Suddenlink is throwing a hissyfit over Frontier’s aggressive advertising.

Now come on, you are both pretty… slow that is.

Suddenlink Communications is crawling mad that Frontier Communications has been hammering the cable company over their broadband speeds, which PC Magazine this week proclaimed were nothing to write home about. The cable operator successfully challenged some of Frontier’s ads with the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus.

The group recommended Frontier cease making claims that its DSL service offers “dedicated” lines to the Internet in contrast to Suddenlink, which forces customers to share their connection with the whole neighborhood.

Frontier claims Suddenlink’s network can bog down during peak hours, while Frontier makes sure customers consistently get the speeds they pay for.

Many of the ads targeted customers in West Virginia, who regularly tell Stop the Cap! neither provider competing there offers particularly good service.

“Is Frontier kidding?,” says Shane Foster, a former Frontier customer in West Virginia. “I was supposed to be getting up to 6Mbps service and I was lucky to get 1.5Mbps at 2 am.”

Foster says he believes Frontier oversold its DSL network in his area, with speeds slowing even further during the evening and weekends when everyone got online. While Frontier may not require customers to share a line from their home to the company’s central office, congestion can occur within Frontier’s local exchange or on the connection Frontier maintains with Internet backbone providers.

“The technician sent to my house even privately admitted it,” Foster tells Stop the Cap!

Foster switched to Suddenlink, but he is not exactly a happy customer there either.

“Their usage caps suck, the service is slow, and their measurement tool is always broken,” Foster shares. “West Virginia doesn’t just get the bottom of the barrel, it gets the dirt underneath it.”

Frontier Communications says it has been making improvements in West Virginia and other states where it provides DSL broadband. Some areas can now subscribe to 25Mbps service because of network upgrades. Foster says he would dump Suddenlink and go back to Frontier, if they can deliver speeds the rest of the country gets.

“Sorry, but 1.5Mbps is not broadband and with their prices, tricky fees and contracts it is robbery,” says Foster. “They need to clean up their act and I’ll come back. I hate usage caps with a passion.”

Frontier says it will appeal the NAD’s decision. But Frontier might do better advertising its broadband service as usage cap free — something customers consistently value over those running Internet Overcharging schemes.

The parent company of T-Mobile USA has agreed to buy MetroPCS in a reverse stock split that leaves parent Deutsche Telekom able to eventually spin off the combined entity as an independent company and exit the U.S. market.

The merger will bolster T-Mobile’s mobile spectrum in several large cities, with up to 20MHz available for a robust LTE 4G network, better positioning the company to compete with third-place Sprint.

T-Mobile plans to decommission the smaller carrier’s CDMA network by 2015, gradually shifting  MetroPCS users to T-Mobile’s HSPA+ and LTE networks as customers purchase new equipment. MetroPCS customers will find T-Mobile phones for sale immediately after the deal closes.

“We have no plans to smash together T-Mobile’s GSM and MetroPCS’ CDMA customers together,” said T-Mobile CEO John Legere, defending against any comparison with the Sprint-Nextel merger. “We will be encouraging customers to switch to T-Mobile’s network as customers upgrade their phones.”

Legere says any customers still using MetroPCS’ network during the last 8-12 months before the network is decommissioned will be offered a strong incentive, such as a deeply discounted phone, to move.

Legere

Legere adds the deal will cement T-Mobile’s position as America’s only nationwide carrier offering truly unlimited 4G HSPA+/LTE wireless data service. Sprint’s network still largely depends on 3G and an older, slower standard called WiMAX. Legere says T-Mobile will now become the nation’s largest no-contract phone carrier, and will emphasize it welcomes customers who bring their own phones to the carrier.

Legere adds T-Mobile’s new 4G network will be able to rival the quality of its larger competitors when it is fully deployed.

“The T-Mobile and MetroPCS brands are a great strategic fit – both operationally and culturally,” René Obermann, the chief executive of Deutsche Telekom, said in a statement. “The new company will be the value leader in wireless with the scale, spectrum and financial and other resources to expand its geographic coverage, broaden choice among all types of customers and continue to innovate.”

But the merger also may trigger an even larger wave of wireless consolidation in the industry, as remaining players jockey for position in response to today’s announcement. Both Sprint and Leap Wireless, which owns Cricket, are under increasing pressure from investors to respond. Leap Wireless could soon face a takeover bid itself, either from T-Mobile USA or Sprint. Some investors are even calling for Sprint and T-Mobile to merge, becoming a more effective competitor for Verizon and AT&T.

The proposed  merger still needs approval from the Federal Communications Commission. Regulators are not likely to oppose deals with either MetroPCS or Leap Wireless, as both smaller carriers operate networks that largely do not overlap and both hold only a minuscule market share.

German investors wary about T-Mobile’s new emphasis on prepaid service, considered a negative in Europe, were reassured by Legere that Americans pay higher prices for prepaid, no contract service than what is prevalent in Europe.

The combined T-Mobile/MetroPCS remains the fourth place carrier with 42.5 million customers. Sprint has 56.4 million customers.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/T-Mobile CEO Speaks About Combined Company with MetroPCS 10-3-12.flv[/flv]

T-Mobile CEO John Legere talks about the benefits of combining T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS. “This isn’t a deal to survive – it’s to thrive.” (5 minutes)

On Oct. 1, Bright House Networks began charging customers a $2 monthly “maintenance and rental” fee for using company-supplied modems to support Internet and telephone service.

Customers are unhappy about the new fee.

“They are like car salesmen who after selling you the car, want to sell you the keys too,” said one Tampa-area customer.

The modem fee is just one more charge Bright House customers pay above and beyond the cost of cable service. The company already charges for set top boxes and remote controls and has added fees for both DVR equipment and DVR “service,” which enables its recording capabilities.

Bright House says the new fee will cover installation, service, and support of the modem.

“It was one of the many things that Bright House covered,” company spokesman Joe Durkin told the Tampa Bay Times. “Since then we’ve added a lot of services at no charge.”

Customers can avoid the fee by purchasing their own equipment, but Bright House remains vague about what devices will support their telephone service, and whether customers will continue to get telephone equipment without a monthly fee. Durkin claims Bright House has only received a few complaints about the new modem fee, and says once customers hear about what the fee covers, “they understood.”

For now, Bright House’s approved modem list includes these models. This list is subject to change at anytime, so visit the approved modem list before making a purchase. Stop the Cap! strongly recommends customers only purchase DOCSIS 3 modems, to guarantee future compatibility:

Susan Crawford, President Barack Obama’s former Special Assistant for Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy has the solution for America’s lack of universal broadband, and she solves it in just four Tweets:

• Step 1 gives private companies the push they need to get rural broadband financing within their existing Return on Investment formulas by reducing capital costs for unserved areas;
• Step 2 stops the corporate welfare legislation that protects the incumbent duopoly from publicly-owned competition that can ignore Wall Street’s insistence that more competition = fat profit erosion;
• Step 3 gives the ISPs access to public land and infrastructure either at no or low cost in return for recognizing they are benefiting from that taxpayer-owned infrastructure, so they better not abuse the privilege;
• Step 4 makes ISPs common carriers that have no financial interest in the content transported down broadband lines, thus no incentive to favor their own services while discriminating against others.

Whether such policies can withstand court challenges claiming violation of corporation free speech rights is, of course, another matter. But Crawford’s ideas create incentives for broadband providers to aggressively wire their respective service areas while avoiding monopolizing what travels down those broadband pipelines.

Most Time Warner Cable broadband customers across the country will soon pay a $3.95 a month cable-modem lease fee in an effort by the cable operator to boost revenue by as much as $300 million annually.

New York City-area customers will be the first to see the modem rental charge, and customers began receiving postcards this week informing them of the new fee, which begins Oct. 15.

“It’s an outrage considering how much Time Warner Cable is already charging for broadband service,” says Stop the Cap! reader B.J., who received notification in yesterday’s mail. “My Ubee cable modem is four years old and they want to charge almost $50 a year for something that costs $40 retail brand new? Not a chance. I am calling Verizon. Goodbye Time Warner.”

A Time Warner Cable spokesperson said the company is busily printing notification cards that will arrive in customer mailboxes across the country in the next two months.

“Customers have the choice to purchase a modem from a third-party retailer to avoid paying the $3.95 per month,” according to the cable company.

Last year, Time Warner began gradually rolling out a $2.50 modem rental fee for new customers, but exempted current ones. Now the cable operator has increased the rental fee and intends to impose it on everyone except Starter Internet, Connected Learning, SignatureHome and certain IntelligentHome customers.

The cable operator may get resistance from customers, but Wall Street analysts state other cable operators, including Comcast, already charge up to $7 a month for modem leases.

Many customers will elect to buy their own cable modem, but the cable company has severely limited its approved device list in many areas to just a single manufacturer: Motorola Mobility, despite still leasing out often less-costly models from seven other manufacturers.

“It’s convenient how they will lease out inexpensive Ubee cable modems made in China but they won’t let you buy one,” says B.J. “There is nothing wrong with Motorola modems, but it reduces customer choice.”

Time Warner Cable (and Stop the Cap!) recommends all customers who plan to buy modems choose a DOCSIS 3 model for future compatibility. The company has switched out cable modems for customers at least twice over the decade plus history of cable broadband service. If history holds, the estimated useful life for a DOCSIS 2 cable modem will probably be five years or less before future standards make them obsolete. DOCSIS 2 modems are not capable of supporting the fastest broadband speeds, while DOCSIS 3 modems often cost just a little more.

Time Warner Cable’s Approved Modem List in the Northeastern U.S. And Our Reviews (all prices approximate, from Amazon.com — consult Time Warner Cable’s website for specific modems approved in your area):

DOCSIS 3

Recommended Motorola SurfBoard SB6141 DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem ($100): The SB6141 is now on the approved list for most TWC service areas and has gotten excellent reviews. It is an upgrade from the 6121, now off the list of approved devices. The 6121 could only support four-channel bonding for upstream and downstream, while the 6141 supports up to eight downstream channels and four upstream channels increasing data rates to over 300Mbps for received data and over 100Mbps when sending data. The only downside is that it is harder to find in stock for purchase.

Motorola SURFboard Gateway SBG6580 DOCSIS 3.0 Wireless Cable Modem ($117): The 6580 includes built-in gigabit Ethernet and a Wireless-N router, so it theoretically could replace your home router. My personal experience with cable modem-router combinations has been less than glowing, however. Consider this only if you do not already have a Wireless-N router. This model gets overall good, but not excellent reviews.

DOCSIS 2 – Consider a DOCSIS 3 modem to guarantee future compatibility.

Motorola Surfboard SB5101 Cable Modem ($50): This workhorse DOCSIS 2 cable modem has been around since 2003 and is popular with cable companies and customers, with a proven track record of performance. But it is not DOCSIS 3-capable, which means its useful life may be shortened as cable broadband standards continue to evolve.

Motorola Surfboard SB5101U Cable Modem ($53): Functionally equivalent to the 5101, the 5101U was introduced in tandem with Motorola’s cheaper 5101N model that omitted the USB port and driver CD. Choose the 5101 or 5101U based on which model is currently selling at the lowest price.

Not recommended Motorola SURFboard Gateway SBG901 DOCSIS 2.0 Wireless Cable Modem ($84): Overpriced and mixed reviews plague this aging Motorola DOCSIS 2 modem with built-in wireless G support. You would do better buying a Wireless N router yourself, or consider the SBG6580 if you absolutely need built-in Wi-Fi.

Updated 4:54pm ET: Readers report the SB6141 now has the best chance of being on TWC’s list of approved equipment, so we’re deleting the 6121 and replacing it with the 6141. If you happened to place an order for the 6121, make sure you verify whether it is on your area’s approved list. If not, cancel the order.

Update #2 10:00am ET 10/17/12: After publishing, Time Warner Cable overhauled their entire website. We have updated the link for the current approved list. None of the models have changed as far as I can see. I have also deleted the model 6121 entirely from the story — it is not on any approved list I’ve seen. As of today, the gouging continues on eBay with the 6141, still selling for up to $200. Amazon.com sellers have also jacked up the price to take advantage of current demand, though not as much.

Do NOT pay eBay sellers $200 for the 6141, which normally sells for $99. It only encourages the bottom-feeding speculators. If you want the 6141, I recommend you wait until prices drop to between $99-125. Do not pay more.

Some readers are finding used/refurbished cable modems that work perfectly fine on Craigslist and eBay. There is generally nothing wrong with these, unless they happen to be stolen or unreturned modems that really belong to Time Warner Cable, which will in turn not activate them. Be careful.