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Comcast has concluded the last of four public meetings to address consumer complaints with the quality of the cable company’s products and customer service in Savannah, Ga.

Dozens of customers filled Armstrong Center to complain about billing, hold times, and service issues. Comcast technicians were on hand and literally followed some customers home to address long-standing problems on the spot.

The public meetings came at the urging of Savannah city officials who have received hundreds of complaints about Comcast’s poor performance in the Georgia city. 

“We are committed to continuously improving the services that we offer and the way we deliver the service, said Andrew Macke, vice president of government and community affairs. “There’s ongoing efforts to improve that, but certainly as we value our relationship with the city, we’ll continue to work with them to highlight some of the things that we’re doing but also address some of the common themes.”  (2 minutes)

Diana Thibodoux documents Comcast's shoddy work in her rented home.

The city of Savannah, Georgia is at the mercy of Comcast Cable, and city officials and local residents are fed up with high bills, the “don’t care” attitude from customer service, and cable and broadband that fails repeatedly, sometimes extending for weeks.

The fervor came to a head in December when city council had accumulated more than 150 complaints from local residents, deciding public hearings were warranted to deal with the city’s dominant cable company, Comcast.

“Comcast Destroyed My House”

Diana Thibodoux called Comcast to deal with a cable issue in her Ardsley Park home and never expected the service call would turn into an expensive nightmare.

Thibodoux says the Comcast technician who showed up decided on his own to rewire the house for cable and began drilling through brick and expensive plaster, stringing easily visible black coaxial cable along outside walls, inside baseboards and up over doors, all in plain sight.

“My house looks like a frat house,” Thibodoux complained to Comcast officials who were on hand to listen to customer complaints at the first of four public “town hall” meetings.

“I’ve never dealt with a company so incompetent,” another local resident said.

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WTOC in Savannah shares the horror story of Diana Thibodoux, who says Comcast destroyed her house thanks to an overzealous, incompetent repairman.  (3 minutes)

At least everyone knows she has cable.

Residents used the public sessions to vent about long hold times which can extend to as much as two hours, poor quality service, and what city officials call the predictable outcome of a company that has “a stranglehold” over Savannah’s cable TV market.

“Comcast has treated Savannah like a third world country for years, delivering the best service to the wealthiest neighborhoods while leaving cable lines dangling on the ground in the areas they don’t care about,” said Stop the Cap! reader Jenny Child, who has kept a folder of papers documenting more than a dozen service calls regarding poor Internet service at her small business.

“If it rains in Savannah, and it does so a lot, our Internet goes out,” Child complains. “We have called and called but the technician shows up when it is bright and sunny and shrugs his shoulders and says there is no problem.”

Child and her two employees now handle their online business activities based on local weather forecasts.

“If the man says we’re getting rain today, we handle our Internet things real quick, because as sure as I’ll be in church on Sunday, we won’t have service after the first drops fall from the sky,” she says.

Child keeps calling Comcast when her Internet service drops out, but long hold times to reach the company’s outsourced-to-India customer service department have cut into her business.

“I can’t be sitting here on hold with Comcast for 45 minutes waiting for some representative’s nails to dry so she can pick up the phone and deal with customers,” Child complains. “It’s the biggest cable company ever, and don’t they own NBC? How many people do they have working there that they can’t answer the phone. Maybe everyone else is calling to complain too.”

Comcast’s Business Broadband Blockade Prompts Whining When Potential Competition Shows Up

Hargray is wiring downtown Savannah with fiber broadband to serve long-neglected area businesses

While fielding complaints from more than 50 local residents at a second meeting held to address complaints, Comcast executives questioned whether the city of Savannah was giving favorable treatment to Hargray, a new entrant pushing to bring 21st century broadband into the city of Savannah for businesses Comcast has refused to serve for years.

Comcast complained they didn’t mind competition, but wanted “a level playing field,” a statement that prompted an immediate and angry response from some members of the city council, who blasted the cable company for its attitude.

Aldermen Tony Thomas, John Hall, and Tom Bordeaux all noted Comcast has steadfastly refused to wire many downtown business buildings for cable broadband service, despite years of requests.  Comcast claimed the relatively low number of customers did not justify the cost to expand the service.

Alderman Tony Thomas has championed the ongoing dispute with Comcast Cable on behalf of local residents.

All three could not understand why Comcast had a sudden urgency to complain about unfair treatment when a competitor sought to provide the service they never did.

“If [Comcast] did not want to offer that service previously and someone else is coming in to provide the service, where is the sticking point?” Thomas said.

Bordeaux was more blunt in his remarks intended for Comcast.

“Tell them to sue us,” he said.

In contrast to service from AT&T and Comcast, which often markets 3-6Mbps broadband in Savannah, Hargray’s fiber broadband project will deliver speeds up to 1Gbps, first to business customers. But the company promises it is considering selling to residential customers as well.

Great Deals, But Only for “Selected Neighborhoods”

As Comcast’s bad press has become fodder for the nightly newscasts on several of the city’s television outlets, Comcast literally took to the streets to try and mitigate their public relations nightmare. In the process, they created a new one.

Councilman Tony Thomas is happy Comcast is approaching upset customers and offering them substantial discounts on their cable bill.  But he’s not happy Comcast is only extending those deals to certain customers, not all.

Thomas wants the deals offered to everyone, something that he says is not happening today.

(Courtesy: Ted Goff/newslettercartoons.com)

Andy Macke, Comcast’s Vice President of Communications counters, “All they have to do is call 1-800-COMCAST and they will hear the same deals that the same people are getting from those reps going from door to door.”

“Comcast’s attitude in Savannah is see no evil, hear no evil,” says Jeff White, a Comcast customer who has watched the scuffle. “They don’t even admit there is a problem until it runs on the evening news and city council waves 150 complaints they are getting at the camera — the ones Comcast ignored.”

Macke himself told WJCL-TV, which has covered the dispute with Comcast repeatedly, he was “unaware of the extent of the concerns that our Savannah customers had with us.”

Despite promises to make things right, Alderman Thomas says many complaints are still unresolved.

“We were told that all of those folks had been contacted and that their problems were being worked on. I have since found a few of these people [who] have had no contact whatsoever with Comcast,” Thomas told the TV station.

“Under no circumstances should City Council let the situation with Comcast get pushed under the rug,” one person wrote in the Vox Populi column in the Savannah Morning News. “We the people need help!”

No Help On the Way

Unfortunately for that reader, and other Savannah residents, an attempt by Savannah city officials to attract competing cable service has met with no success and no interest.  Cable operators almost never compete head to head, each respecting the service areas of fellow providers.  Hargray’s interest in Savannah is primarily serving business customers, and the option for municipal service may not be possible much longer if a bill supported by Comcast, SB 313, ever becomes law.

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A compilation of news reports from WJCL, WSAV, and WTOC exploring Comcast’s performance problems in the city of Savannah, Georgia.  (15 minutes)

HissyFitWatch: Damn you FCC!

For the first time in a long time, AT&T did not get what it wanted from Washington regulators and legislators. The repercussions of the company’s failure to secure its controversial merger with Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile USA has been one HissyFit after another, including the resignation-retirement of Forrest Miller, a 30-year veteran who was the company’s head of corporate strategy and mergers and acquisitions. After heads rolled, there was the small matter of the multi-billion dollar “breakup fee” payable to T-Mobile. Now someone has to pay:  You.

At Stop the Cap!, we scrutinize quarterly conference calls at major telecommunications companies so you don’t have to. We’ve sat through renditions of “we’re sorry” when Charter Communications’ executive management allowed the company to be flushed into bankruptcy, we’ve heard the Excuse-o-Matic from Frontier Communications about why their broadband service is woefully overloaded with promises of better days ahead, and a whole lot of creative spin to emphasize cord-cutting-bad-news at the nation’s largest cable companies isn’t really a problem all — it’s the housing market, it’s the ‘seasonal residences’ or ‘college students going home’ problem… or sunspots.  Who really knows?  It’s definitely not that they’re charging too much.

Whether it has been Time Warner Cable’s Glenn Britt, or Verizon’s Ivan Seidenberg, chief executives always project a cool, calm, steady authority that leaves shareholders and financial analysts with an impression the adults are in charge, even if they tell little white lies to keep the stock price up.

And then there is AT&T’s chief executive — Chairman Emperor Randolph Stephenson, who used the occasion of AT&T’s 4th Quarter earning results conference call to become a spectacle that brought the house down.

As we look ahead, the issue that gives me the most concern, quite frankly, isn’t our ability to execute. The #1 issue for us as we move forward, and for the industry, I believe, it continues to be spectrum. This industry continues to see just explosive mobile broadband growth and is providing one of the few bright spots in the U.S. economy, but I think we all understand this growth cannot continue without more spectrum being cleared and brought to market. And despite all the speeches from the FCC, we’re all still waiting.

He didn’t stop there.  In an impromptu rant, Stephenson lectured Washington from afar, excoriating all-concerned for failing to agree with their multi-million dollar propaganda campaign that merging America’s second and fourth largest wireless carriers in a market with just four national providers was good for consumers and would bring wireless nirvana to the heartland and lower prices for all.  Evidently America was not ready to accept the word of AT&T-compensated telecommunications experts at the NAACP, the Special Dream Farm, the Shreveport-Bossier Rescue Mission and cattle ranchers a combination of T-Mobile’s spectrum and AT&T’s would ease the capacity crunch, bring 4G to Beaver, Oklahoma, and stop driving AT&T customers nuts with dropped calls and reception black holes.

How it usually works in Washington.

AT&T would have gotten away with their merger if it weren’t for those darned kids (consumers), the FCC and Justice Department ruining everything.

“The last significant spectrum auction was nearly 5 years ago now. And this FCC has made it abundantly clear that they’ll not allow significant [mergers and acquisitions] to help bridge their delays in freeing up new spectrum,” Stephenson complained. “So in the absence of auctions, our company and others in the industry have taken the logical step of entering into smaller transactions to acquire the spectrum we need to meet this demand. But even here, we need the FCC’s action and leadership, and unfortunately, even the smallest and most routine spectrum deals are receiving intense scrutiny from this FCC, oftentimes taking up to a year and sometimes longer before these are approved.”

Stephenson ignores the fact the FCC has rubber-stamped a number of wireless mergers over the past several years, which is why consumers no longer buy competitive service from Cingular, Alltel, Dobson Communications, Centennial Wireless, West Virginia Wireless, Unicel, Ramcell, or SureWest Wireless.  All of these former competitors are now a part of the nation’s two largest carriers AT&T and Verizon Wireless.  Even more impressively for the man in full denial, the FCC just quickly and quietly approved AT&T’s spectrum transfer purchase from Qualcomm.

“Now I hope I’m wrong, but it appears the FCC is intent on picking winners and losers rather than letting these markets work,” the chief executive said.

In other words, AT&T’s definition of letting markets “work” means letting them write their own laws governing the pesky concepts of antitrust, monopoly/duopoly market power, anti-competitive activity, etc.  AT&T has no problem picking winners and losers in the community-owned broadband front, lobbying its way through state legislatures trying to block new networks from being built, even while slapping usage limits on their own customers’ DSL and U-verse accounts because of “capacity” concerns.

In the wireless marketplace, Charlie Sheen would declare AT&T “winning,” considering it has achieved 1/3rd of the U.S. wireless market.  It wants more of course, even though Trefis, a market research firm, noted that had the FCC granted Stephenson’s wishes for three national carriers, AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Sprint “will control more than 90% of the U.S. wireless market, resulting in lower competition and higher prices for consumers.”

No problem there.

Stephenson also noted a lot of the company’s close friends were on their side (and handsomely compensated along the way we might add):

A lot of recent comments and speeches about certain members of this FCC suggest that they and not Congress should decide how spectrum auctions are conducted, including who can participate and what the conditions should be for participating. Meanwhile, we pile more and more regulatory uncertainty on top of an industry that is a foundation for a lot of today’s innovation*, making it difficult for all of us to allocate and commit capital. And in this industry, we all know capital investment equals jobs*. So the end result of this is we have a industry that is just really stuck in terms of creating real capacity*.

(*- except when community-based, publicly-owned networks are involved. They must be stopped at all costs.)

No matter that AT&T continues to sit on earlier spectrum acquisitions it continues not to use.  It only grudgingly agreed to roaming agreements with the company it preferred to dismantle altogether: T-Mobile.  In earlier, accidental disclosures, it was clear even before the merger and the newly-reticent FCC, AT&T preferred to raise prices, restrict service, and hang onto its profits instead of sufficiently investing them back into its network.  Verizon Wireless has a 4G network, no dropped-call-syndrome, fewer signal black holes, and no apparent spectrum panic attacks.

Part of Sprint's fact sheet opposing the merger deal.

AT&T bit off more than they could chew through, and now faces the humiliating prospect of paying off its gambling debts.  Only now, AT&T has effectively declared they are not going to pay for their costly mistake. Customers are.

Stephenson: Payback time.

The company introduced new, higher prices for its smartphone data plans this month, and intends to continue to increase prices and crack down on data use with speed throttles in 2012 and blame it on the “spectrum crunch”:

“In a capacity-constrained environment, usage-based data plans, increased pricing, managing the speeds of the highest volume users, these are all logical and necessary steps to manage utilization,” Stephenson said.

But AT&T’s chief executive also told shareholders repeatedly those increased prices were key to boosting company revenue and profits:

“We’ll expand wireless and consolidated margins. We’ll achieve mid-single-digit EPS growth or better. Cash generation continues to look very strong again next year. And given the operational momentum we have in the business, all of this appears very achievable and probably at the conservative end of our expectations.”

AT&T’s chief financial officer John J. Stephens put a spotlight on it:

In 2011, 76% of our revenues came from wireless and wireline data and managed services. That’s up from 68% or more than $10 billion from just 2 years ago. And revenues from these areas grew about $7 billion last year or more than 7% for 2011. We’re confident this mix shift will continue. In fact, in 2012 we expect consolidated revenues to continue to grow, thanks to strength in these growth drivers with little expected lift from the economy.

[…] We also continue to bring more subscribers onto our network with tiered data plans, more than 22 million at the end of the quarter, with most choosing the higher-priced plan. As more of our base moves to tiered plans and as data use increases, we expect our compelling [average revenue per subscriber] growth story to continue.

With no progress in sight, stalled contract negotiations between a popular sports cable network and New York’s dominant cable TV company continues to test the patience of customers and sports fans across the state.

Scores of Buffalo-area sports bars have canceled their commercial cable service with Time Warner Cable, generating plenty of business for DirecTV, which still has MSG on the lineup.  Customers across New York have also started to demand a refund of the estimated $4.50 a month Time Warner Cable no longer pays MSG, but still collects from cable subscribers.

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Time Warner Cable and MSG’s dispute is ticking off Buffalo sports fans.  WGRZ visits area sports bars and talks with both sides in the dispute to learn the latest.  (4 minutes)

Now New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is brokering discussions between the two sides, in an effort to restore coverage of the Sabres, Rangers, and Knicks games all displaced from the Time Warner Cable dial.

“We have had constructive discussions with Time Warner and MSG Networks as part of an ongoing effort to facilitate progress in their talks,” said Schneiderman. “We are hopeful that the two parties will come to an agreement in short order.”

Schneiderman

So far, those negotiations seem to be going nowhere, and Time Warner released a statement stating they have not had any further discussions with the network.  The cable company has also hardened its position with respect to refunding customers for the lost networks.  While early attempts to win credit were successful, Time Warner representatives are now refusing to compensate customers for the loss of MSG.  Instead, they are offering a free month of their mini-pay sports programming tier, which must be requested to access.  After the first month, the cable company will bill customers $5.95 a month for the channels.

“That’s no help,” says Stop the Cap! reader Jean, a Sabres fan in Amherst, N.Y.  “Not only don’t we get our $4.50 back, they want to set us up to pay an extra $6 a month after the 30-day trial of their ‘compensation’ is up.”

Many of her friends who live in suburban Buffalo are dumping Time Warner in favor of Verizon FiOS.  Area sports bars are following.  At least a dozen have canceled their commercial service contracts with Time Warner Cable, many switching to satellite provider DirecTV.  Buffalo’s love affair with hockey is so intense, 5,000 people showed up last week at the First Niagara Center stadium to watch the Buffalo Sabres away game on large screen televisions hung above the rink.

Cashing in

Sports bars depend on lucrative sales during major sports events, so being without the Sabres proved unacceptable, a point driven home by MSG itself which continues to host free viewing parties at local establishments.  Buffalo wings were included for free.

Stop the Cap! reader Ruth Grunberg, who lives in Cortland, N.Y., has started a petition to demand the cable company refund subscribers the $4.50 a month effectively paid for channels they no longer receive.

“They recently raised rates 7% for the second time in a year and they no longer are sending this money to MSG,” Grunberg says. “They have no right to keep it and pay their bloated executives even more money. It is fraud and bait and switch to promise one thing and deliver another. They should offer a la carte service to solve a multitude of problems.”

The city of New York apparently agrees and continues efforts to pressure the cable company into compensating subscribers for the network loss.

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WIVB in Buffalo reports area sports bars are canceling Time Warner Cable in droves as its programming dispute with MSG drags on with no end in sight.  (2 minutes)