A well-placed source inside Frontier Communications tells Stop the Cap! the phone company is planning to ask customers for a $4.50 “convenience fee” to make a bill payment by phone, starting as early as January 2017.

“We figured this was coming sooner or later, but it appears that Frontier is now doing everything they possibly can to boost revenue to shareholders because they are losing money hand over fist after their recent purchases of [former] Verizon and AT&T [landline customers in certain states] and their massive mishandling of those transitions,” the source tells us.

Our source advises that the convenience fee will only apply if a customer calls in and speaks to a representative to manage the bill payment over the phone. Customers can avoid the fee by making a payment themselves online or set up autopay on their account.

Customers who are past due may be transferred to collections representative to arrange bill payments. Make sure to ask if any fees will apply when doing so.

An increasing number of providers are adding new surcharges for bill payments managed by a live operator to cut call center costs.

Although existing Time Warner Cable Maxx customers will be able to keep their broadband speed upgrades up to 300Mbps, new customers and those switching to a Charter Spectrum plan will find Spectrum’s advertised broadband options reduced to just one: 100Mbps in TWC Maxx cities like New York and 60Mbps in territories never upgraded to Maxx service.

Charter Spectrum has soft launched their new plans in the New York City market and will begin heavily promoting them later this month. But customers will find their choices dramatically limited, except for television service.

Spectrum is marketing just three triple play plans on its revamped website in the NYC area, varying only with respect to the number of channels included in the TV package:

When we selected internet-only service, we were presented with only one option in New York City: 100Mbps

TWC plans are no longer promoted in areas offered Charter Spectrum service.

At least the modem rental is included in the promotional price, which incidentally rises in the second and third year until it reaches $60 for 60Mbps service, and $100 for 100Mbps service, assuming your promotion has expired.

The promotional prices are not too bad if you are a devotee of cable television, and the broadband price is affordable as well, at least for the first year. After the first 12 months, prices rise and company officials have already warned they will be far more stingy about offering customers repeat retention pricing than Time Warner Cable was.

Charter has announced it will continue to roll out Spectrum packages across the Time Warner Cable and Bright House service areas until the conversion is complete early next year. New York City and Florida are the next targeted markets, but it is clear Charter has already begun offering Spectrum plans instead of continuing to market Time Warner Cable plans that customers can still buy upstate.

Customers will be able to keep their existing Time Warner Cable plans, but any promotional pricing deals will not likely be renewed when they expire, causing your Time Warner Cable bill to spike dramatically in some cases.

We are unsure if existing TWC Maxx customers will be forced to give up their 300Mbps TWC Maxx plan if they switch to a Spectrum plan. There may be several non-publicized plans for these customers. Time will tell.

Editor’s Note: These prices/packages were obtained from timewarnercable.com using a residential street address on W 72nd St, New York, NY, 10023

At least 54,000 Time Warner Cable customers downgraded or canceled their cable TV service in the last three months as Charter Communications continues to take a harder line on offering or renewing customer retention discounts for customers unhappy with their bill.

Time Warner Cable customers are “mispriced” with discounts and deals that lower the cost of service but face bill shock when the promotion ends, according to Charter CEO Thomas Rutledge.

“Third quarter customer results were more inconsistent with good performance at Legacy Charter and Bright House, but higher churn and downgrades in the Time Warner Cable markets, as we expected, given the way Time Warner Cable had marketed promotional pricing,” said Rutledge. “Until our Spectrum pricing and packaging is launched across the newly acquired service areas, we continue to expect higher levels of churn and downgrades where Time Warner Cable was the operator.”

“Over the next few quarters, our operating results will reflect reversing certain product and packaging strategies, in particular at TWC, in which in our view are not sustainable, given high promotional roll-offs and annual rate increases, high customer equipment fees, including modem fees, all coupled with complex and stacked offers,” added Charter’s chief financial officer Christopher Winfrey.

Traditionally, Time Warner Cable has dealt with price sensitive customers rolling off special pricing promotions by gradually resetting rates higher or, when necessary, by renewing the promotion for another year in an effort not to lose the customer. That will stop under Charter’s ownership, according to Mr. Rutledge. As a result, Charter Communications is seeing significant customer losses at Time Warner Cable when customer service representatives won’t budge on pricing.

Rutledge is seeking more discipline in product pricing so Charter does not have to extend cut-rate retention promotions to customers. As part of the Charter Spectrum rebrand, the cable company introduces new cable, broadband, and phone plans while allowing Time Warner Cable’s legacy plans to stay in effect until a customer elects to switch. While Texas and California Time Warner Cable customers have already been introduced to Spectrum plans, much of the rest of the country is still being offered plans only from Time Warner Cable or Bright House.

Rutledge

Customers are most likely to cancel service as their promotion expires. The resulting price hike can be a considerable shock as rates quickly reset to Bright House or Time Warner’s “regular price.”

Charter wants an incentive to get customers to forfeit their Time Warner or Bright House plan and switch to a new Spectrum plan as they are introduced. By making the grandfathered plans as unattractive as possible, the alternative Spectrum plans appear to be a better deal. Unfortunately, until Spectrum-branded plans arrive nationwide, many customers are stuck in limbo rolling off a promotion, are unable to renew it, and forced to wait for new Spectrum plans to be introduced.

Rutledge announced last week that the next markets to be introduced to Spectrum this month are in New York City and Florida, the latter former Bright House territory. Rutledge predicted half of Time Warner Cable customers will be offered Spectrum plans by the end of this year. But some Time Warner Cable customers may have to wait until next spring before Spectrum rebranding is complete.

Time Warner Cable Maxx is Still Dead, Earning Charter $36 Million in Reduced CapEx

Charter also reported significant financial benefits from prematurely terminating the Time Warner Cable Maxx upgrade effort. Time Warner’s upgrades would have given customers free speed upgrades up to 300Mbps. But Charter pulled the plug on the upgrade project just after completing its acquisition, and has no plans to restart it.

“Cost to service customers declined by about 2% despite overall customer growth of 5.1%, which reflects lower service transactions at Legacy Charter, the lack of all-digital activity at TWC this quarter versus last year’s third quarter, and some benefit from less physical disconnects in all-digital markets,” reported Winfrey. “Capital expenditures totaled $1.75 billion, including $109 million of transition spend. Excluding transition CapEx, our third quarter CapEx was down by $36 million year-over-year, about 2%, driven by all-digital spending at TWC, primarily on [equipment], which did not recur in the third quarter of this year.”

Winfrey

Charter expects to increase CapEx next spring, as the company continues its less ambitious transition to all-digital cable service, which includes broadband speeds topping out at 100Mbps, three times less than what Time Warner Cable was implementing.

Charter is Less Enthusiastic About Digital Phone Service

Time Warner Cable maintained a healthy market share for its digital phone service by bundling it at a promotional price of $10 a month, a rate that remained relatively stable for customers sticking with a triple play package bundle. Time Warner Cable also enhanced its phone service by adding the European Union nations, Mexico, and several popular Asian calling destinations as part of the local calling area, making those calls free of charge.

Charter’s own plan is less feature-rich and customers have to buy an add-on plan to cover international long distance, making the product considerably less attractive to customers. Some customers also find the cost of the phone service has increased under Spectrum, a problem acknowledged by Winfrey, who noted Time Warner Cable’s low-price voice offer in prior year quarters had been discontinued, resulting in higher voice downgrades and relationship churn.

Charter’s Plans for Legacy Charter Customers and Newly-Adopted Time Warner Cable and Bright House Customers

Rutledge made clear that despite any product changes or rebranding, the long term goal of Charter Communications is to see revenue grow. Whether that will come from gradual repricing of cable products and services to a higher rate or from improved products and services that attract new upgrade business is not yet certain. But Rutledge outlined key areas Charter expects to focus on in the next few years:

• Charter will complete the all-digital transition at Time Warner Cable and Bright House over the next two years, but it will resemble the kind of service legacy Charter customers get today, not TWC Maxx;
• Over the next five years or so, with relatively small infrastructure investments, Charter plans to implement DOCSIS 3.1 which will be able to deliver symmetrical multi-gigabit speeds to all 50 million homes and businesses in their service area;
• Charter plans to aggressively market and grow its services for commercial customers, targeting businesses large and small, at prices that more closely resemble residential service pricing, instead of the price premium Time Warner Cable has traditionally charged its commercial customers;
• Charter is activating its MVNO agreement with Verizon, which will allow Charter to create and market its own wireless/cellular service using Verizon’s nationwide network. The company is also exploring using millimeter-wave (5G) service to offer better broadband coverage in large commercial spaces like malls and rural properties currently not wired for cable service. Expect the company to create its own wireless/cellular bundle first, because it will rely entirely on Verizon’s network, keeping Charter’s costs low.

Cord-cutting in Boston is getting more difficult if you are an NBC fan. Comcast, which owns NBC/Universal, has terminated its affiliation agreement with full-power Boston station WHDH and is moving NBC programming in Boston to a little-watched television station in New Hampshire currently affiliated with Telemundo.

Northeast Radio Watch reports major confusion in Boston over the network affiliation change that will relocate NBC’s programming for the most-viewed NBC affiliate in Massachusetts to a lower-powered station in another state.

The change takes place Jan. 1, 2017, and some Boston viewers are likely to have trouble getting a good over-the-air picture for NBC programming unless they subscribe to cable… which coincidentally is also provided primarily by Comcast.

Much of southeast Massachusetts will lose access to NBC shows, unless they subscribe to cable.

Sunbeam-owned WHDH-TV 7 has been Boston’s NBC affiliate since Jan. 2, 1995. For years, the relationship between Sunbeam and Comcast/NBCUniversal has been frosty because of station and affiliation disputes in other cities. On Dec. 15, 2015, Comcast informed WHDH management its NBC affiliation contract would not be renewed. Comcast then offered to buy what would certainly be a financially compromised WHDH for $200 million, prompting Sunbeam owner Ed Ansin to declare Comcast/NBC was “trying to steal our station.”

Comcast has decided on a suitable replacement to serve as Boston’s NBC affiliate – a small station 50 miles away in Merrimack, N.H., currently providing Spanish-speaking audiences with Telemundo programming.

WNEU-TV 34 runs an 80-kilowatt transmitter west of Manchester, N.H.,a pittance compared to the 1,000-kilowatt transmitter powering WHDH, located in suburban Boston.

“This has been NBC’s weak spot, and for all the talk about how Comcast will buy this or that other station, it’s going to war with the signals it has, not the signals it wants to have,” writes Scott Fybush, editor of Northeast Radio Watch. “That means WNEU, the Merrimack, N.H.-licensed signal that’s been carrying Telemundo, will be the only full-power home of NBC Boston, serving viewers in New Hampshire and (if they’re equipped with a decent antenna) parts of the Merrimack Valley.”

Even Comcast recognizes the political controversy that is likely to erupt as a substantial portion of Boston’s cord-cutting over-the-air audience loses access to NBC unless they sign up for Comcast Cable or another pay television provider. So NBC has also arranged to buy low-power station WBTS-LD 46, which also currently airs Telemundo programming for the benefit of Boston residents within Route 128. WBTS does not come close to providing a good signal throughout Boston either, and Fybush notes over-the-air viewers in Worcester or on the South Shore are going to be out of luck.

“NBC acknowledges you probably won’t be seeing them over the air for now,” Fybush notes.

Comcast has also given its new NBC affiliate prime positioning on the Comcast lineup. NBC programming in Boston will appear on cable channel 10, with the HD feed on channel 810, bumping NECN-HD to channel 840. NBC has also reached private agreements with satellite providers to put NBC Boston of channel 10 as well.

The change means cord-cutters will be seriously disadvantaged in Boston, struggling to get a decent digital picture from a station never considered a primary Boston signal. For WHDH, it strands the station without any major network affiliation. In an effort to stay viable, WHDH intends to rebrand as a news-focused station that will air multiple local newscasts during the primetime hours of 7-11:30pm, unless another network comes along with an offer.

DirecTV Now, AT&T’s over-the-top online streaming cable television alternative is preparing to launch this Friday, Nov. 4, offering selected customers a free 7-day trial followed by a subscription offering more than 100 “premium” basic cable networks for $35/month.

As AT&T is rushing this service to the marketplace, details are still trickling in about the channel lineup, device compatibility, and exactly where AT&T plans to market the service. Stop the Cap! has collected details from a variety of sources to give readers additional insight about whether DirecTV’s satellite-less cable television alternative is right for you.

AT&T Will Not Market DirecTV Now to U-verse/DirecTV Satellite Customers

To protect against revenue cannibalization, AT&T will not be marketing or mentioning DirecTV Now to current AT&T U-verse or DirecTV satellite customers. The phone company does not want to lose their more profitable fiber-to-the-neighborhood or satellite dish customers to a lower-priced streaming-only alternative. A memo obtained by SatelliteGuys directed to AT&T and DirecTV supervisors and field technicians warns against even mentioning DirecTV Now unless they cannot complete an installation of U-verse TV or DirecTV satellite service:

As you may have heard, AT&T is launching a new over-the-top (OTT) service called DIRECTV NOW on November 4, 2016. OTT services provide potential customers with a streaming-only option when they are unable to have traditional DIRECTV or U-Verse TV service installed.

Though DIRECTV NOW does not require professional installation, technicians may want to be aware of the service and what it entails. For instances where a DIRECTV or U-Verse installation cannot be completed due to line-of-sight, landlord permission or other issues (emphasis from SatelliteGuys), technicians can provide information on the DIRECTV NOW service and let customers know they can visit directvnow.com to learn more.

Please note that DIRECTV NOW is a completely separate offering from traditional DIRECTV and U-Verse and should only be mentioned to customers when those services cannot be installed. If the customer is able to receive broadcast TV service, technicians should not proactively mention DIRECTV NOW as it is redundant with the DIRECTV and U-Verse Apps, which still offer streaming capabilities to subscribers of the DIRECTV and U-Verse TV services respectively.

In short, AT&T has no intention of competing with itself, which means customers in AT&T service areas will continue to be referred to U-verse for broadband and phone service and DirecTV’s satellite service for television, not DirecTV Now. The service will predominately be marketed to Millennials and the rest of an estimated 20 million Americans that have cut the cable TV cord or never signed up for service at all.

Key Points: You Need a Qualified Streaming Media Player and a Fast Internet Connection

• DirecTV Now is not expected to work with Roku at launch. Customers will need Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV/Stick, and/or Chromecast. More options are expected to arrive later. AT&T will initially promote the service for use with iOS or Android smartphones and tablets. AT&T Mobility customers will be able to stream DirecTV Now programming without it counting against your data plan, a controversial practice known as “zero rating;”
• A minimum internet connection speed of 12Mbps is required for “high quality” streaming;
• The DirecTV Now app will co-exist with the DirecTV app intended for satellite customers. The two services are considered independent of each other;
• A programming package will be required, but there is no contract. Customers cannot choose channels a-la-carte, except for premium movie channels like Starz. One streaming video-on-demand package dubbed Freeview will target Millennials specifically, and is expected to be advertiser-supported and provided at no charge;
• Customers can take advantage of a forthcoming free seven day trial by visiting directvnow.com and pre-registering.

DirecTV Now Programming Lineup

AT&T currently has agreements with 10 large programmer conglomerates, covering most of the major popular cable networks. A robust library of on-demand programming is also anticipated.

Among the networks we are confident will be a part of DirecTV Now:

• Disney: ESPN, ESPN2, ABC, Freeform, Disney Channel, Disney XD and Disney, Jr.;
• A+E Networks: A&E, Lifetime, History, LMN. FYI, VICELAND;
• Scripps: HGTV, Food Network, Travel Channel, DIY, Cooking Channel, Great American Country;
• Discovery Networks: The Discovery Channel and these likely additions: TLC, Investigation Discovery, Animal Planet, Science and Turbo/Velocity and OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network;
• Agreements have also been signed with Comcast/NBC, Time Warner, Turner Networks, Starz, AMC, and Viacom.

Missing are agreements with CBS and FOX. We’re also uncertain about the availability of local channels. Additional channels are expected to be offered at an additional cost above the $35 for 100+ channels. We’ll learn more by the weekend.