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Verizon Wireless’ Great Rural Purge: Tens of Thousands Losing Cell Service

Herding rural customers off Verizon Wireless.

Nearly 20,000 rural Verizon Wireless customers in states like Maine, Michigan, North Dakota, and Montana are being notified their cell service is being terminated because they spend too much time roaming outside of a Verizon Wireless coverage area.

Verizon Wireless won’t say exactly how many customers it recently sent letters to advising them that because they have used “a significant amount of data while roaming off the Verizon Wireless network,” their service will be terminated Oct. 17.

“We’re providing advance notice to these customers so they have plenty of time to port their wireless number to another company before their Verizon Wireless service ends,” Verizon spokesperson Laura Meritt stated. “We regularly review accounts with data use that primarily takes place outside of the Verizon network.”

Verizon denies reports as many as 19,000 customers are losing service as a result of the purge, but their representatives are routinely quoting that number to customers and officials calling Verizon to complain.

Customers have no recourse and if they don’t port their number to another service provider by the termination date, their number will be disconnected and lost for good. The only good news? Verizon wants to disconnect customers so badly, they are willing to forgive the remaining owed balances for any devices financed through Verizon.

Maine

In Winter Harbor, many Verizon Wireless customers reportedly received the same letter, including the town’s police chief Danny Mitchell, who is concerned about the impact Verizon’s decision will have on local public safety.

“From a public safety standpoint, a lot of our 911 calls come in via mobile phone. And when you have less towers or less service to ping off from, then your area of location, instead of getting more specific in the location, is gonna get wider,” Mitchell told WLBZ-TV in Bangor.

Maine’s Public Advocate is concerned as well, and noted this is what happens when unfettered deregulation of telecommunications services give providers the right to terminate any customer for any reason.

“The Office of the Public Advocate is concerned about the well-being of all Maine residents,” the agency wrote. “This loss of wireless communication underscores the importance of our landline network to ensure that individuals can contact public safety officials in the event of an emergency.  Verizon’s actions raise new concerns that areas once deemed a competitive marketplace for telecommunications will once again be served only by their landline provider.  This possibility should be considered as the de-regulation of landline telephone continues throughout the state.”

Public Advocate Barry Hobbins thinks it all comes down to money.

“Because it’s not cost-effective for them, now they’re going to pull the plug — and basically pull the plug on 2,000 customers — then that becomes an issue,” he says.

The decision to terminate an estimated 2,000 customers in rural Maine alone is especially stinging to residents, public safety officials, and community leaders because they bent over backwards to get Verizon Wireless to expand its coverage area in the state.

In 2015, communities in Washington and eastern Hancock counties joined forces to make life easier for Verizon in return for expansion of cell service in the region, quickly approving more than a dozen new cell towers adjacent to well-traveled Routes 1 and 9.

Mitchell said residents are more than a little annoyed that Verizon is kicking them off after all that they’ve done for the company.

In 2015, the Finance Authority of Maine (FAME) insured, at the public’s expense, a $3.4 million loan for Wireless Partners, LLC of Portland to enhance Verizon’s 4G LTE network with up to 32 new cell towers for those counties.

FAME Board Chair Raymond Nowak said at the time, “It is our hope that the planned communication improvements by Wireless Partners will support business expansion, emergency services, and the tourism industry in Maine. Such partnerships are a key part of FAME’s strategy to support infrastructure that enables the success of other businesses.”

“We are pleased to be partnering with FAME and Mechanics Savings Bank on this important project,” added Bob Parsloe, president and CEO of Wireless Partners, LLC. “This project will make it possible for people who live, work and recreate in Downeast Maine to have reliable 4G LTE broadband and voice cellular service that allows them to be connected like the rest of the world.”

Not anymore.

“[People are] going to come out their door every day, look at a cellphone tower and say, ‘Hey, I can’t connect to that because Verizon won’t let me,’” Mitchell said.

Letter from Verizon Wireless terminating service for “excessive roaming.”

In fact, Verizon Wireless customers who don’t live in the area, along with customers of other wireless companies who happen to be roaming while traveling, will be able to use those cell towers while former local Verizon Wireless customers cannot.

Law enforcement and public safety officials feel a little bait-and-switched by the decision.

Sheriff Curtis

Washington County Sheriff Barry Curtis says his department is still trying to wrap their heads around what Verizon Wireless is doing. But he seems confident it could adversely affect the department’s ability to stay in touch with law enforcement officials and respond quickly to calls. The decision could, in his view, set back the county several years.

“It’s kind of difficult sitting in this seat as far as being the sheriff here,” he says. “I’m in contact with the commissioners. I’m hoping that they’re going to be stepping up to the plate here, assisting us in this too — filing their complaints. We’re going to need all the help we can get here.”

With a chorus of complaints across rural Maine, officials at Wireless Partners have launched their own damage control effort to point the finger of blame at Verizon Wireless, and claim they had no idea the wireless company was pulling the plug on so many customers.

“Access to 4G LTE is an essential 21st century infrastructure need and it is the mission of Wireless Partners to meet that need in rural, underserved areas of Maine and New Hampshire,” said Wireless Partners CEO Bob Parsloe. “To that end, Wireless Partners built, owns, operates, and is expanding a Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network in Downeast Maine. Along with our network users, we were blindsided to learn that Verizon Wireless mailed subscription cancellation notices to their customers on this network. Wireless Partners was not given advance warning that Verizon Wireless was planning to restrict new customers nor terminate existing customers. We were only made aware of this development from concerned Verizon Wireless customers who were in receipt of the cancellation notification.”

Parsloe did hint at what is motivating Verizon to drop its own customers.

“Verizon Wireless did ask Wireless Partners to assist them in reducing the contractually agreed costs of using our networks,” Parsloe added. “Wireless Partners promptly informed Verizon that it was ready to address their concerns. At no point during this dialogue, which continues in earnest, did Verizon Wireless indicate to us their intent to restrict new customers and cancel current customers.”

Maine’s Public Advocate believes Verizon’s resumption of its unlimited data plan is probably costing the company more than it anticipated in roaming data charges levied by third party cooperating providers like Wireless Partners. In rural areas, private companies and independent providers often lease their networks to larger cellular companies like Verizon to enhance rural coverage and avoid exposing customers to punitive roaming charges. As far as customers are aware, they are using Verizon’s home network and there are no indications on their devices they are roaming.

Hobbins adds Verizon is doing this “all over the country” and residents in Maine — with large expanses of rural areas, are just among the first to react. But it annoys him that Verizon is implying in its letters that customers are doing something wrong. In fact, he says, they were simply using the service plan that Verizon sold them.

“It appears that Verizon induced these companies to build out in the rural areas around the country and then significantly promoted it by saying that they’re covering the rural areas when it fact now after putting those ads out, they’re now not covering the rural areas — in fact, they’re cutting it back,” Hobbins said.

Michigan

Tuscola County, Mich.

In mid-Michigan, customers are also getting termination letters from Verizon Wireless. In Tuscola County, Frank Rouse says he routinely spends $275 a month on four lines with Verizon Wireless and has been a customer for years. But Verizon is kicking him to the curb.

“I was pretty livid. I called customer service and I wasn’t real pleasant with them,” Rouse said, claiming he was furious when he opened the letter. “Why not do something proactive and maybe put up a tower in the area or something to keep the customers and draw in new customers.”

Mid-Michigan residents already have just a few choices for cell service, and now there is one fewer.

For Jamie Hay, it isn’t all bad news. He will lose his Verizon Wireless account but scored more than $3,600 in free phones and tablets he acquired for his family of six just two weeks before getting the letter.

“I made one payment and now I get to keep everything for free because Verizon is closing my account, voiding my payment plans and reporting all devices as now effectively paid in full,” Hay tells Stop the Cap! “Thanks to every other Verizon Wireless customer for covering my fabulous new phones and iPad!”

WNEM-TV in Michigan reports some customers are furious about being terminated by Verizon Wireless, and the company isn’t saying much. (1:32)

North Dakota

SRT Communications’ coverage map in North Dakota.

At least several hundred customers were notified across North Dakota that their Verizon Wireless service would also be terminated on Oct. 17. For many, once Verizon is no longer an option, cell service is no longer an option. Customers tell Stop the Cap! northern parts of the state are already reeling from North Dakota-based SRT Communications’ decision to exit the wireless business after 20 years. The company said it can no longer compete against larger companies like AT&T and Verizon and lack the resources to continue upgrades.

Customers are being encouraged to switch to Verizon Wireless, and Verizon has bought SRT’s spectrum and promised to improve coverage as part of the deal. But now some customers have been told they will not be able to keep their SRT service or Verizon Wireless much longer.

Montana
“Dropped like a bad habit,” as he put it, Kyle Wasson is among an unknown number of Verizon Wireless customers in Montana losing their Verizon service on Oct. 17.

Wasson, who was nearing a decade as a Verizon Wireless customer, is now no longer wanted, according to the letter he received: “We will no longer offer service for the numbers listed above since your primary place of use is outside the Verizon Wireless network” and “we discovered you are using a significant amount of data while roaming off the Verizon Wireless network.”

Northern Montana

Wasson had switched to Verizon’s unlimited data plan which he suspects might have had something to do with Verizon’s decision. Wasson doesn’t have many options in the town of Loring, 15 miles south of the Canadian border.

Neither does Brandi Horn in Harlem or Sue Hagen of Scobey — also told their Verizon service was being terminated next month.

“There is no better service in rural Montana than Verizon,” Horn said. “It’s going to be hard finding an affordable and high-coverage service now.”

LTE in Rural America (LRA) Program Implicated in Disconnections

Observers suspect the crackdown on rural roaming is primarily affecting customers served by the 21 partners Verizon has enrolled in its (LRA) program.

Under the program, LRA members lease Verizon’s 700MHz Upper C Block spectrum. Partners have access to Verizon’s network vendors and discounts and can sell the same equipment Verizon offers its customers in their stores. But the 21 companies are responsible for financing and building their own networks and can sell service independent of Verizon. In return, Verizon customers can “roam” on those networks as if they were still within Verizon’s home network. Verizon’s partners gain access to resources to build out their own LTE 4G networks and have a certain amount of effectively guaranteed traffic from Verizon customers in their service areas.

Verizon has leased out LTE spectrum covering 225,000 square miles in 169 rural counties in 15 different states. The company said more than 1,000 LTE cell sites have been built and switched on through the program, covering 2.7 million people.

But Verizon does not have the capacity to throttle or deprioritize traffic on third-party networks, meaning customers enrolled in an unlimited data plan can use as much data as they want on partner networks. There is a strong likelihood Verizon has to compensate those providers at premium rates for network traffic generated by their customers.

That means customers are at the highest risk of being disconnected if they are on an unlimited data plan and use their Verizon devices in areas served by these providers — all participants in the LRA program:

Bluegrass Cellular; Cross Telephone; Pioneer Cellular; Cellcom; Thumb Cellular; Strata Networks; S and R Communications; Carolina West; Custer Telephone Cooperative; KPU Telecommunications; Chariton Valley Communication Corporation; Appalachian Wireless; Northwest Missouri Cellular; Chat Mobility; Matanuska Telephone Association; Wireless Partners; Triangle Communications; Nemont; Mid-Rivers Communications and Copper Valley Telecom.

As Battery Backup and Generators Fail, New Telecom Outages Across Florida

Unattended generators that have run out of fuel and exhausted battery backup systems are causing additional service outages for telephone and wireless customers in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Although the last remnants of Hurricane Irma are now a mild rainmaker moving into the Ohio Valley, the impact of the storm at its peak is still being felt across the southeast, and some customers are surprised to discover new outages even as providers work to restore service in the region.

Data from the Federal Communications Commission and from impacted providers indicate that new cell towers are failing because backup generators have now run out of fuel. Technicians often cannot reach the cell tower sites to refill generator fuel tanks because of driving restrictions and inaccessible roads. The worst outages continue in rural parts of Florida, the Florida Keys, the U.S. Virgin Islands and parts of Puerto Rico.

Most of the telecommunications network failures are a result of power interruptions. Most cell towers are able to withstand hurricane force winds and short-term flooding, and underground fiber connectivity between the tower and the provider means failures from trees falling on utility poles is not usually a problem. In most cases, once power returns, cell towers will return to service almost immediately.

Wireline facilities in Florida are not faring as well, however.

911 Call Centers

Since yesterday, the FCC reports 29 emergency 911 call centers are down or compromised, up from 27 a day earlier:

In Florida:

Down with no re-routes: Homestead Air Force, Marathon County SO, and Ocean Reef

Up without Automatic Caller Location Information (ALI): Cape Coral PD, Collier County EOC, Ft. Myers Police Department, Hardee County Back Up, Hardee County Sheriff, Highlands County Sheriff, Lee County Emergency Dispatch Center EOC, Lee County Sheriff, and Okeechobee County Sheriff’s Department

911 Calls Re-routed with ALI: Atlantic Beach PD, Belle Glade PD, Broward County South Region, Indian River SO, Manalapan PD, Miami Beach PD, Neptune Beach PD, Sanibel Police Department, and St. Augustine PD

911 Calls Re-routed without ALI: Big Cypress Indian Reservation, Clewiston Police Department, Desoto County Sheriff, Glades County Sheriff, Glades County Sheriff Back Up, Hendry County Sheriff, Lee County Backup, and Naples PD

In the U.S. Virgin Islands, the 911 call centers in St. Croix and St. Thomas cannot locate callers and calls from Voice over IP phone lines do not provide the number the person is calling from.

Wireless

As of Sept. 12, the worst affected areas with cell towers out of service:

Cell tower on wheels

Alabama: Less than 1% of cell sites in the disaster area are out of service — two of the 87 cell sites in Henry County are offline.

Florida: 24.6% (down from 27.4% yesterday) of all cell sites in the state are out of service. The worst affected counties:

  • Collier: Out of 212 sites, 154 are out of service (72.6%)
  • Hendry: 36 of the county’s 46 cell sites are down (78.3%)
  • Highlands: 43 of 80 cell towers are out of service (53.8%)
  • Monroe: 89 of 108 cell towers are out of service (82.4%). Much of Monroe County is in the Florida Keys.
  • Union:  Seven of 13 cell sites are not functioning. (53.8%)

Georgia: 10.5% of cell sites in the designated disaster area are out of service. Wilkes County is hardest hit, with one of the county’s two sites out of service. Other significantly affected counties include: Glynn (26.2%), Camden (17.4%), Mitchell (14.7%), Brooks (14%), and Colquitt (12.2%).

Puerto Rico: Puerto Rico: 14.5% (down from 19.4% yesterday) of cell sites are out of service.

U.S. Virgin Islands: 53.8% (down from 55.1%) of cell sites are out of service.

Wireline (Cable and Telephone)

There are at least 7,184,909 (down from 7,597,945 yesterday) subscribers out of service in the affected areas in Alabama, Florida, and Georgia. This includes users who get service from cable or wireline providers.

A massive spike in landline central office failures was also documented yesterday, with service outages at switching centers up from 390 yesterday to 819 today in Florida.

Customer complaints are starting to rise based on early predictions that once power was restored, telecommunications services would quickly follow. That has not always been the case in South Florida, however.

Comcast’s Wi-Fi hotspots are all functioning normally, as long as there is internet service in the neighborhood. But home broadband outages are common, especially in coastal areas and in the Florida Keys. Where power is out, Comcast services go out with it. Getting service back requires first restoring power.

“As of Tuesday morning, we have been able to restore power to some but not all of the equipment that services customers in the Miami-metro area. We are working very closely with Florida Power and Light so they can prioritize these critical facilities and restore commercial power service to them as quickly as possible,” said Mindy Kramer, a Comcast spokesperson. “Our facilities in South Florida have been running on generators since the storm began and unfortunately everyone is need of the same fuel resources. We have been doing our best to refuel these generators so that our facilities are able to stay functioning without commercial power. We have teams deploying additional generators today in South Florida.”

Comcast has a website for customers to report storm impact issues: https://www.xfinity.com/florida.

AT&T U-verse customer Ron Dias in Southwest Miami-Dade lost his bundled services — TV, Internet and digital home phone — Saturday and they are all still out, even though his power was restored Monday. He wants answers.

“I wish they would tell us what is going on. This is the information age,” he told the Miami Herald.

AT&T is treating its outage and restoration information as a proprietary trade secret, much to the frustration of customers like Dias.

AT&T issued the same statement to media outlets:

“In Florida, South Carolina, Alabama and Georgia some [U-verse] customers may be experiencing issues with their service because of flooding and storm damage. Our technicians are working to restore service to affected areas as quickly and safely as conditions allow. Our Network Disaster Recovery team is deploying portable cell sites to the Florida Keys, Miami and Tallahassee. Additionally we are deploying an electronic communication vehicle, command center and a hazmat team to Miami. We have additional resources being staged for further deployment across the region. We are monitoring our network closely and are coordinating with emergency management officials and local utility companies.”

AT&T stages repair crews to deal with Hurricane Irma.

The newspaper quoted Reginald Andre, president of Ark Solvers, a company that manages computer services for condominiums and other businesses, who estimated about 80 percent of his 240 business customers are experiencing outages with either Atlantic Broadband — many of them Miami Beach condominiums — Comcast’s XFINITY or AT&T U-verse, he said. Many have their business’ phone services through the internet too. “If the internet is down, their phones are down.”

Atlantic Broadband, which serves some high-end gated communities, condos and exclusive enclaves in South Florida notes most of its customers lost service during the hurricane, but the company has already restored service to 25% of its customers.

“Atlantic Broadband’s restoration workforce is currently mobilized in Florida and our network and facilities are intact. We have assembled additional response teams from across all Atlantic Broadband operating locations to support these efforts. As commercial power is restored and downed drops are cleared, Atlantic Broadband will be moving briskly to restore services to its customers,” the company said in a written statement.

Frontier Communications, which serves some small Florida communities as well as former Verizon service areas in Florida, has said little about the storm or its recovery efforts, except to ask customers to call the company if their services are not working after power is restored.

Verizon has announced it is relieving itself of all liabilities for Hurricane Harvey and Irma-related outages:

We must also declare a Force Majeure event for Hurricanes Harvey and Irma to the extent that there is any delay or inability by Verizon or its vendors to provide services. Under Verizon’s Service Guide and customer contracts, this declaration relieves Verizon of liability that would otherwise result from any such delays or non-performance.

Verizon Wireless reports 90% of its cell towers in Florida and 97% in Georgia are in service.

Free text messages sent to AT&T and Verizon customers in storm-affected areas. Verizon has extended its offer until Sept. 15.

“Many of those cell sites are running on backup power as designed for reliability, and massive refueling operations are underway to ensure those sites without commercial power continue in service for our customers and first responders,” the company said on its website. “We continue to assess the impact across Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, and mobile equipment and personnel have been moved into impacted areas. This week we will begin deploying Unmanned Aerial Systems (drones) to survey sites and assess antennae and tower damage. Repairs to impacted network facilities are well underway, and in many cases already complete. We are in contact with federal, state and local emergency management teams and are coordinating communication needs and efforts with them.”

Verizon is also extending its “data relief” offer until Sept. 15 in storm-affected areas. The initial offer began just after midnight on Sept. 9. Verizon is giving postpaid customers talk, text and data overage relief while prepaid customers receive an extra 3GB of data. To see if you qualify, see: Postpaid customer list of qualifying counties or Prepaid customer list of qualifying counties.

Sprint claims: “Progress is being made to the Sprint network as commercial power is gradually restoring across Florida. Sprint has fixed generators at our sites which are helping to provide service to some customers. Additionally, our network crews continue to assess any damage, refuel generators, and work to restore wireless service to customers who may be impacted. As it becomes safe, we will continue to deploy more crews, portable generators and satellite trucks providing temporary wireless coverage across the area. We are reminding people to continue to use text messaging rather than voice calling to help relieve network resources.”

Sprint is waiving all text, call and data overage fees for Sprint, BoostMobile and Virgin Mobile customers in Florida through September 15, 2017, and extending the same previously announced waived overage fees for customers in Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands through September 15, 2017. Fees will be proactively waived during the specified timeframe. Customers on Unlimited plans will continue to enjoy their unlimited data, call and text benefits. The company will also waive all international call and text overage fees for Sprint, Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile customers in the U.S. to the Bahamas, and roaming voice and text overage charges for Sprint customers in the Bahamas, effective today through September, 15, 2017. Customers can sign in to their My Sprint account to enable international calling before attempting to make a call. They can also chat with a Sprint International Representative. Customers may cancel international calling at any time following the effective period.

T-Mobile is making it free to call and text from the United States to the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos. T-Mobile will also waive roaming fees on calls and texts for customers in the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos. The offer is good until Sept. 15. T-Mobile also is offering free calling/texting, as well as unlimited data, for Florida customers not on T-Mobile ONE (customers on T-Mobile ONE always have unlimited calling/texting/data). The Florida offer applies to T-Mobile and MetroPCS customers in the following area codes until Sept. 15: 239, 305, 321, 352, 386, 407, 561, 689, 727, 754, 772, 786, 813, 850, 863, 904, 941, 954.

AT&T is automatically issuing credits and waiving additional fees to give unlimited data, talk and texts to AT&T wireless customers and unlimited talk and texts to AT&T PREPAID customers. This is effective beginning Sept. 8 across all of Florida and Sept. 12 in impacted Georgia counties and continuing through Sept. 17 for all impacted customers. AT&T is also extending payment dates for impacted AT&T PREPAID customers with voice and text service through Sept. 17. This applies to AT&T wireless customers with billing zip codes and AT&T PREPAID customers with billing phone numbers in all of Florida and in nearly 25 Georgia counties – Appling, Atkinson, Bacon, Brantley, Bryan, Bulloch, Camden, Candler, Charlton, Chatham, Clinch, Coffee, Effingham, Evans, Glynn, Jeff Davis, Liberty, Long, McIntosh, Pierce, Tattnall, Toombs, Ware and Wayne. Customers in these areas may still receive data alert notifications during these protected dates, but billing will reflect the correct data charges.

Broadcasters

TV Stations out of service: 9 (up one from yesterday)

  • Alabama: None
  • Florida: WVFW, WGCU, WSBS (up one from yesterday)
  • Georgia: None
  • Puerto Rico: WOST, WMEI, WQQZ, and WWKQ (same as yesterday)
  • U.S. Virgin Islands: WTJX-TV and W05AWD (same as yesterday)

Radio stations out of service: 51 (up from 25 yesterday)

  • Alabama: None
  • Florida: WMFM, WAXY, WDOZ, W227CP, W250BH, W274BB, W298BO, W300CL, WAQV, WFLJ, WJFH, W251BM, WROK, WAOA- FM, WHKR, WLZR, WIOD, WOLZ, WINZ, WBTT, WCKT, WZTA, WSVU, WSWN, WOTW, WMFQ, WXUS, WYGC, W240CI, W295BJ, W233AP, WMKO, WEAT, WMFL, WWFR, WJFR, WTIR, WMYR, WCNZ, W294AN, WNWF, WEJZ, WGNE-FM, and WJGO (up 19 from yesterday)
  • Georgia: WLFH, WHFX, WBGA, WGIG, WEKL and WGCO (all added since yesterday)
  • Puerto Rico: None
  • U.S. Virgin Islands: WTJF-FM (same as yesterday)

2017 Edition of Comcast’s Customer Service Makeover (Rebooted)

It’s the end of summer and that means it is time for the 11th annual Comcast Customer Service Makeover — the annual ritual of going through the motions of saying you are going to improve the customer experience, without actually doing so.

Since at least 2006, Comcast has promised it would get better, but somehow never does. That the cable company remains one of America’s most-hated companies 11 years after first promising to do better, evidently doesn’t faze J.D. Keller, the latest executive assigned to win customers over. At least Keller admits it will be a tough job to turn around one of the country’s greediest and nastiest companies. He likens it to “turning a ship around.” We’re not talking about a weekend pleasure craft either. We’re talking a colossal toxin-filled tanker here. That’s an appropriate vision of Comcast, where the craft of alienating customers with impenetrable offshore customer service and local cable stores complete with bulletproof glass to protect the employees from customers has been finely honed for years.

To paraphrase Lily Tomlin’s Ernestine, Comcast’s customer service experience is best summed up as: “We don’t care — we don’t have to. We’re the cable company.”

Somehow, Comcast has spent another $300 million of ratepayer’s money for a three-year “corporatewide push,” beginning in 2015, to fix the damage. Considering the company’s war-criminal-like reputation score has barely budged, one wonders if the $300 million was spent on a golden Band-Aid… that has since fallen off. Comcast’s bullet points of new wonderfulness doesn’t seem to impress:

  • Comcast has opened eight Apple-style XFINITY retail stores in the Twin Cities, notes the Star Tribune. Have you ever been excited visiting your phone, gas, or mobile company store? Didn’t think so. Shiny and new doesn’t help if you are still standing in line for 30-60 minutes to swap out a cable box.
  • Comcast has beefed up its call center staff. But many customers tell us that is more of the same S&M experience they get now from offshore call center representatives, who apparently delight in having their revenge against evil and annoying Americans. Comcast’s customer service representatives are excellent at reading scripts, but when you ask for credit or above-and-beyond help with a service problem, suddenly their English skills go missing. “Twice nothing is still nothing.”
  • Comcast has put more technicians on the street. But they would not have to if their cable infrastructure wasn’t ineptly maintained in some areas of the country.
  • Comcast has developed online tools so customers can fix problems themselves. That’s a slight improvement, if only because you don’t have to call for a verbal torture session with the Philippines call center. But in fact such tools benefit Comcast more than customers, because it cuts their costs.

Mr. Keller:

“When I interviewed with Steve White [Comcast’s West Division president] and CEO Dave Watson, all they talked about was customer experience. Dave Watson regularly calls clients deep in our organization to ask, ‘How’d we do?’ He’s out on the street listening to people. There is no ivory tower here. We have a long way to go to respect our customers and do a better job. Our goal is to be recognized by our customers and J.D. Power as the No. 1 communications company in the world. That’s what brought me to Comcast. A recent American Customer Satisfaction Index report gave Comcast its highest marks in 15 years [although it still trailed Verizon, AT&T and Charter Communications].”

Indeed, it trails among many, many, many, many, many other companies. What does “clients deep in our organization” mean, exactly? Comcast is calling itself? We also find it impossibly hard to believe a division president in manning a booth on the street asking random customers how they feel about Comcast. At least not without his bodyguard. Comcast is the very definition of an “ivory tower” corporation, completely out of touch with the wants and needs of its own customers. Want evidence? Junk fees, channel shoveling, data caps, offshore customer service, constant rate increases, tricky promotions, and those bullet-proof glass windows at the customer service center, for a start.

Every year, Comcast reminds customers it has a long way to go to repair its emotionally abusive relationship with customers, who feel trapped with a company many wish they could ditch once and for all. Like other tragic relationships gone bad, the promises that things will get better are often empty.

Keller’s out-of-touchness shines as he talks about “respecting our customers and their time.” Comcast commits to two-hour service windows, and claims they text or call 30 minutes ahead of let customers know when the truck will arrive. Customers tell us that is true in some places, but not in others. The arrival of a repair crew does not guarantee the problem will be adequately addressed during that call either. Many tell us they have to get several crews out before a problem is really fixed. Keller also claims Comcast reads all the feedback customers give the company, but doesn’t mention it routinely ignores most of that feedback. Otherwise, those constant annoyances and policies that gave the company its horrific reputation would have been dispensed with a decade ago.

“We believe if customers are happy with us in the first 90 days, they’re going to stay with us for life,” Keller said with a straight face, forgetting that many customers don’t have a choice. Swapping one cable company for another is about as common as choosing where you get your tap water. It’s Choice “A” or Choice “A.” You decide.

Keller suggests he thought long and hard before accepting a job at the most loathed cable company on the planet.

“I took the time to take a deep breath and spend time with my wife and three children,” Keller claimed. “I knew I wanted to challenge myself. I’m not happy unless there’s some big boulder I have to push up the hill.”

Somehow, and probably with the help of a generous compensation package, he got over his concerns.

There are two ways to deal with Comcast’s nightmarish reputation. Either blow it up and start a new relationship with customers or convince yourself that your poor reputation barely exists at all and is easily fixed. The latter is what Comcast’s annual exercise in “improving the customer experience” is all about. Define a problem as fixable, pretend to fix it, and next year tell customers you are making progress. After a decade, this annual ritual is now a tradition.

Until customers have adequate competitive options to send a real message Comcast cannot afford to ignore (“I and all my friends are canceling service”), expect more of the same.

Deutsche Telekom: We’ll Build a Nationwide Fiber Network If You Let Us Monopolize It

German Chancellor Angela Merkel examines fiber optic telecommunications cables.

Germany has an internet access problem not very different from the one afflicting the United States and Canada. The national phone company, still partly owned by the government, remains mostly dependent on a decades-old wireline telephone network to deliver landline and DSL broadband service. The only way Deutsche Telekom will invest adequately to replace it with optical fiber is if they get assurances from the federal government they will be allowed to monopolize access to it.

According to the business weekly WirtschaftsWoche, a sister publication of Handelsblatt, Telekom executives have agreed to build a fiber-optic network everywhere in Germany provided that it is excluded from European anti-monopoly rules so that Deutsche Telekom wouldn’t be forced to open its network to competition.

The proposal from the German telecom giant was particularly audacious because many in the country blame it and its uncompetitive behavior for creating Germany’s slow broadband problem, but that did nothing to stop the company from asking to be shielded from competition.

“A fundamental departure from the kind of logic that viewed regulation of Deutsche Telekom (DT) as the normal state in the last 20 years is urgently needed,” the company said in a filing with the German Federal Network Agency, which regulates the internet in the country.

For most Germans, DT is the problem. The phone company has proven itself a formidable competitor across many parts of eastern Europe, where it bought control of privatized telecommunications companies that used to operate as government monopolies. But back home in Germany, it has been happy to continue offering DSL service that the rest of Europe cannot get rid of fast enough. In certain larger cities like Munich and Cologne, upstart fiber to the home providers have filled the broadband gap and have wired significant parts of both cities, and DT has responded with a fiber offering of its own without complaining about the cost of building a fiber network or the return on its investment.

Oberbürgermeister Wolff

But in smaller towns and villages across Germany — particularly in the eastern states, broadband has been terrible for years and under DT’s “leadership” it has not gotten much better, allowing other countries in the EU to sail past Germany in broadband rankings. Like AT&T and Verizon in the U.S., DT claims that where it has not upgraded its network, there is either no demand for fiber fast internet speed or inadequate return on investment. Also like in the U.S., DT has spent its money on other technologies, notably wireless, while investment in landline networks has not kept up.

Some German communities like Bretten, fed up with inaction, have taken charge of their own broadband future and are building their own fiber to the home networks. Martin Wolff has dreamed of a digital economy boost for his town of 28,000 located near Karlsruhe in western Germany.

As mayor, he has begged and pleaded with DT to give Bretten something beyond lackluster DSL service, which is now too slow to handle the kind of 21st century internet applications that better wired communities take for granted. Mayor Wolff wants Bretten known as a gigabit city. DT, in contrast, wants to leave Bretten as a forgotten digital backwater. The phone company had repeatedly told the community the broadband it gets now is more than good enough and nobody should hold their breath waiting for something better. DT’s few competitors, including Britain’s Vodafone, weren’t interested either. Bretten is too small… too… irrelevant to matter to their investors.

“They are only interested in serving the cream of the crop in the cities and don’t come to rural areas,” the mayor said.

Like in North America, Germans are asking themselves who should be in charge of their digital future — investor-owned telecom companies or the community itself. The country’s continued embarrassing showing in European broadband rankings has become an issue of national pride and has sparked a loud debate between established telecom companies and the public that wants faster and better broadband.

The noise of the debate has attracted the politicians, and the issue of German broadband has now taken center stage in the parliamentary elections, which will be held Sept. 24. Handelsblatt reports the issue of inadequate broadband now interests German voters more than the latest economic policy position paper or how Germany will manage to deal with U.S. President Donald Trump for the next three years. Many Germans have plenty of time for these kinds of offline debates, because online, it can take a minute to load a webpage on some of the country’s dial-up like DSL connections.

“Germany is one of the most under-supplied countries in Europe, especially in terms of rural coverage,” wrote Bernd Beckert, an internet expert at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research, in a recent study of European broadband. He said countries such as Switzerland, Spain and even tiny Estonia are far ahead of Germany. In fact, the Baltic states and many former Eastern bloc countries are moving towards a fiber future while Germany considers wrapping itself even tighter in copper wiring installed in the 1960s. More than 70% of German internet users get internet access through a DT-provided, ADSL-equipped landline. Many connect at just 1-6Mbps, about the same speed users were getting in the late 1990s when DT’s internet monopoly was abolished.

Since then, DT has done everything possible to encourage “competitors” to not build competing networks. In fact, most competing ISPs like 1&1, Versatel, Telefonica Deutschland, and Vodafone rent DT DSL-capable landlines to provision service to their customers. That means they cannot compete on speed and they are forced to rely on DT to maintain its wireline network. It is no accident that German adoption of fiber optics is stuck at only 1.8%, fifth from last place among the 35 member states of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In comparison, Japan and South Korea have more than 70 percent of their customers on fiber to the home connections.

Germany’s largest political parties that have been in government since 2005, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) have tolerated DT and its anemic upgrade policies. Broadband stagnancy, many believe, would not be possible without acquiescence and appeasement by those in control of the country. That conspiracy theory is backed by many of Germany’s smaller political parties which believe it is time to change the government’s involvement with DT.

The Left Party’s platform supports nationalizing DT and returning it to a state-owned enterprise that will answer to the public policy priorities of the next government. The capitalist, pro-business Free Democratic Party wants to get the government completely out of its 32% remaining stake in DT and hope that free market solutions will emerge. In the meantime, that party proposes to use the proceeds of any sale to fund a national broadband subsidy fund to convince private telecom companies to upgrade their networks in underserved areas.

DT has not stayed quiet in the public policy debate either. After disappointing the German public by rejecting a proposal to build an open, nationwide fiber to the home network, the company has instead promised to upgrade existing DSL lines to newer technologies like VDSL and vectoring, which DT claims could deliver up to 100Mbps service. American phone companies like Verizon have been reluctant to head in a similar direction, admitting many of the next generation DSL technologies work better in the lab than in the field. Many of the technologies promoting the most dramatic speed improvements have also proved to be vaporware so far.

Deutsche Telekom HQ Bonn, Germany

“We are committed to vectoring, because it is the only way to provide people in rural areas with faster lines quickly,” Deutsche Telekom said in a blog post published in August. “If we are fixated on [fiber to the home], those in the countryside will remain left behind for years. It is simply impossible to roll out fiber lines to homes everywhere in the country. Neither the construction capacity nor the funding is available for that. Plus, there is quite simply no demand for it.”

Some of the other competitors in the market seem to agree with DT.

“No provider can achieve fiber optic expansion on its own,” said Valentina Daiber, a member of the board of Telefonica. Daiber said DT was already nearly $60 billion in debt. Daiber said she hoped a solution could be found after the election.

But just a week after Daiber made that claim Vodafone announced it will spend $2.4 billion on a new fiber to the premises network targeting 100,000 companies in 2,000 German business parks. The company will also spend up to $450 million partnering with municipalities to extend the network to about one million rural homes, in addition to boosting its current broadband speeds delivered to German cable customers to 1Gbps.

That announcement could cause DT’s DSL plans to eventually collapse, if Vodafone follows through on its fiber buildout.

Mayor Wolff has no intention of waiting to see how it all plays out. Wolff has convinced private fiber optics company BBV to install the fiber infrastructure and has a Dutch investor partner arranging $12 million in financing, which is always the biggest stumbling block to get fiber buildouts underway. Upfront construction costs often deter many municipalities and would-be competitors from launching. But for Wolff, where there is a will, there is a way to deliver fiber fast broadband, and he is making certain it happens sooner rather than later.

7.6 Million Floridians Without Internet/Phone Service After Hurricane Irma

Phillip Dampier September 12, 2017 Consumer News, Public Policy & Gov't Comments Off on 7.6 Million Floridians Without Internet/Phone Service After Hurricane Irma

At least 7,597,945 Floridians are without cable, broadband and phone service after Hurricane Irma left large sections of Florida without power or wired telecommunications service.

According to the Federal Communications Commission, service providers have self-reported multiple large outages including 911 service, cell towers, cable service, and radio and television services. In many cases, the outages are directly tied to power interruptions, and many expect service will resume soon after Florida utilities get electricity service back up and running.

Telephone

Providers report 390 central switching offices are non functioning across Florida at this time. These offices handle landline calls and wired broadband from AT&T and Frontier Communications, among other telephone companies. Where physical damage from wind or water has occurred, it could take weeks or months before those offices are fully restored, but temporary provisions for restoring basic phone service are likely to be in place within days.

There are also significant 911 outages across Florida:

No 911 Service, Calls Going Unanswered: Big Cypress Indian Reservation, Collier County EOC, Ft. Myers Police Department, Glades County Sheriff, Glades County Sheriff Back Up, Hardee County Back Up, Hendry County Sheriff, Highlands County Sheriff, Lee County Emergency Dispatch Center EOC, Naples PD, Okeechobee County Sheriff’s Department, Homestead Air Force, Marathon SO, and Ocean Reef.

911 Service With No Automatic Caller Location Information (ALI): Hardee County Sheriff and Lee County Sheriff

Re-routed with ALI: Atlantic Beach PD, Belle Glade PD, Indian River SO, Manalapan PD, Miami Beach PD, Neptune Beach PD, and St. Augustine PD

Re-routed without ALI: 4 Clewiston Police Department, Desoto County Sheriff, Lee County Backup, and Sanibel Police Department

Potential Outage: The Broward County South Region 911 Center lost power as of 9/10/17 at 2:28PM EDT. We do not know if 911 calls are being rerouted.

Wireless Service

Overall, 27.4% of cell sites in the disaster area of Florida are out of service. The worst outages are in:

  • Collier County: 160 of 212 cell sites are down. (75.5%)
  • Hendry County: 31 out of 46 cell sites are down. (67.4%)
  • Highlands County: 42 out of 80 cell sites are down. (52.5%)
  • Lee County: 186 out of 343 cell sites are down. (54.2%)
  • Miami-Dade County: 739 out of 1,435 cell sites down. (51.5%)
  • Monroe County: 87 out of 108 cell sites down. (80.6%)

Broadcasting

There are two television stations out of service in Florida: WVFW and WZVN. There are 26 radio stations off the air: W227CP, W300CL, W222AW, WROK, WAOA-FM, WHKR, WLZR, WIOD, WOLZ, WINZ, WBTT, WCKT, WRUM, WQOL, WZZR, WSWN, WOTW, WMFQ, WXUS, WYCG, WEAT, WTIR, WMYR, WCNZ, and W294AN.

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