This SFR retail store is part of the Altice telecom empire

Two customer service representatives at Altice-owned SFR, a wireless carrier in France, may not have understood that the video they broadcast over Periscope showing the destruction of a difficult customer’s cell phone wasn’t just for their friends’ viewing pleasure.

France is buzzing today about the wider release of the video, showing the two employees complain that despite the fact the customer’s phone was being repaired, “he’s breaking our balls this morning. You know what we’ll do to his phone?”

The miracle of Periscope, which let’s you “explore the world through someone else’s eyes,” means everyone watching quickly found out as they obliterated the smartphone by repeatedly throwing it to the ground.

Their evil plan, shared with countless viewers, was first to prove it was not a dummy phone they were destroying, and then claim it was the condition of the phone as it was received.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/SFR Workers Destroy Customer Cell Phone Live on Periscope 3-31-16.mp4[/flv]

These two SFR employees apparently misunderstood that more than their friends would be watching Periscope as they destroyed a difficult customer’s cell phone. (French) (1:54)

After the first 10,000 views of the video-that-went-viral, SFR’s damage control team moved in… to rescue SFR’s reputation. The company tweeted it had identified the culprits, (later independently identified as employees of the SFR shopping center in Villeneuve d’Ascq) and they would be “severely punished.” Within hours, both men were fired.

But customers of this Altice-owned operation consider it business as usual. As Altice continues to fight for approval of its acquisition of Cablevision, its largest wireless holding in France is fighting to to be taken seriously by its dwindling customer base.

On Wednesday, the French Association of Telecom Users (AFUTT) released its 2015 Report on Complaints and Customer Dissatisfaction, and no company disappointed more than SFR.

Despite repeated assurances from Altice and SFR-Numericable executives that things were improving, the report found the exact opposite. SFR-Numericable (the combination wireless and cable operator) was the subject of 36% of all complaints against all French telecom companies among Internet users, despite only having a 21% market share. It was the only telecom operator in France to further decline in the ratings, for a second year in a row.

“We can assume the acquisition of SFR by [Altice-owned] Numericable resulted in some initial disruptions to the quality of their service,” the AFUTT report speculates. “The first reports of this appeared in 2014 and have continued and grown in 2015.”

That may be bring pause to New Yorkers and state regulators currently reviewing Altice’s application to acquire Cablevision. Several consumer groups and unions have specifically called out the management methods of Altice founder Patrick Drahi as responsible for many of the problems, noting his demands for forcible cost cutting, squeezing supplies, and exasperating unions have caused many employees to depart.

36% of all complaints about telecom companies in France are directed against Altice-owned SFR-Numericable, claims AFUTT.

Although tens of millions of Americans have pulled the plug on landlines in favor of their mobile phones, there is still a market for affordable landline phone service, especially if you hate talking on cellphones.

Today Google Fiber has announced Fiber Phone, a new $10 phone line with unlimited local/nationwide calling, Google Voice rates for international calls, and package of phone features and voicemail that includes reliable access to 911.

Customers signing up will get a portable Voice Over IP box similar in style to those supplied by cable companies and VoIP providers like Vonage. It is designed to connect to your home’s existing phones and your Google Fiber service, but can also be taken with you on trips.

“We’ll be introducing Fiber Phone in a few areas to start,” Google writes in a blog post. “Over time, we’ll roll out Fiber Phone as an option to residential customers in all of our Fiber cities. Once we bring the service to your area, you can sign up and get the service through a simple installation process. To stay updated on the latest, sign up here.”

Google Fiber has offered TV and broadband service in a “double play” package since its start, but steered clear of phone service due to the complexity of local, state and federal regulations, especially pertaining to 911 service. Google apparently has overcome those challenges.

Stop the Cap! has learned customer complaints about Suddenlink Communications’ data caps have made an impact, and the company is planning to rollout a new campaign starting April 1 allowing premium customers to get their unlimited data back, eventually at a price.

A source tells us residential customers will now qualify for unlimited if they subscribe to either of Suddenlink’s two fastest Internet plans in any respective market. In most areas, that means signing up for 100/10 or 200/20Mbps service. Where gigabit plans exist, customers will need to subscribe to either 200/20 or 1,000/50Mbps service.

Customers will need to call Suddenlink to sign up for the offer (we’ve reached out to the company to learn the details we will share if we receive them), which provides unlimited service free for the first year. In year two, unlimited will cost $5 extra a month and after the second year Suddenlink will charge customers $10 extra.

Suddenlink claims its Internet plans already come with “generous” allowances, but fails to disclose them upfront to customers. In fact, there is no apparent way for a prospective customer to learn what their usage cap is without calling in or waiting until after they sign up for service:

Quoted from Suddenlink’s customer FAQ

Kent

As with every other Internet Service Provider implementing data caps, Suddenlink claims practically nobody is affected by them.

“The residential data we offer should be more than sufficient for the vast majority of our customers,” the company says. “The relatively few customers who desire more may wish to consider upgrading to a faster speed with a larger data plan, where available, or purchasing one or more supplemental data packages.”

But in November 2015, the outgoing CEO of Suddenlink Jerry Kent told Wall Street an entirely different story.

“Overage charges have become a significant revenue stream for us,” Kent said, noting usage cap overlimit fees were a major factor for the company’s 3.6% year over year growth in revenue, which reached $605.1 million.

Customers were given this explanation for Suddenlink’s decision to implement data caps:

“Data plans are one step among several that help us continue delivering a quality Internet experience for our customers. Other steps include the sizable investments we’ve made and continue making to provide greater downstream and upstream system capacity and more bandwidth per home. Even with those investments, a relatively few customers use a disproportionate amount of data, which can negatively affect the Internet experience of those who use far less. That’s why, as a complement to our network investments, we’ve established data plans.”

But Kent explained things back in 2010 somewhat differently to Wall Street and his investors:

“I think one of the things people don’t realize [relates to] the question of capital intensity and having to keep spending to keep up with capacity,” Kent said. “Those days are basically over, and you are seeing significant free cash flow generated from the cable operators as our capital expenditures continue to come down.”

A bone toss by Time Warner Cable (just over a week before the opening of baseball season) to get Southern California satellite and cable providers to pick up carriage of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ SportsNet LA at a discount has backfired and further inflamed critics of the cost of sports programming.

Now two years old, the cable channel jointly owned by the Southern California division of Time Warner Cable and the Los Angeles Dodgers has been a sore spot for sports fans who don’t subscribe to Time Warner Cable or Charter Communications — the only two major providers offering the sports channel. It is the exclusive home of all-things-Dodgers and the Major League Baseball team was well compensated by Time Warner Cable with $8.35 billion for the 25-year deal.

Because of the huge amount of money on the line, Time Warner Cable priced SportsNet LA at $4.90 a month wholesale per subscriber — a stunning amount for a channel devoted to a single sports team. Providers serving Southern California, including DISH, DirecTV, Verizon, Cox, and AT&T, refused to carry the channel, and for two years Dodgers games have not been seen by more than half the region’s pay TV customers.

The issue has sparked outrage among sports fans and politicians, who have complained about the ongoing impasse between Time Warner and other providers. Only Charter Communications, now in sensitive negotiations with the California Public Utilities Commission over its acquisition of Time Warner Cable, relented and agreed to pick up the channel for its customers last summer.

Time Warner Cable has consistently refused to allow the channel to be sold a-la-carte. Instead, every cable TV customer has to pay to make Time Warner’s expensive deal with the Dodgers pay off for the cable operator. Because other companies have consistently boycotted the network, Time Warner Cable has lost a reported $100 million a year from SportsNet LA.

That may explain why this year Time Warner Cable suddenly announced it would offer one year of the channel at a discount – $3.50 a month wholesale, closer in line with other regional sports channels.

Under normal circumstances, the price cut should attract other providers to get a deal signed, but these are not normal times in the cable television business.

Time Warner’s offer has been met with angry accusations of hubris in the Los Angeles sports press. None of the providers boycotting the channel seem interested in the deal either. The reason? The discount only lasts one year, after which the price shoots back up.

Imagine the customer service call centers at DirecTV and Verizon taking heated phone calls in March 2017 when the sports channel gets dropped for its too-high renewal rate.

“Why would anyone give everyone a taste of something for a year?” Mark Ramsey, a media consultant based in San Diego, told the Los Angeles Times. “All the leverage goes to the seller, not the buyer. It’s a temporary fix. This is not a free sample for Sirius XM. Dropping a channel is worse than not carrying a channel.”

Cable subscribers, particularly non-sports-fans, are also incensed at the prospect of their TV bill going up $3.50-5.00 a month for a single channel.

The dispute continues to fuel speculation that these kinds of money disputes are sure to hurry the demise of the one-size-fits-all cable TV package. Around one-quarter of Americans don’t subscribe to cable or satellite and less than two-thirds of those that do are adults 18-29. That demographic reality spells eventual doom. Cable TV is increasingly a must-have service only among older Americans. At least 83% of those 50 and older subscribe to cable television. That number drops to 73% for those aged 30-49. The younger you are, the less likely you see a need for cable television.

As a-la-carte alternatives grow, an ever larger percentage of Americans are expected to abandon the cable package. So far, the only party that doesn’t seem to care much either way is the Dodgers — they got their $8.35 billion and can sit on it for the next two plus decades.

Time Warner Cable likely underestimated the blowback on its wholesale pricing plans for SportsNet LA, but seems happy enough for now to offer only a temporary discount. But it also gives their customers another excuse to scrutinize their cable bills, which now include a “sports programming” surcharge, and scream for a-la-carte across the board.

“So, I am supposed to be excited that TWC is going to lower the price of the Dodgers to other providers? Right?,” complained Scott Bryant from Apple Valley. “Now myself, and others who could care less about the Dodgers will be forced to add another $3.50 a month to get the Dodgers, a team I could care less about? This is a joke, right? It’s time to force all cable/satellite providers allow us to pick our own channels and pay for what we want. This is nothing more than corporate welfare. When I see another added fee to my bill for local sports coverage, I will do it, too! I’m an Angels fan. Forcing me to pay for the Dodgers is criminal. I’m a sports fan, but this is out of control. Where are my scissors?”