tax presumably covered the county’s new 0.5% “transit sales and use tax” which took effect Jan. 1, 2017, but nobody, including Frontier Communications, appears to know for sure.

The Minnesota Department of Revenue has no idea what Frontier is doing either, telling the Mille Lacs Messenger, “the wording provided from the billing statement (Mille Lacs Indian Res Tel Lcl Sales Tax) does not correspond to any state or local tax administered by the department.”

County officials and residents are opposed to any part of their Frontier bill being paid to the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, which maintain the Mille Lacs Indian Reservation. The county paid the $0.21, under protest.

The conflict may lie with Frontier’s billing department, not the Band, however. In a written statement to the newspaper, Band officials made it clear they are not imposing any tax or collecting any revenue received from it. The money stops at Frontier’s bank account:

“The Band is not imposing additional sales tax, or any tax for that matter, on Frontier Communications’ customer accounts, nor is the Band receiving sales tax revenue related to those activities. The recent reporting of an assessment by the Band is the result of an internal bill coding issue by Frontier Communications. We understand the company is taking the appropriate steps to rectify the situation. The Band is not aware of any changes to the rules regarding sales taxes on fee or trust lands.”

Unfortunately for both sides, Frontier could not quickly determine exactly what was behind the “new tax” appearing on Frontier customers’ phone bills, but the county’s attorney, Joe Walsh, received an informal answer from Frontier claiming it was probably a mistake.

“Frontier believes this is a mis-coding caused by a third-party service provider called Core Logic,” Walsh told the newspaper. “At this time, it appears that this may have been a simple mistake of nomenclature – a misnamed tax. If that changes and there is any indication that your tax dollars are being distributed to the Mille Lacs Band, that will be taken very seriously and an appropriate joint response will be formulated.”