Verizon has announced it is getting out of the e-mail business, and will be asking millions of its DSL and FiOS customers to find a new home for their email accounts.

“We have decided to close down our email business,” the company wrote in its e-mail FAQ. “Over the years we’ve realized that there are more capable email platforms out there. As a result, we’ve made a decision to get out of the email business, which will allow us to focus our energies in providing you with the best in Internet and TV experiences.”

Customers who take no action to move their e-mail account to a new provider will find their account eventually deactivated and 180 days after that it will be deleted, resulting in losing contacts, calendar(s) and any stored email. Verizon claims it needs to delete your account to “reduce our server storage needs and electrical consumption.”

Customers will be able to keep their existing verizon.net addresses, but will have to change their email provider to AOL Mail. If they don’t make the switch, those email addresses will eventually be deleted.

Stop the Cap! has long advised readers not to depend on email addresses provided by ISPs like Verizon because it makes switching providers more complicated and difficult. If you switch, you will lose your existing email address(es) and have to notify everyone of the change. Instead, we recommend using independent email services like Microsoft Outlook, Gmail, or Yahoo email. Those email accounts are unaffected if you change providers.

Verizon is recommending customers move to AOL Mail because of an enhanced set of features, including the ability to verify email and keep your verizon.net email address:

• Keep current verizon.net email address
• Much more storage space for your email
• Advanced spam filters
• Virus protection
• Email attachments up to 25MB
• Send texts and instant messages right from your inbox
• Easily manage your email anywhere with the highly rated AOL app

Customers can also choose to get an aol.com email address if they want to be nostalgic.

Verizon will notify customers about impending deadlines to give customers a chance to adjust to the change.

Be aware Verizon tells customers the migration is likely to take several hours, so you might want to take care of it when you are least likely to receive important messages you don’t want to miss.

Two years after Verizon promised its FiOS fiber to the home service would be available to every resident of New York City, the city sued Verizon Communications on Monday, alleging Verizon failed to meet its commitment.

The 19-page lawsuit, filed in New York’s Supreme Court, contrasts the city’s interpretation of Verizon’s commitments laid out in a 2008 franchise agreement against Verizon’s claim it has met its obligations. Central to the case is the city’s claim tens of thousands of New Yorkers cannot get FiOS service from Verizon, even though Verizon’s fiber network may be running down the street.

“Verizon must face the consequences for breaking the trust of 8.5 million New Yorkers,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement. He added that, “It’s 2017 and we’re done waiting. No corporation — no matter how large or powerful — can break a promise to New Yorkers and get away with it.”

A 2015 audit conducted by the city and testimony given in public hearings confirmed Verizon had failed to wire every building for service, despite what the city believed was Verizon’s promise to do so.

Verizon defended its actions, claiming it had met its obligations to New York City by providing FiOS fiber-to-the-home infrastructure throughout the five boroughs. The problem, according to Verizon, is intransigent building owners that have obstructed Verizon’s entry to get service to tenants. Verizon’s defense does come with some evidence. The company has filed numerous complaints with New York’s Public Service Commission to gain entry to properties in the city that have either ignored Verizon’s efforts to wire their buildings or actively opposed it.

Some landlords claimed no tenants in their building wanted Verizon FiOS and the telephone company wasn’t welcome. Others accused Verizon installers of damaging buildings or performing shoddy work and sought assurances Verizon will meet the building owner’s installation standards. Some live-in building managers have even demanded kickbacks or free service in return for entry. New York State law gives Verizon a right of entry and the company has followed legal channels to eventually gain admittance.

Difficulties with landlords alone cannot account for many other instances where willing customers were told service was not available. In some cases, even city officials seeking FiOS were themselves told repeatedly it was unavailable.

Verizon’s defense is likely to come down to a single industry phrase — “homes passed.”

The former Bloomberg Administration signed an agreement with Verizon that committed Verizon to wire its fiber network citywide. Verizon interpreted the contract to mean installing fiber infrastructure that passes every major property in New York, but not wiring every property for the service. The current de Blasio administration argues the contract means Verizon should be able to reach every customer that wants FiOS service within 7-14 days of receiving an order.

Verizon’s lawyer indirectly conceded Verizon has not made the service available to every household that might want the service.

In a letter sent last week to Anne M. Roest, the commissioner of the city’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, Craig Silliman, Verizon’s general counsel, wrote:

“[…]We now pass all households in the city and can provide service to over 2.2 million households within seven to 14 days of receiving a service request.”

According to data from Baruch College, New York City had 3,129,147 households as of 2015, leaving at least 900,000 households unaccounted for.

Verizon’s fiber network may run down the street of each of those homes, but the lawsuit contends Verizon has been unwilling or unable to wire them for service.

“Although Verizon claims it ‘passed’ all residential premises, Verizon still does not accept orders from all city residents,” the city audit concluded. “In fact, it still informs residents that service is ‘unavailable’ at an address if their network has not been created on the block.”

The city and several consumer and civic groups have implored Verizon to ‘speed it up’ for the last two years but contend Verizon’s response has been inadequate, which led to the lawsuit.

Common Cause New York has been pushing for more FiOS service for years and reports consumers are frustrated with Verizon’s inability to deliver service. They now suspect Verizon’s unwillingness to expand FiOS comes from a lack of investment to complete its fiber network.

“People continue to be very frustrated because it appears that Verizon is motivated by what will be most profitable for them — what buildings to wire and what buildings to ignore,” Common Cause New York’s executive director Susan Lerner told the New York Times. “This really is about undertaking an ambitious obligation and then deciding halfway through that it’s not worth it. We are very happy to see the city holding the vendor’s feet to the fire. This is absolutely what should be done.”

Verizon appeared frustrated for another reason, shared by company spokesman Raymond McConville.

“On a day where the city is preparing for the biggest blizzard of the season, it’s sad that the mayor’s focus is on pursuing a frivolous lawsuit,” McConville wrote in an email to the Times. “The de Blasio administration is disingenuously attempting to rewrite the terms of an agreement made with its predecessor and is acting in its own political self-interests that are completely at odds with what’s best for New Yorkers. We plan to vigorously fight the city’s allegations.”

And if that doesn’t work, McConville threatened Verizon may not seek a franchise renewal when the current one ends in three years.

The last remaining parts of the country formerly served by Time Warner Cable are rebranding as Charter/Spectrum today, with the introduction of new service plans in upstate New York, western Massachusetts, Maine, and parts of the Carolinas.

“Redefining what a cable company can be,” as Charter Communications promotes to its customers, is a tall order for a cable company that is often loathed by its customers. Our readers have reached out to us all day to suggest, at least so far, Spectrum is the same old cable company, just with a new name.

“If I switch away from my Time Warner Cable plan to adopt a Spectrum plan, my bill will increase $40 a month,” complained Rochester, N.Y. resident June Patterson. “Even the customer service person I talked to said it would be crazy for me to switch plans.”

A customer in Albany, N.Y., reported their bill would increase by $30 a month. Another in Silver Creek, N.Y., claimed a $40 rate rise by switching to a Charter/Spectrum plan.

“I pay $92.06 now for Starter TV and Ultimate Internet in the Ithaca area,” shared another customer on DSL Reports. “After going through two operators, the second one is telling me my price will go up to $125.”

That’s a rate increase of $32.94 a month — $395.28 more a year.

Customers are encountering new plans for television service, but many areas only receive one advertised broadband speed option: 60Mbps. In fact, most areas can also buy 100Mbps service, but it’s very expensive at around $100 a month with a $200 setup fee. Customers have to call to change plans to get either speed. Some customers in former Time Warner Cable Maxx areas have better luck getting the setup fee waived than those living in areas Time Warner Cable never had a chance to upgrade.

In Idaho, The Spokesman Review’s D.F. Oliveria reports Charter/Spectrum is even worse than what Time Warner Cable offered before:

Our new internet service provider, Spectrum (Charter Communications), the company that “merged” with Time Warner’s local cable, has come under increasing fire lately. Many consumers have been calling me about poor customer service, very slow and/or inconsistent internet speeds, higher monthly prices and no printed material available to consumers regarding offerings.

“Since the merger, my bill went up $20 a month and speeds have slowed significantly,” shared ‘Nic’ in northern Idaho. “It’s ridiculous.”

WFTS in Tampa reports former Bright House customers can expect steep rate increases from Charter/Spectrum. (3:21)

In former Bright House territory in Florida, customers saw bills skyrocket by as much as $182 a month, resulting in monthly charges of an unprecedented $305 a month. Charter Communications refused to deal with the affected customers until WFTS-TV’s “Action News” consumer reporter Jackie Callaway intervened and finally got the company to admit the bills were too high by mistake:

Bright House customers Ivan and Linda Sordo say the rate hike hit without warning. The Sordo’s typical bill of $141 shot up to $305 overnight and without warning. And Lillian Rehrig’s normally $123 bill more than doubled to $305. Rehrig says calls to Spectrum got her a partial reduction but no real relief. Her next Spectrum statement came in $120 higher than her old Bright House bill.

What happened in these two cases turned out to be a billing error, an error Spectrum’s owner Charter Communications corrected after we started asking questions.

“When you started speaking with them is only when I got anyone to respond.”

It isn’t known how many other Tampa area customers were also overbilled or if Charter was working to identify and refund those who did not pursue a complaint with a local television newscast.

Charter Communications did tell WFTS-TV the majority of the one million former Bright House customers in the area now being served by Charter/Spectrum will face rate increases of $20-30 a month on average as their current package with Bright House expires. Those customers switching from a grandfathered Bright House or Time Warner Cable package will also automatically lose any promotion those packages were receiving.

In North Carolina, Time Warner Cable is gone and apparently so are some customers’ $300 rebate cards. Time Warner Cable had a long history of customer complaints about its rebate programs, but Charter Communications isn’t too interested in helping customers meet the terms of those rebates and intervene when something goes wrong.

A Steele Creek couple told WSOC-TV Time Warner rejected their rebate after they configured autopay on their Spectrum account with the help of a Charter customer service agent. Despite repeated assurances from customer service, the transition to autopay did not take effect quickly enough and they missed a payment, which canceled their rebate eligibility. Countless hours of negotiations with Charter’s customer service representatives got the couple nowhere. But the promise of bad publicity on the local evening news made the difference, and a $300 gift card was promptly mailed to them. Many other customers simply give up.

WSOC in Charlotte covers the case of the missing Time Warner Cable gift card. Customer service was no help. (1:54)

In Southern California, Spectrum is busy raising rates as well. Hannah Kuhn (76) of Simi Valley saw her bill jump $46 a month after Spectrum took over from Time Warner Cable last fall. Nobody would offer an explanation and in return for her complaints, they evidently shut the grandmother’s cable service off. Most Time Warner Cable customers are enrolled in some type of bundled service promotion. As those promotions expire, Spectrum raises rates to the regular price it intends to charge customers going forward, ending Time Warner Cable’s practice of lowering rates when customers complain.

Most customers with a popular bundled service package rate combining broadband, phone, and television could see their rates rise between $250-360 a year.

Former Time Warner Cable customers across the northeast and mid-Atlantic woke up this morning to incessant advertising like this promoting a “new day” for cable service, courtesy of Charter/Spectrum. (:60)

Charter Communications/Spectrum customers (including former Bright House and Time Warner Cable customers) need to take a moment to protect their right to collect damages from future class action cases likely to be filed over the company’s alleged failure to deliver advertised broadband speeds and in the case of Time Warner Cable, the alleged provision of obsolete cable modems for which the cable operator charged customers $10/month.

Charter customers are finding this fine print notice on their cable bills designed to strip away their right to collect potentially substantial settlements that could eventually exceed $100 because of inadequate service:

The terms and conditions applicable to your services contain a binding arbitration provision, which includes a waiver of class actions and provisions for opting out of arbitration and affects your rights with respect to all services.

Customers can protect their rights by sending this short letter to Charter’s general counsel within the next 30 days, which will opt you out of company-friendly mandated arbitration and allow you to participate in future class action cases and settlements. The letter will have no impact on your service or any promotional offers you receive.

March 17, 2017

VP and Associate General Counsel, Litigation
Charter Communications
12405 Powerscourt Dr.
St. Louis, MO 63131

Re: Arbitration Opt-Out

To Whom It May Concern,

As per your subscriber notice, this letter serves as my notice to you that I wish to opt out of Charter Communication’s arbitration provisions and do not want to be bound by that condition. I do not wish to resolve disputes with Charter through arbitration.

I would appreciate receiving confirmation you have received this letter and have accepted this notification.

Subscriber Name (as shown on bill): 
Subscriber Address:
City/St/Zip Code:
My Account Number (as shown on bill): 

Yours very truly,

//Signature
Printed Name

It’s 2017 and a lot of Missouri residents are still tortured by the lack of access to basic broadband service, and if a community broadband ban bill becomes state law it will remain that way for years to come.

SB 186 is essentially a copy of last year’s community broadband ban that eventually died in the legislature. Just like last year, many of the sponsors and promoters of the latest attempt to impose a municipal broadband ban have close ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and receive copious amounts of money from Missouri’s largest telecom companies. Some even win awards from the state’s biggest telecom lobbyists.

State Sen. Ed Emery (R-Lamar) loves the headlines he attracts from throwing ideological bombs into the public debate (he called homosexuality a mental illness, compared public education to slavery and a pathway to prison, and questioned whether former president Barack Obama was actually an American citizen). But he is not in touch with the rural residents in his state who have had their pleas for broadband service ignored by AT&T and other telecom companies for years.

Emery is a big fan of ALEC and serves as a Missouri state chairman. In 2015 he told an audience at an ALEC event he found the group’s efforts inspiring and helpful. ALEC acts as a giant clearinghouse for corporate-inspired legislation that ends up in the hands of friendly state legislators. ALEC’s model bills, including one banning municipal broadband, win passage in part because state legislatures do not get the kind of media attention and public scrutiny seen in Washington. SB 186, its predecessor, and other similar bills introduced in other states are frequently ghostwritten by telecom company lawyers and lobbyists and are designed to stop municipal broadband networks before they can get started.

Emery’s current bill is designed to apply a “scorched earth” response to communities trying to find ways to get rural broadband service up and running after a decade of being ignored by private telecom companies. It’s corporate protectionism and welfare at its finest, with a thicket of language that would force public providers into price and speed regulation. Emery’s bill would interfere with the types of loan agreements communities could contemplate to provide the service, and the language required for a mandatory referendum is heavily slanted to suggest such service is redundant and unnecessary. Emery’s bill also offers assurances his business friends could get gigabit speeds from community-owned providers, but not necessarily consumers.

Like the failed broadband hit bill introduced in Virginia, SB 186 is an ironic piece of legislation, heavy-handed with regulation and micromanagement and anchored with bureaucratic requirements designed to guarantee disappointment and costly failure. Emery’s career in public life has been spent railing against costly and unnecessary overregulation, yet his bill exemplifies both in action.

SB 186 also protects the status quo for broadband in Missouri, which is dreadful outside of major cities. It would assure incumbent telecom companies won’t face any service-improving competition and keep municipalities off their turf. For example, Columbia Water and Light has a “dark fiber” institutional fiber network at its disposal that is woefully underutilized. In addition to helping provide some connectivity for local government functions, the city-owned network also leases connections to hospitals and other public buildings, as well as some businesses. But the utility does not sell internet service itself.

The city believes much of the fiber network’s capacity is sitting un-utilized and could prove a valuable asset to the local connectivity economy. With the fiber already in place, expanding the network could be a cost-effective/common sense way to reach city residents that want better internet service than what incumbents are offering, and the city is more than willing to open the network up to those incumbents as well. SB 186 could eliminate that option in Missouri, just to protect the same private companies that have delivered underwhelming service for years.

In cities like Centralia, now exploring enhanced smart grid technology to improve the area’s electricity infrastructure, SB 186 would make the upgrade much more costly. Smart grid technology relies on fiber optic technology, often laid deep into neighborhoods and office parks. Only a tiny portion of that capacity is used to monitor utility infrastructure. The rest of the bandwidth on the fiber optic cable — already in place, could easily offer gigabit broadband service to every resident and business, especially if the city wires fiber to or near individual utility meters. That wouldn’t be allowed under SB 186 either, so communities like Centralia could not recoup some of the cost of the fiber optic technology by selling broadband service. That’s great news for companies like AT&T, CenturyLink, and Charter Communications. It’s also a relief for the phone companies who need not invest in their networks to offer something better than 20th century DSL.

Emery offers two contradictory defenses for his bill:

1. It is necessary to protect taxpayers from municipal broadband which Emery calls “unsuccessful, leaving ratepayers to cover debt costs.” But when asked by local media for any examples of a Missouri public broadband project that has failed, he could not.
2. “We need more private-sector opportunities and not drive them out or hinder offerings coming into a community.”

In other words, Emery believes all public broadband networks are failures -and- they represent a major threat to private telecom companies that will be discouraged from investing in broadband expansion because a publicly owned competitor could be ready to “drive them out.”

Of course, neither is true. In rural Missouri there is no line of eager telecom companies seeking to expand broadband service into unprofitable rural communities and where only one broadband provider exists, there is no pressure to improve service quality or speed. In the first instance, there is no investment by private companies to discourage and in the second, the presence of a new provider encourages upgrades and investment. It’s a concept called “competition.” Sen. Emery would have a difficult time providing the name(s) of telecom companies that exited a community because of the presence of a municipal broadband alternative.

Sen. Emery’s family has a feed and grain business background, and those businesses (as well as Missouri’s farmers) are among the hardest hit economically by the lack of suitable broadband. But Emery is now far away from the business his father and grandfather ran. These days, he harvests big dollar contributions from some of the country’s largest corporations and much of his last campaign was financed by just two families — one with a vendetta against unions and the other — Rex Sinquefield — bucking to be Missouri’s own version of the Koch Brothers, who has his own private agenda he’d like enacted into law. Sinquefield has close ties to the Grow Missouri PAC, that also has close ties to the Club for Growth, ALEC, and the Koch Brothers’ backed Americans for Prosperity. Birds of a feather flock together.

Missouri’s biggest telecom companies are also generous contributors to Sen. Emery, which isn’t a surprise considering his bill and voting record directly benefits their businesses in the state. That may explain why the Missouri Cable Telecommunications Association — the state’s top cable lobbying group — gave Emery its Legislator of the Year award. Not to be outdone, the phone companies’ Missouri Telecommunications Industry Association gave Emery its own Leadership Award. Anyone who can introduce a bill that eliminates the best prospect of competition in suburban and rural Missouri for years is probably worthy of both.

In return for favors like that, some familiar names appear at the top of Emery’s list of campaign contributors:

• AT&T ($6,000)
• Comcast ($4,000)
• Verizon Communications ($4,000)
• CenturyLink ($3,500)
• Charter ($2,000)
• Time Warner Cable ($1,500)
• Charter Communications ($1,325)
• Sprint ($1,000)

Emery clearly listens to their interests more than average Missouri consumers still searching for broadband service.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported last summer that there are significant gaps in broadband coverage even in St. Louis County, where one million residents live. “Fringe suburban spots” too costly to meet Return On Investment requirements guarantee no service, indefinitely. In St. Clair County, 5,000 homes are without broadband for the same reason. In large parts of the state, what constitutes broadband no longer meets that definition — 25Mbps, as established by the FCC. Every telephone ratepayer pays a “universal service fee” on their phone bill, in part to extend broadband into rural areas. But that extension has been spotty because not every phone company accepts the money and the conditions that come with it to broaden their reach. That leaves many rural Missourians with <1Mbps DSL service. That’s the case in Wildwood, where streaming media is out of the question because internet speeds are too low.

Wildwood — in western St. Louis County, is living in “Third World conditions,” even though “we’re not in rural Timbuktu,” according to resident Marilyn Gilbert. It’s also comparable to Cold War-era Berlin, except in reverse. Eastern Wildwood offers residents broadband options from both Charter and AT&T. But the Broadband Berlin Wall dividing the community — Highway 109, separates the broadband haves’ from the have-nots’. The larger part of Wildwood to the west, now growing with new housing and businesses, is a broadband swamp with few, if any choices for local residents.

Gilbert “enjoys” AT&T DSL and speeds that never come close to 1Mbps. It is her only option.

“I tried to download my Windows update and it timed out,” she said. “The amount of time you waste waiting for things to open up or download!”

Remember, this is in St. Louis County, the old home for the headquarters of Charter Communications, which dominates the city of St. Louis.

Despite earning billions every year from the broadband business, Charter has refused to extend its lines of service into the western half of Wildwood, despite efforts to attract the company that date back six years. Residents report broadband availability is among their top concerns taken to local officials, who have in turn sought help from Charter, AT&T, and the state legislature.

The city of Wildwood’s efforts were met with a demand by Charter to pay the cable company $3 million in taxpayer funds to extend service. The city said no.

“The comment we hear constantly is that kids need high-speed (internet) in order to access their school work,” said Wildwood councilman Larry McGowen. “These days, internet is just like another utility. It has become every bit as important in people’s lives as electricity.”

But it apparently is not important enough to allow Wildwood and other communities the option of constructing their own local broadband solutions for residents if Emery’s bill becomes law.

Ironically, the same companies that refuse to extend their service into rural Missouri are also vehemently opposed to letting local governments do it in their absence.

The stalemate has caused some residents to sell their homes and move, just to get internet access. David Norell left town because he couldn’t survive with satellite internet service, which costs $80 a month and offers spotty service with a low data allowance.

That makes Emery’s bill, and others like it, a travesty. Banning local communities from doing the job large for-profit companies won’t seems nothing short of corporate protectionism. After all, as critics of Emery’s bill charge, how can a local government unfairly compete with a company that doesn’t compete at all? Also of concern is the fact those residents that do get token DSL service from AT&T may be trapped using it forever if Emery’s bill keeps better and faster service from co-ops and other public broadband options off the table.

If it seems like Sen. Emery is putting the interests of big telecom companies – many dues-paying members of ALEC – above those of his constituents, perhaps he is. Consider the fact Emery is a state chairman at ALEC, an organization that included this loyalty pledge in its draft state chair agreement:

I will act with care and loyalty and put the interests of the organization (ALEC) first.

Emery has taken heat for his ongoing love affair with ALEC before, including an ethics complaint about a $3,000 meal at the Dallas Chop House where Emery ate. ALEC’s corporate members picked up the tab. That kind of unethical conflict of interest, along with the aforementioned loyalty pledge, infuriated the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Mr. Emery and his ilk can believe what they want, but they should play no part in allowing corporations to hide their agendas, and their lobbying expenses, by pretending to be something they are not. The proof is in ALEC’s actions, which as Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank outlined, hid itself behind closed doors in a meeting last week in the nation’s capital, pushing reporters away while claiming they had nothing to hide.

No, ALEC exists solely to hide. To hide money. To hide agendas. To hide its hijacking of democracy.

Lawmakers who care about the constitution and their commitment to voters should be fleeing faster than the corporations who realize ALEC is simply a bad investment.

It was not an isolated incident. Ed and his wife Rebecca Emery also enjoyed a $141.10 meal paid for by the Missouri Telecommunications Association. It’s safe to assume nobody had just a small salad. Other meals and drinks were courtesy of AT&T and CenturyLink. (Peabody Energy footed the bill for the Emerys’ taxi rides back and forth.)

When the wining and dining ended, the lobbyists were back with campaign contribution checks in hand.

These kinds of municipal broadband bans are toxic to economic development for rural communities that already face built-in economic and infrastructure disadvantages. The 21st century digital knowledge economy has the potential to make rural America equally competitive, assuming there is adequate infrastructure in place to participate.

Relying on private investment alone can work in urban areas where broadband profits are easy because the essential infrastructure to provide the service was constructed and paid for decades ago, originally to deliver telephone and television service. Rural areas suffer from deteriorated wireline infrastructure some phone companies want to abandon altogether and no cable broadband service at all.

Charter and AT&T first answer to shareholders. Local governments answer to their residents. Legislators are supposed to do the same. For Mr. Emery, loyalty to the interests of ALEC and the state’s telecommunications companies seems clear. It’s too bad his bill suggests a lot less loyalty to the voters in his district that need internet access or better broadband are will assuredly not get it if this bill ever becomes state law.