Frontier’s new mascot

I’m sure more than a few readers work for a company with a marketing department that churns out advertising and imagery that leaves you shaking your head wondering what they were thinking.

There are some employees at Frontier Communications who are head-scratching this week as the company unleashes “Frontier’s First Ever Spokesman.”

His name is Francis Abraham Buffalo (his friends get to call him “Frank.”) He’s a… buffalo.

An internal memo obtained by Stop the Cap! informs employees Frank is prepared to bulldoze his way through “the clutter and get consumers buzzing.”

“Think of the Aflac duck and the Geico gecko,” a Frontier executive writes. “People have a truly positive association with them that translates into a positive feeling for those companies.”

But can a new mascot really change perceptions about a company more than the quality of the products or services a company provides (or doesn’t)?

For the record, your editor has never been particularly moved by either the duck or the gecko, and I, along with many other Americans, stopped watching television commercials years ago with the advent of the DVR. I have also never bought a product or service based on anything other than its merits and price. Frontier’s buffalo will not change that.

The mascot search involved a nationwide focus group of at least 800 customers and non-customers who were shown a series of “try-outs” involving lip-synched ducks, pigs, and various other creatures you may have last encountered as roadkill.

“Frank was the top choice, lifting our preference rating over the competition by 8 points and decreasing the competition by 3 points.  That’s a net 11 point increase for Frontier and solid support that we’re on the right path,” the company trumpets.

Of course, their cable competitors can always suggest while Frontier is busy playing with animals, they are delivering far faster broadband service and a better package of phone, broadband, and television service that does not involve a third-party satellite dish stuck on your roof.

Even some Frontier employees were less than enthusiastic about the endeavor, already predicting the response ads from the competition.

“I thought the pig would’ve been a better choice,” writes one. “I can just see the competition running ads about not getting ‘Buffaloed’ by Frontier!”

Most of the excitement among employees seems to emanate from the office that envisioned the campaign and spent a lot of money to make it happen.

“A landmark decision in the continuing evolution of Frontier,” jokes a Frontier worker less than thrilled with the result.

Even Frontier executives admit that Frank might be a big, fat target:

“We have also heard some concerns from our employees that we are proactively addressing in the campaign so our competitors won’t take advantage of our new brand spokesperson.”

“Frank will be a boffo buffalo. A solid, truth-talking machine that doesn’t like fuss or tricks – and neither do we.   We play it straight — price guarantees and no contracts make it easy for consumers to understand our products and services.  So if anyone asks, Frank is not here to “buffalo” or trick anyone (call Cable if you want that!).  He doesn’t deal with BS or malarkey, and that means no hidden fees, no surprises.”

Phillip “It’s actually an American bison” Dampier

Frontier is asking for advice on how to make Frank a better buffalo and offer any additional feedback. At Stop the Cap! we are always willing to help, so we publicly offer advice for our hometown phone company.

1. The American buffalo is actually the American bison, but that probably sounds too French (it is actually Greek, but nobody wants to get too close to Greece these days). The bison’s story is remarkably similar to phone companies like Frontier. It once roamed across the American landscape in great herds but was targeted to near extinction. Just like your landline. It still maintains “near threatened” status, and is only gradually making a comeback with the help of conservation efforts. While our ancestors shared their lives with the bison, most people today will only meet one in a zoo or park. We are unsure why Frontier would want to associate itself with an animal best known in the past and unlikely to be seen today.
2. Lip-synching animals (and babies) has become cliché. We were not too impressed with the voice talent Frontier decided to use for their animals either. Instead, check out Telus, western Canada’s biggest phone company. They turn animal wrangling into an art form, using various critters in their ads for phone, broadband, and wireless service. Telus compliments their animal friends with Canadian musicians to visually and musically deliver whatever message the company wants to share.
3. While Frontier may have eliminated some of its old tricks like contract termination, equipment, service protection, and surcharge fees from customer bills, many of us have long memories of the surprise steep cancellation fees charged when dropping landline service that we kept for 20+ years. Others found Frontier’s inadequate DSL only slightly less annoying than the $100+ service termination fee thrown on the last bill. Some of those fees are still being charged to customers, including a particularly silly broadband account service order charge that still stings departing customers. It is hard to accept Frontier’s new marketing messages when the company is still baiting the traps.
4. Frontier’s reputation problem does not come from poor advertising. It comes from a poor selection of products and services. Frontier until recently has simply refused to keep up with the reality of today’s broadband market. Sorry, basic DSL will no longer cut it, particularly when a competitor arrives. Cable can still out-class Frontier’s broadband products even after upgrades to ADSL2+ and VDSL. Frontier bills are still loaded with surprise surcharges and extras that raise the out-the-door price, sometimes even higher than what cable charges. The more important question to ask focus groups is why people do business with Frontier. Is it because they have to or they want to?

Frontier still does not evoke “cutting edge” anything. Frontier FiOS, inherited from Verizon, is the child nobody wants to talk about.

For years, Frontier only offered ADSL at speeds that stopped keeping up with cable a decade ago, even in large metro areas like Rochester, N.Y. When the company advertised “up to” in association with broadband speeds, it meant it: advertise up to 12Mbps but deliver service as slow as 3.1Mbps. With VDSL, 25Mbps might be doable, but cable already offers 30/5 or 50/5Mbps that is a sure thing.

Frontier’s landline service is generally reliable and works even with a power outage if you have a wired phone. But the company charges too much for a phone line many people are now jettisoning in favor of their cell phone and the company is still pushing long distance calling plan bundles that are now irrelevant. Does anyone under 35 know what a toll-call is?

Frontier’s “television” service for most customers is a third-party reseller agreement with a satellite provider with its own contract and conditions. Exciting? Not exactly.

There isn’t much to see here. AT&T and Verizon have spent money to earn money. The only major success story from AT&T’s landline business is its U-verse platform. Verizon FiOS delivers the most formidable competition cable operators like Time Warner Cable and Cablevision have seen. Even CenturyLink has invested in Prism, a fiber to the neighborhood system that can deliver a true triple-play package of services that give customers a reason to stay.

Frontier has Frank the Buffalo and some long-overdue technology upgrades that probably won’t win back a lot of customers.

So what are the strengths Frontier can sell?

1. In most markets, Frontier has no hard limit on broadband usage. That is an attractive selling point where cable operators slap usage caps on customers. Usage caps can and do trigger customer defections;
2. Frontier phone service is generally more reliable than cable or Voice over IP. Talk to customers in storm-struck areas who lost power and cable, but their phone line kept on working;
3. Frontier ADSL2+ and VDSL can outperform rural cable operators who have either oversold their shared network or don’t offer higher DOCSIS 3 speeds yet;
4. Frontier Wi-Fi, if vastly expanded, can be a useful free add-on and selling tool in areas served by cable operators that do not offer the service. But Frontier Wi-Fi hotpots have to be more commonly encountered to make a difference.

Above all, Frontier must keep upgrading its network to stay competitive. Once you lose customers, they can be extremely hard to get back. For many of us, establishing an account with the phone company meant significant installation fees and several days before a crew would turn up to connect service. Frontier knows perfectly well going back to the phone company after leaving is a high hurdle many never attempt.

The best mascot a company like Frontier can adopt are real customers and employees talking about their satisfaction with the changes Frontier is making. Without that, the customers that left will probably always think of Frontier as yesterday’s news. Using an American buffalo that neared extinction itself is probably not going to change that perception.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Frontier Animal Mascot Tryouts 4-13.flv[/flv]

Here are Frontier’s animal mascot tryouts. (1 minute)

Austin gets a horn of plenty with free Time Warner Cable Wi-Fi because Google is coming to town.

As Time Warner Cable faces forthcoming competition from Google Fiber in Austin, the company is responding with the construction of a free Wi-Fi network for its broadband customers to protect its business.

TWC WiFi is available now from a limited number of hotspots, but hundreds more will become available across Austin in 2013 as the company builds out its wireless network.

Time Warner Cable customers with Standard Internet or above qualify for free access, as do Business Class customers. Others can trial the service for free and then buy access for $2.95 an hour.

“Increasingly, our Austin customers want to take their high-speed Internet with them out of the home and on-the-go,” said Area Vice President Kathy Brabson. “The TWC WiFi network we are building for Austin will allow our customers to greatly maximize their TWC Internet subscription at no additional charge.”

It is no coincidence Time Warner Cable has selected Austin for a Wi-Fi rollout. The Wi-Fi service was specifically intended to provide more value for Time Warner Cable customers in competitive markets to keep them from switching to a competitor.

It represents a sea change for a cable company that in 2009 targeted Austin for an Internet Overcharging scheme that would have slapped a usage limit and consumption billing on the area’s broadband customers. With the advent of strong competition from Google, Time Warner Cable is giving customers something instead of taking things away.

Austin customers can download the free TWC WiFi Finder app available in Google Play and the Apple App Store or visit www.twc.com/wificoverage to view the hotspot coverage map as the wireless network grows. Once authenticated, customers can also access Wi-Fi hotspots in other cities including New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Orlando, Tampa, Kansas City, Charlotte and more.

Wheeler

Note to Readers: Tom Wheeler’s blog (mobilemusings.net) was taken offline in late November, 2014. You might still find it archived at archive.org. Because the blog has been taken down, we have removed all of the original links that were originally contained in this piece.

Tom Wheeler has had a blog.

The presumptive leading candidate for America’s next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission also has a major conflict of interest problem, with at least 30 years of working directly for the business interests of the cable and telephone companies he may soon be asked to oversee in the public interest. Wheeler is the former president of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) — the nation’s largest cable industry lobbying group and past CEO of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA) — the AT&T and Verizon-dominated wireless trade association. Today Wheeler serves as a managing director at Core Capital Partners, a Washington, D.C.-based venture capital firm that invests in these and other industries.

In more than 60 articles in the last six years, Wheeler has written of his trials and tribulations with federal regulators who simply refuse to see telecom industry wisdom on spectrum management, the legacy telephone network, obstinate broadcasters, outdated regulations, mergers and acquisitions, and the amazing story of private Wall Street investment and its wisdom to naturally shape America’s telecommunications landscape by “letting the marketplace work” unfettered by oversight and consumer protection laws.

Almost entirely absent in Wheeler’s writings is any interest in the plight of ordinary consumers that do business, often unhappily, with the companies Wheeler used to represent. America’s love of many-things Apple and Google, two runaway success stories heavily invested in the digital economy and well-regarded by more than a few consumers, are scorned by Wheeler as part of the “Silicon Valley mafia.”

Wheeler is the consummate Washington beltway insider, a lifelong lobbyist well-positioned to walk through the perpetually revolving door between the public and private sector. Even worse, he has maintained warm regards for not one, but two telecom industry lobbying giants — the cable and wireless industry trade associations that have daily business before the FCC. Whether Wheeler can stand up to his former best friends is open for debate. Wheeler wrote in one blog entry he remains in awe of AT&T’s chief lobbyist, Jim Ciccioni, who he called “one of the smartest and shrewdest policy mavens in the capital.”

Wheeler’s blog makes it clear he would have supported the 2011 attempted merger between AT&T and T-Mobile, with a few temporary token pre-conditions. He heaped scorn on antitrust regulators for missing an opportunity the merger approval could have had on reshaping the American wireless marketplace. Less is more in Wheeler World.

D.C.’s perpetually revolving door keeps on spinning.

Like outgoing FCC chairman Julius Genachowski, Wheeler is a longtime Obama loyalist and was involved in Obama’s 2008 election campaign.

Wheeler relays to C-SPAN’s Brian Lamb in a 2009 interview that who you know in Washington can mean a lot. After Obama entered the 2008 race, Wheeler connected to Obama through a friend — Peter Rouse, who had recently accepted the position of Obama’s chief of staff.

“I picked up the phone one day and there was a message from Barack Obama that he wanted to talk about some issues related to technology,” Wheeler described. “Things began to develop. We got really interested in the potential of this person and the opportunity that he represented for a transformational moment in American history, and we decided that Iowa was the place.”

Wheeler and his wife Carol (employed by the National Association of Broadcasters, itself a lobbying group) had the financial resources in place to put their D.C. jobs on hold and spend six weeks in the Region 2 Obama election office in Ames, Iowa.

After Obama won the election, Lamb predicted Wheeler might find himself at the FCC. Instead, Obama’s college friend and money-bundler Julius Genachowski won the position.

Wheeler’s chances of succeeding Genachowski improved dramatically in mid-April after receiving the written support of several public policy advocates. One of them was Susan Crawford, whose recent book, Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly in the New Guilded Age, railed against many of the policies supported by the largest telecommunications companies Wheeler professionally represented in his roles at the NCTA and CTIA. Some consumer groups wrote President Obama directly, strongly recommended a change from the ‘business as usual’ revolving door:

During his election campaign, President Obama pledged “to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over.” Yet the president is reportedly considering a candidate for the next FCC chair who was the head of not one but two major industry lobbying groups. After decades of industry-backed chairmen, we need a strong consumer advocate and public interest representative at the helm. It’s time to end regulatory capture at the FCC and restore balance to government oversight.

Those consumer groups have plenty to worry about if Tom Wheeler becomes the next head of the FCC. Stop the Cap! has found several quotes from his blog which paint a picture of a potential FCC chairman devoted to industry interests:

Close Wireless Retail Stores to Save Money and Kill Jobs: “Sprint announced plans to close eight percent of its over 1,500 company-owned retail outlets. Why stop there? Why does it make sense for wireless carriers to operate more stores than Sears and Macy’s combined?”

Wireless network redundancy is a waste of money — an interesting sentiment in light of major wireless network failures during Hurricane Sandy and insufficient capacity during the terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon last week: “The history of the U.S. wireless industry is a network-centric history that wasted untold billions of dollars building duplicative networks and advertising ‘mine is better than yours.’”

The failed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile represented a missed opportunity in Wheeler’s view.

WiMAX is King of the World?: “Back in the mid-1990s new digital technology called Personal Communications Service (PCS) was forecast to be the death knell of the cellular industry. It seemed all anyone could talk about was the “smaller, cheaper, lighter” handsets that would perform feats beyond the capabilities of analog cellular. Now in the mid-2000s the differentiator is speed and throughput and WiMAX is the new hot technology.”

Who needs free over the air television when only 10-15 percent of the country watches?: “What is the purpose of continuing the local TV broadcasting model when between 85 and 90 percent of American homes are connected to cable or satellite services?”

AT&T and Verizon will save us from the Great Recession, except for the fact they laid off “redundant” workers: “In the midst of the first shrinking of global economic growth in almost 70 years, the wireless industry represents what must be the largest non-governmental stimulus program in the world. Wireless is an economic recovery triple play.”

Those mooching broadcasters got their spectrum for free when Verizon and AT&T had to pay real money: “The setting for these theatrics is the digital conversion for which broadcasters lobbied so hard for. Yes, they won new spectrum – which they got for free while all other were paying billions – but getting what they asked for also brought something no one ever imagined. Broadcasting ceased to be broadcasting. Going digital meant that what used to be about moving atoms is now about moving bits.”

We need to verify broadcasters use their spectrum the way we define it or we might take it away: “But threatening a shootout at the OK Corral in order to ‘hang on to every last hertz of spectrum’ is an invitation to irrelevance and proof that the spectrum needs to be assigned to parties that think digitally and see themselves as a part of the solution to the spectrum crisis. Opportunity is knocking for the broadcasters; we’ll see if anyone is at home.”

Cicconi

Reduced quality of service is worth it, even if it means shutting down wired telephone service or increasing interference for wireless users: “It is time to abandon the concept of perfection in spectrum allocation. The rules for 21st century spectrum allocation need to evolve from the avoidance of interference to interference tolerance. We’ve seen this evolution in the wired network; it’s now time to bring the chaotic efficiency of Internet Protocol to wireless spectrum policy. What the FCC’s TAC is proposing is that we officially wean ourselves from the old wireline switched circuit world to embrace the reality of IP and its benefits. It’s time to start down the same road with spectrum allocation.”

Did you know your mobile bill is lower than ever and sending data wirelessly costs next to nothing? How much is your limited data plan costing you again?: “As wireless rates have plunged for both voice and data such regulation has less impact than it did in the wireline era anyway. When each connection required an analog circuit, the cost of such a connection, and the return on that investment was a more logical nexus than today’s digital networks where the incremental cost of a packet of information approaches zero.”

AT&T’s propaganda supporting its attempted merger with T-Mobile was brilliant. Those pesky consumer groups and their meddling, truth-telling agenda ruined everything. When Americans think of rural wireless broadband, the first company that comes to mind is T-Mobile, right?: “The most important times in any merger approval process are the first two weeks when the acquiring company gets to define the discussion and the last four weeks when the concerns raised by others and the analysis by the government congeals to define the issues to be negotiated in the final outcome. AT&T shot out of the blocks brilliantly, framing their action in terms of the spectrum shortage and President Obama’s desire to provide wireless broadband to rural areas. Over the coming months those who were caught by surprise, as well as those who would use the review process to gain their own advantages, will have organized to present their messages.”

Wheeler sends a Hallmark card to AT&T’s most powerful lobbyist: “AT&T’s recent negotiations with the FCC on the Net Neutrality/Open Internet issue provide an insight into how the company deals with such a complex issue. Jim Cicconi, AT&T’s Senior Executive Vice President, is one of the smartest and shrewdest policy mavens in the capital.”

What do they know about it?

AT&T’s Jim Cicconi is the go-to-guy for determining future wireless policy, not the FCC: “Randall Stephenson may be channeling Theodore Vail, but Jim Cicconi sits astride a process that could determine the future of wireless policy, first for AT&T and then by extension for everyone else. Quite possibly the result of this merger decision will be far wider than the merger itself. At the end of the day we may be talking about a new era of wireless policy based on the Cicconi Commitment.”

The Justice Department just proved it does not understand regulatory concepts governing relentless corporate telecom mergers because it decided Americans should have at least four wireless companies to choose from, not three: “Thus, the long-term impact of the Justice Department’s decision would appear to be the growing irrelevance of traditional telecommunications regulatory concepts on mobile broadband providers.”

Wheeler lacks the realization wireless providers are moving to usage pricing for fun and profit, not because of spectrum shortages: “Having walked away from taking the easy money, will the Congress remain as committed as they were to selling spectrum? What will be the light at the end of the tunnel for wireless carriers who see their spectrum capacity being consumed by huge increases in demand? Will the resulting shortage mean that usage based mobile pricing becomes a demand dampening and profit increasing tool?”

We don’t need free over the air television. Just tell free viewers to subscribe to cable like everyone else: “I’ve been mystified why broadcasters have declared jihad against the voluntary spectrum auction. Getting big dollars for an asset for which you paid nothing while still being able to run your traditional business over cable (the vast majority of its reach anyway) and maintain a broadcast signal at another point on the dial seems a pretty good business proposition – unless you really are serious about providing new and innovative services and need all that spectrum.”

You don’t deserve free Internet access either, because it hurts the corporate business plans of other providers: “Competition among networks for customers has put the consumer in the enviable position of being told they won’t have to pay for access to Internet services. “Free It,” the advertisements of British network operator “3” proclaim to promote their unlimited data plan, for instance. The policies that created wireless network competition have trapped operators between holding market share and giving away capacity for ever-increasing data demands. So long as there is one carrier willing to offer its capacity at a low price (or for free), the other carriers must play along thus bringing those who run networks to loggerheads with those who use the networks.”

(Image courtesy: FCC.com)

Google and Apple are privacy invaders that collect your personal data as part of a great Silicon Valley mafia: “If wireless carriers are truly going to become “operators” participating in the broader ecosystem their focus needs to shift from running networks to managing the information created by the 21^st Century’s digital networks. The Silicon Valley mafia hijacked that information, but they could quite possibly be in the process of blowing their escape with the goods by exposing what they were really up to.”

We need a “voluntary” auction of the public airwaves with a subjective standard for what represents their “best use” (ie. the way the wireless industry defines it): “For almost four decades I have listened to businesspeople tell government policy makers to “let the marketplace work.” There is no more effective marketplace than a voluntary auction where everyone is free to decide whether to sell, how much to sell, and at what price to sell. The marketplace for wireless spectrum has spoken through its explosion; now it’s time for the marketplace to be able to decide the best use of spectrum. There is no doubt that some broadcasters will opt to use their spectrum in innovative ways [my firm, Core Capital Partners, has invested in such a belief]. Bully for the broadcast entrepreneurs! The FCC should be encouraging and rewarding of entrepreneurial initiative. Just as clearly, however, some broadcasters will choose other options. It is essential that we get on with offering that option quickly so we can nip the spectrum crunch in the bud, spur innovation, stimulate investment, create jobs, and continue American leadership in wireless services.”

Coming Clean: Wheeler ran astroturf operations that pretended to represent the interests of consumers but actually were little more than corporate sock-puppetry: “In the early days of cable television a cabal of Hollywood and broadcast interests combined to convince the Federal government to deny cable its competitive advantage of more channel choices for consumers. Corporate lobbyists told Congressmen and Senators how cable would mean the end of “free TV” unless it was stopped or controlled. Then these same groups recruited real people – the so-called “grassroots” – to back up their claims. Such lobbyist-organized grassroots efforts were the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) of political organizing – I know because I used to do it.”

The alliance between Verizon and a cabal of cable companies selling each others’ products is pro-competition: “A TV subscription service like the one Apple is proposing is the heart of what cable is all about. And whatever Google is doing, they aren’t in every TV just for the heck of it. The Mongols of Silicon Valley have been behaving just like their 13^th and 14^th century predecessors. Using new technology to their advantage, the Mongols of the Middle Ages sent invasions in every direction. Soon they had the largest contiguous empire the world has ever seen.  Sound familiar? It may be a case of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend,” but a cable-wireless alliance is an exceedingly logical response to the impending attack. Cable operators have program distribution rights (or leveraged access to them) and Verizon has the high-speed wireless network to deliver to the growing number of mobile devices. Both these players can help each other confront the coming onslaught.”

This looks good enough for us, says the American Cable Association

A lobbying group for small cable operators says the nation’s current broadband availability maps are flawed, but good enough for the FCC to rely on to veto funding for rural broadband projects that might compete with some of their members.

The American Cable Association submitted its comments to the FCC as part of discussions about the next phase of broadband subsidy funding from the Connect America Fund.

Most current broadband maps rely heavily on unverified data voluntarily submitted by existing broadband providers or by third-party groups that are funded or controlled by some of the nation’s largest phone companies. Both have a vested interest painting an optimistic map of solid broadband coverage as a tool in the ongoing public policy fight pitting broadband advocates clamoring for better access and speed against the cable and phone companies that offer the service.

ACA members are concerned that the government might subsidize new broadband start-ups that could eventually compete against existing cable companies. The group calls such “overbuilders” redundant and wasteful.

“The FCC should protect the public by ensuring that broadband deployment subsidies do not result in significant government-supported overbuilding, which would cause real harm to cable operators that have invested only private capital,” ACA President and CEO Matthew M. Polka said. “It would also mean that locations across the country that need support will not receive broadband because the program would not have additional funding.”

Don’t Surprise Us With Doubling the Minimum Speed Requirement When We Thought 3Mbps Service Was Good Enough

ACA member cable operators assumed they would be safe from the government-funded overbuilders if they provided at least 3Mbps broadband, but now the FCC is exploring doubling the minimum speed to 6Mbps, which threatens a number of smaller cable operators that have avoided upgrades to increase speeds.

Polka

“This is a huge burden on a smaller operator.  These operators assumed when they filed data through the State Broadband Initiatives (SBIs) in June, 2012, providing service with speeds of at least 3 Mbps/768 kbps service was enough to protect them,” Polka said.

The ACA also wants the agency to initially reject applicants for broadband funding if current broadband map data shows another provider operating in the area, even if that provider’s volunteered service coverage maps are exaggerated.

“The Commission should presume the National Broadband Map (“NBM”) is accurate and rely upon it in identifying eligible areas for Phase II support, even though it is a work in progress and contains inaccuracies. The reasons for this conclusion are many.

First, the NBM is the most accurate and most granular representation of national broadband deployment that currently exists. Second, the federal government has already made a significant investment in the NBM, is seeking to further perfect its data, and clearly intends for it to be a key tool upon which to base its policies.

The group also warned that if the FCC does not rely on its inaccurate map, providers might be hesitant to voluntarily supply more coverage data in the future.

Prove That We Don’t Already Provide Service If Your Broadband Operation Wants Funding

The ACA’s comments also urge the FCC to require would-be new broadband providers to have the burden of proof that a cable operator does not already offer service in an area before they can qualify for Connect America funding. How? By calling the cable company pretending to be a new customer and seeing if they can schedule an installation at each particular home a provider plans to serve.

“In the normal course of business to attract customers, small cable operators post their service areas and broadband service offerings,” writes the ACA. “All a [new entrant] needs to do is survey the operator’s website and advertisements and, if necessary, call customer service. In contrast, it would be a much greater hardship for small cable operators, who lack regulatory staff and have already made the effort to be designated on the [map], to bear the initial burden and start from the beginning to submit documents to ensure they are on the map.”

In short, the ACA wants the FCC to assume their cable operator members cover an area until proven otherwise.

“It would be far less burdensome for the [new entrant] to challenge [allegedly inaccurate coverage map data] first, in which instance only those operators who are challenged would need to reaffirm their presence,” writes the ACA.

Because We Are Cable Operators Running the “Robust DOCSIS Platform,” It Means We Already Provide Great Service

The ACA also called on the FCC to give cable operators a free pass from demonstrating they can meet the Commission’s quality of service standards regarding latency and the responsiveness of the customer’s broadband connection.

“For cable operators, the Commission should presume that because they employ the robust DOCSIS platform they meet the latency requirement,” the ACA wrote.

Committing to study and oversee the quality of cable broadband is also a really bad idea according to the cable lobbying group.

“Further exploration of a cable system’s latency performance without clear and convincing evidence to the contrary would be unproductive for the Commission in carrying out its public interest mandate and for cable operators,” the ACA argued.

Don’t Tell Us What We Can Charge and What Usage Limits We Can Impose; That Should Be Reserved for Wall Street and Our Investors

The ACA is also concerned that the FCC might consider the price consumers pay for rural broadband and what usage limits rural cable operators impose when deciding whether it is time to help fund the launch of a competing provider.

Captive rural customers can pay the same or higher prices for much slower broadband service than urban Americans pay, but the ACA advocates the FCC look the other way and avoid making any such comparisons:

“[…] There are many reasons for the Commission to refrain from establishing (even minimal) comparable rates and terms of service for the provision of broadband service by cable operators to be deemed as “serving” an area.

First, the Commission should recognize that cable operators as a rule build their networks and provide broadband service with no government support, only using private capital and based on a business case enabling them to receive a market return on that investment.

Any effort by the government to impose price or usage allowances – that is regulate the service – has great potential to lower that return and slow rural broadband deployment. With universal service funding limited, this would lessen the ability for the Commission to achieve its objective of bringing broadband to unserved areas.

Further, it would be almost impossible to establish a reasonably comparable rate and terms of service because, at least for cable operators, these change so often and are usually offered in bundles with other services. Most cable customers subscribe to either or both a package of services and some sort of promotional offering. Further, bundles are far from homogeneous and operators change frequently. All of this makes it virtually impossible to have valid urban-rural comparisons.

[…] Finally, if it were to establish a comparable rate and terms of service for broadband, the Commission would be acting in an area where it clearly lacks authority.

[flv width=”528″ height=”318″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/MSNBC A Mom and Pop Cable Company by OPEN Forum 3-30-13.flv[/flv]

ACA past chairman Ben Hooks, CEO of Buford Media and operator of cable systems under the Alliance Communications brand, appeared on MSNBC to rail against federal cable broadband regulations and oversight requirements. Hooks operates several small cable systems in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama that are throwbacks to a much earlier era of cable. Many offer just a few dozen channels and deliver no broadband or cable phone service.

Hooks is upset because the federal government wants to help fund new start-up broadband providers in his backyard. He thinks this is unfair, because his cable operations, run with largely refurbished, cast-off cable equipment discarded years ago by larger cable operators, is funded with private capital and may have to compete with new providers partly funded by the Connect America Fund. In the middle of the dispute are rural Americans who cannot get broadband from Alliance Communications and would be prevented from getting it from anyone else if Hooks has his way.  (6 minutes)

Stop the Cap! has hammered ISPs for a long time for promising “unlimited” broadband but sneaking in “traffic management speed throttles” they call a matter of fairness and we call deceptive marketing.

Virgin Media’s UK broadband customers have just been introduced to the extreme absurdity of selling “insanely fast” fiber broadband that comes with a sneaky spreadsheet guaranteed to confuse all but the most observant byte counters.

Some customers suspect Virgin Media is just retaliating for repeated findings from British regulators that the company runs dodgy advertising that promises one thing and delivers something entirely different in the fine print. More than two dozen of their TV commercials and print advertisements have been banned for deceptive ad claims, ranging from the “fastest broadband in Britain” (not exactly) to promotions promising “free service” that actually costs around £15 a month (what is a dozen quid or so among friends).

So why does Virgin Media need traffic management? They have oversold the service to too many customers and won’t invest enough in upgrades to keep up with demand.

Network overselling is more common that you might think. ISPs understand that all of their customers will not be online at the same time, so there is only a need to provision enough bandwidth to support their assumptions about anticipated usage. If your ISP serves a gated Luddite community, it won’t need the same data pipe required to provide access along University Row. The trick is to use real science and math to correctly anticipate user demand, but many ISPs answer first to their investors, who simply hate spending good money on upgrades. Expansion proposals are about as popular as North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. The result is “good enough” broadband service that is susceptible to overcrowding during prime usage times.

You already know what happens next. Once the kids are home from school and dinner is finished, your online experience quickly s l  o   w    s     t    o     (buffering).

In Britain, some ISPs are notorious for overselling broadband service that advertises speeds in the dozens of megabits, but can’t even break 1Mbps during peak usage times.

How can this be fixed? With investment in upgrades. What do ISPs do instead? They slap on usage caps and “network management” speed throttles that artificially slow browsing speeds for those considered “heavy users.”

Virgin Media was supposed to be a breath of fresh air from usage caps. Instead, the company promises a truly unlimited experience, with limitations.

Virgin’s latest iteration of its “peak time usage policy” resembles a tax table from the Internal Revenue Service. Can you understand it?

Despite this, Virgin calls its broadband service “to all intents and purposes, completely unlimited.”

Where is that British regulator, again?

The company claims less than 3% of its customers will ever be affected by these limits. They might be right if customers avoid online video, downloading large files or games, cloud storage, or allowing other family members to use their connection at the same time. If one is subjected to the speed throttles, Virgin will take away nearly half of the speed customers were sold.

Here is Virgin’s position on all this:

“Our 100Mb customers receive speeds up to 104.6Mb, proven by Ofcom, and even if you’re one of the 2.3 per cent of heavy users we sometimes, temporarily traffic manage you’ll be receiving speeds of around 60Mb — so you can download and stream as much as you like.Today’s update makes it more flexible and responsive to how people are using our services and is designed to reduce the time customers may spend in traffic management, it could be just one hour. We do not have caps, nor do we charge customers more.”

That is true, but Virgin is charging a premium for broadband service speeds they are prepared to automatically take away when a customer persists in using the service they paid to receive.

Virgin could pay their experts to conjure up speed management charts like the one above, or they could invest in network upgrades that make such network management techniques unnecessary.