Billboards sprinkled across Ft. Wayne, Ind., telling residents, “Frontier is pulling the plug on FiOS — Switch to Xfinity,” has infuriated Frontier Communications, who says it will continue to provide FiOS service in the area, at least for broadband, indefinitely.  Now the independent phone company has sent a “cease and desist” letter to Comcast officials demanding the billboards come down.

Frontier spokesman Matt Kelley accused Comcast of spreading false rumors in an effort to drum up business.

“Frontier is not planning on pulling the plug,” Kelly told WANE-TV. “We are going to continue providing FiOS service in Allen County and we have no plans to remove it.”

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WANE Ft Wayne FiOS Not Going Away 6-9-11.mp4[/flv]

WANE-TV in Ft. Wayne led its newscast with the dispute between Frontier Communications and Comcast over fiber optic television.  Is the plug really being pulled? (Loud Volume Alert!) (3 minutes)

But Comcast officials note Frontier has been pushing existing customers hard to switch to satellite television service, and Frontier earlier announced dramatic rate increases for its fiber cable television service — rates much higher than other competitors.

Comcast issued a statement about the dispute:

“Comcast continues to invest in these markets, while Frontier has taken a number of steps to discourage new customers from signing up for its service and encourage current customers to seek alternative services from satellite. We are using these ads to make consumers aware of our Xfinity TV service as a better choice for consumers.”

HissyFitWatch: Oooh... Comcast!

From our own Stop the Cap! investigation, both companies are partly correct.

We called Frontier this afternoon posing as a new FiOS customer in Ft. Wayne trying to sign up for television service.  The only option available, we were told, was satellite television service.  While Frontier was happy to sign us up for telephone and fiber broadband, the company representative told us she could not take our order for FiOS TV because, “it’s not available in your area.”

But Comcast’s claims about FiOS lack the very important detail that FiOS broadband and phone service will be offered by Frontier without any interruption — only television service appears to be at issue, and remains available to current customers.

We heard from several Ft. Wayne customers who are unhappy with Frontier’s handling of FiOS.

“While Comcast is being clever, the fact is Frontier wants TV customers to switch to satellite, which is simply a stupid idea,” says our reader Kevin.  “Why would I want a satellite dish when I have fiber.”

Lee, another Frontier customer, believes the company broke its promise of no rate increases after buying out Verizon’s local operations.

“They promptly raised the TV rate by around $30, and if you are a new FiOS customer, expect to pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars for installation,” he says.

Last week, Frontier’s deadline for Comcast to pull down the billboards passed, but as of today those billboards are still on full display.  Comcast’s response to Frontier?

“We received their letter.”

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WANE Ft Wayne Deadline day for billboard back-and-forth 6-17-11.mp4[/flv]

WANE-TV in Ft. Wayne updates viewers.  Frontier’s unilateral deadline for Comcast to pull down their billboards came and went.  The billboards are still there.  Now what? (2 minutes)

Phillip Dampier

This week, the tech community has been buzzing over new entrants in the world of cloud computing.  Apple’s iCloud in particular has sparked enormous media coverage as the company plans to encourage customers to access all of their favorite content over their broadband connection.  Apple is also moving towards online distribution of many of its software products, including the forthcoming OS X Lion operating system, suggesting consumers can pass up traditional physical media like CD-ROMs or DVDs.

Cloud storage theoretically allows you to store your entire music, video and photo collection online for easy access from any device.  Watching the 20-somethings buzz about 100GB+ secure file lockers and the end of traditional file storage as we know it has been amusing, but these people need to get their heads out of the clouds.  Unless they become politically involved in America’s broadband debate, it is not going to happen the way they hope it will.

Tech entrepreneur?  Meet broadband provider reality check: the Internet Overcharging usage cap and “excessive use” pricing scheme.

While Steve Jobs was introducing iCloud, broadband providers and their industry friends have been ruminating over the impact all of this new traffic will have on their broadband networks.  In an homage to former AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre’s “you can’t use my pipes for free,” the drumbeat for implementing “control measures” for cloud computing and video traffic has been amplified several times over by certain providers, Wall Street analysts, and their trade press and equipment supplier lackeys.

One alarmed provider pondered the impact of iCloud in terms of their past experience with iTunes, which also spiked traffic when it was first released.  Others balk at the notion of consumers using broadband platforms to move entire libraries of content back and forth, especially on wireless networks.  The only sigh of relief detected?  Apple won’t start iCloud with video content — just music, at least at first.

The enemies list

The biggest targets — the companies that get a lot of pushback from providers for using “their networks” to earn millions for themselves are Google, Netflix, Amazon and Apple.  Each of them are rapidly moving into the online entertainment business, threatening to provoke more cable TV cord-cutting.  Netflix is now responsible for 30 percent of online traffic during primetime hours, a fact that some use as an accusation — as if Netflix should be held to account for its own success. Amazon has opened its own cloud based music storage and is also increasingly getting into online video content streaming.  Apple has a novel approach at handling its forthcoming iCloud music feature which should save hours in uploading, but the company is also moving towards online distribution of a growing proportion of its software, including the huge bug fixes and upgrades that will easily exceed a gigabyte if you own several Apple products.

Google is a frequent Washington target and honestly delivers the only truly effective corporate pushback to anti-consumer broadband pricing some providers have contemplated.  In fact, Google is putting its money where its mouth is building a gigabit network larger providers repeatedly scoff at as unnecessary, too costly, and too complicated.

While millions in venture capital funds new online innovations, only a miniscule amount of money is being spent to counter the lobbying major providers are doing in Washington to redefine the broadband revolution in their terms, complete with usage pricing that bears no relation to cost, arbitrary usage limits, and ongoing lack of true competition.

Online innovation is grand, but allowing providers to strangle it with Internet Overcharging schemes guarantees to end the party real fast.

Individually, none of the new cloud services are likely to blow out usage caps in excess of 100GB, but in combination they certainly could.  Anyone using online file backup, cloud storage of video and large music collections, uses Netflix or other online streaming services, and spends lots of time on the web will easily approach the limits some providers have established.  That doesn’t even include large software updates.  Unless you have an unlimited usage plan on the wireless side, don’t even think about using most of these services with AT&T’s 2GB monthly wireless usage cap.

Glenn Britt: The Internet is a utility which is why we can keep raising the price.

In the handful of countries with ubiquitous Internet Overcharging, little of this will pose a problem — companies won’t launch cloud computing services in markets where usage caps will effectively keep customers from using them.

That is why it is critical for some of America’s largest technology companies to get on board the fight against Internet Overcharging, and demand Washington recognize broadband as a utility service that should be wide open and usage cap free.  The evidence is right in front of you.  Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt recognizes the fact broadband is an essential part of our lives today, which is why he is confident enough to keep raising the price and charging even more in the future.  It’s not about “network congestion,” “building the next generation of broadband,” or “pricing fairness.”  Stop the Cap! started at ground zero for Time Warner Cable’s 2009 version of “pricing fairness” — $150 a month for an unlimited use broadband account that likely cost major providers less than $10 a month to provide.  It’s about pure, naked profiteering, unchecked by free market competition in today’s broadband duopoly.

Unless a company like Google can vastly expand its own broadband rollouts, it is increasingly apparent to me (and many others), we may have to move towards an entirely different model for broadband in the United States — one built on the premise of the Interstate Highway System.  One advanced, publicly-owned fiber network open to all providers on which telecommunications services can travel to homes and businesses from coast to coast.

Nobody says private companies shouldn’t be able to compete, but every day more evidence arrives they will never be inclined to deliver the next generation of service that other countries around the world are starting to take for granted.  They will instead protect their current business models at all costs, even if that means throwing America’s broadband innovation revolution under the bus.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CNN Will iCloud Measure Up 6-7-11.flv[/flv]

CNN takes a look at what makes Apple’s iCloud service different from competitors from Google and Amazon.  (5 minutes)

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CNN Dropbox Cloud Computing 6-8-11.flv[/flv]

CNN talks with the folks at Dropbox about their cloud file storage system.  (3 minutes)

HissyFitWatch: When contract negotiations with the local cable company get a little too heated for comfort.

The city of Troy, N.Y. has lived with an expired franchise agreement with local cable company Time Warner Cable for more than a decade.  After a shouting match erupted between a city councilman and a city economic development coordinator over its renewal, now we know why.

City officials managed to complete a tentative renewal with the cable company back in March, subject to city council review.  The agreement comes even as Verizon’s FiOS fiber to the home network threatens to provide the cable company with some competition in the region.

As part of the renewal, Time Warner has agreed to provide $80,000 to fund a Digital Technology Lab at the Arts Center of the Capital Region. It will also front $70,000 to help construct a studio for a new government channel that will deliver coverage of city council meetings, which could draw some high ratings if tensions always run this high.

Troy also gets the right to collect the maximum franchise fee allowed by law and receives a $200,000 settlement to cover alleged franchise violations that occurred under the old agreement.

One of Time Warner Cable’s biggest skeptics on the city council is Councilman Bill Dunne, (D-District 4).  He’s heard complaints about Time Warner’s prices and service from his constituents for some time, and told The Record he is “cautiously optimistic” about the potential deal, but stressed it will not be approved by the council until it is thoroughly reviewed.

Dunne suspects the cable company has made a fortune off Troy residents for years, and he wants to closely examine how well the cable company has done in upstate New York before handing them a lengthy contract extension.

Troy, New York

“I would like to see an independent auditor open up the books on Time Warner Cable … to see exactly where the money is going and how much money is being made [from Troy cable subscribers],” he told the Troy newspaper.

Some residents suspect whatever Time Warner Cable “gives” the city as a result of contract negotiations will be quickly made back in future rate increases.

“These negotiations are a sham because Time Warner Cable is negotiating with our money,” Troy resident Bill Thompson tells Stop the Cap! “If they give the city $500,000, they’ll just raise our rates to get that money back.”

Thompson says he applauds Dunne’s skepticism, and believes bringing in competition from Verizon is the only way to keep prices in check.

Christopher, during happier times.

Dunne’s ongoing concerns about Time Warner caused a fracas during last Thursday’s city council meeting, when Dunne won approval to take the Time Warner Cable franchise renewal off the table.  In its place, Dunne’s new substitute resolution forming a working group to study the proposed franchise renewal and more importantly, perform an audit of Time Warner Cable and their supporting documents.

That decision infuriated Economic Development Coordinator Vic Christopher, who had been working with Time Warner Cable and the mayor’s office to push for a speedy approval of what he felt was a well-reviewed franchise renewal agreement. When Christopher objected to the study group, and delaying the agreement in general, Councilman Ken Zalewski (D-District 6) suggested he and the mayor’s office were representing the cable company more than city residents.

That did it.

As the meeting ended, a shouting match ensued between an offended Christopher, Zalewski, and Dunne. Christopher called the city council “obstructionists” and then followed up on his Twitter account accusing the council of talking everything to death. Dunne suggested Christopher should run for office if he didn’t like the way the council represented the interests of Troy residents.

“Christopher’s petulance was an amazing spectacle to watch, especially considering nobody was directly attacking him,” Thompson says.  “He took it as a personal attack and responded in kind, and it only reinforced the notion the mayor’s office was in a hurry to get this agreement signed.”

[flv width=”480″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/The Record Spat in Troy Over TWC 4-22-11.mp4[/flv]

The hissyfit over a Time Warner Cable franchise agreement extension was caught on a cell phone camera, and the resulting video was promptly published online by The Record, Troy’s local newspaper. (1 minute)

TWC Franchise Agmt

Gov. Scott Walker’s administration in Wisconsin is under fire today for being allegedly caught blocking access to a website popular with protesters fighting the governor’s position on public unions.

Democratic party officials said that the website, www.defendwisconsin.org, run by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Teacher Assistants, was accessible after its launch last week until at least Friday.

But by Monday, the website organizers discovered the site was blocked for those using the state’s free Wi-Fi network available inside the Capitol building.  The website is used to coordinate protest actions and keep volunteers informed about the pushback campaign against the Walker Administration.

Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate says that the site was put on a blacklist typically used to filter out pornography sites so that protesters inside the Capitol could not access the site.

Former Wisconsin Assistant Attorney General Charles Hoornstra said that, if Walker is blocking the website, it could be a violation of state and federal laws concerning free speech laws.

This isn’t the first time the state government has been accused of cutting off Internet access.  The Teaching Assistants Association earlier accused state authorities of cutting off Wi-Fi access to a room they had taken over as a headquarters inside of the Capitol.

Some of the activists in Madison used the occasion to draw comparisons with Internet shutdowns in Egypt and Libya. CNN picked up the story, taking it nationwide, and Sachin Chheda, a Democratic activist and former IT employee at the Capitol, said someone inside the government would have to consciously add the website to a blacklist for the software to block access.

The Walker Administration offered its own explanation of the blocked website, claiming the state’s software initially allows access to all websites until it is updated, then blocks sites until they are manually reviewed.

Department of Administration spokeswoman Carla Vigue said, “DOA’s security software automatically blocked the site, as it does all new websites.”

“No one here at DOA decided to block it or took action to do so,” he said. “The website is handled like any other website.”

Activists at the state Capitol tested Vigue’s explanation today, visiting newly registered domains with new websites, and had no trouble accessing any of them.

“The state got caught censoring and now they are making up stories to distract and deflect,” Paul Jeson tells Stop the Cap! “Since when does net nanny software require the manual review of every website in the world to unblock access — the whole point of the software is to arrive with a blacklist filter pre-installed and programming that checks content in real-time looking for triggers.”

Jeson says unless a protester exposed themselves in a photo republished on the site, there is no reason it should have been blocked.

“I doubt Gov. Walker himself ordered the block, but some of his associates treat the 1st Amendment as something worthy of defending only when it protects their point of view,” Jeson opines.  “Imagine what would happen if the Capitol Wi-Fi blocked Fox News or one of several anti-union, pro-Walker websites that popped up at the same time defendwisconsin.org was launched; I am not surprised none of those sites favorable to the governor’s position have complained about similar blocks.”

The governor’s office late in the day tried to change the subject.

“The Democratic Party should spend less time lying about Gov. Walker, and more time trying to get their AWOL State Senators back to Wisconsin,” said a statement released by the governor’s office.

CNN covered this statement from the Wisconsin Democratic Party on a poor telephone line. (1 minute)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.

British billionaire Alki David thinks Viacom, owner of CBS, is “an irresponsible hypocrite.”

After being dragged into court in New York and finding himself with an injunction, the founder of FilmOn is looking for revenge.