Time Warner Cable offered $14.99 internet access to anyone. Charter isn’t.

Charter Communications can stop accepting new customers in New York State for Time Warner Cable’s legacy “Everyday Low Price” internet service, offering basic internet service for $14.99 a month without a contract or income qualification.

Under the terms of the New York Public Service Commission’s Merger Order, Spectrum was required to continue offering Time Warner Cable’s affordable internet service for at least two years after the close of the merger to any customer in the state that wanted it. New York was the only state in the country that put meaningful deal conditions on the Charter-Time Warner Cable-Bright House merger, requiring the country’s second largest cable operator to share pro-consumer benefits with its customers in the state.

The second anniversary of the merger occurred on May 18, 2018, which means Spectrum is no longer required to enroll new customers in the Everyday Low Price (ELP) plan. Existing ELP customers can keep the plan until at least May 17, 2019, as long as they do not make changes to their account that would result in their enrollment being canceled. Once canceled, customers cannot get the legacy plan back. At about the same time next year, Charter can also compel its New York customers to abandon existing Time Warner Cable plan(s), in favor of Spectrum plans and pricing, should the company wish to do so.

Three years after Hillboro’s city council accepted the recommendation of a consultant that warned the city away from running its own residential fiber network, local officials have changed their mind and plan to extend the city’s institutional fiber network to homes and businesses, offering affordable $10 a month internet access, as well as gigabit speed for $50 a month.

The Oregonian reports Hillsboro Mayor Steve Calloway wants to move fiber back on the agenda because recent experiences in other western cities with public broadband networks found a much higher buy-in by local residents, with up to 50% willing to ditch Comcast, CenturyLink, Frontier and other providers in favor of fiber to the home service. A recent “conservative” estimate expected 36% of Hillsboro residents would sign up if given the chance. Ongoing complaints about poor customer service from Frontier Communications, the area’s phone company, only increased support for the public broadband initiative.

In 2015, a consultant hired to study the feasibility of offering public broadband in Hillsboro, the fifth largest city in Oregon, recommended against it, which caused the city council to shelve the project. Uptown Services said Hillsboro would have to spend around $66 million for what it felt would be a “marginally viable” fiber to the home network expected to grab only a 28% share of a market dominated by Comcast.

Despite the cost, more than 77% of respondents to a phone survey held at the time were interested in switching to the city’s municipal fiber network, if it was priced at least 10% less than the competition. Hillsboro’s fiber aspirations face significant cost challenges other communities don’t, because 80% of buildings in Hillsboro are served by buried cables, which cost much more to install over aerial cable strung between utility poles.

Hillsboro is a rapidly growing community, with plans to develop 8,000 new homes in South Hillsboro that could eventually house 20,000 people. The new housing construction offers a unique and affordable opportunity to place underground fiber optic cables in the same trenches already dug for electrical, cable, and telephone service.

The city plans to start the project by running fiber into lower-income areas of the Southwest Hillsboro/Shute Par area, to offer affordable access to residents for as little as $10 a month. More affluent customers will be able to select gigabit service for $50 a month — cheaper than what Comcast and Frontier offer.

To keep the impact on the city budget reasonable, Hillsboro city council is being asked to allocate $4 million annually for fiber rollouts starting in 2019, with an equal amount each year through 2024. City engineers estimate it will take a decade to completely wire the community of 92,000, located just west of Portland.

Existing Verizon DSL customers in some states are discovering the company is defining “usage” allowances on its two DSL packages. (Image courtesy: Smith6612)

Is Verizon slapping the caps on its DSL customers in the northeast?

A handful of New York and New Jersey Verizon customers were surprised to find Verizon suddenly defining usage limits on their DSL service on its website dashboard for existing customers:

• High Speed Internet: Up to .5 – 1 Mbps — 150 GB Usage
• High Speed Internet Enhanced: Up to 3.1 – 7 Mbps — 250 GB Usage

The sudden appearance of data allowances confused some customers, because the only references to them appear on pages for existing customers seeking to change or upgrade their current DSL package, and only in certain sections of upstate New York and New Jersey.

Careful scrutiny of Verizon’s terms and conditions make no reference to the new data caps, although the company declares customers are responsible for all usage charges. There is also no mention of the caps on Verizon’s sales pages for prospective customers, and phone reps didn’t know anything about them either.

Verizon has not indicated what might happen if a customer exceeds that cap or where the caps are being enforced, if anywhere.

We reached out to different Verizon press contacts twice this week to get confirmation and have heard nothing back.

If you are a Verizon DSL customer, do us a favor and let us know in the comment section what you see when you review options to change your DSL service.

Update 7:18pm EDT: Verizon did get back in touch with us after we went to press in response to several questions.

Here is our Q & A with Verizon’s Ray McConville, corporate media relations representative for New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and FiOS:

Q. Is Verizon setting data allowances on their DSL service plans?

No. We have been conducting a usage billing trial to a very small set of customers in Virginia where we would measure their data use and display it in their billing. While these customers were given the 250 GB and 150 GB allowances you showed in those screen shots, we’ve never billed customers who exceed those allowances and have no plans to do so. The purpose of the trial was more the idea of accurately collecting and displaying usage in billing.

Q. If a customer exceeds that allowance, what happens?

Nothing. Again, we don’t do data caps. We have the small Virginia trial of displaying usage in billing, but it’s still not a cap, and customers aren’t billed for exceeding the 150 or 250 GB numbers.

Q. Is this a new policy?

No. It’s not a policy – we don’t have data caps or overage charges.

Q. In what states or service areas, if any, is this data allowance policy in effect?

Just the small Virginia trial, and customers are not charged for going over the “allowance.”

Q. If that is the case, why are customers in New York and New Jersey seeing the usage allowances?

It’s a likely system error; they should not have seen that. Only customers in the very limited part of Virginia where we have the trial should see such a thing.

Q. What is the status of the trial in Virginia?

Trial is ongoing – not aware of any end point.

Some Spectrum customers are getting nasty surprises in their latest cable bills.

For some customers, it has been one year or more since Spectrum introduced new plans and pricing for former Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable customers and one year since the company implemented all-digital cable television upgrades that require customers to place equipment on every television wired for cable in the home.

Many customers received “free” equipment as part of the digital upgrades, but may have forgotten that promotion only lasted one year. That is also the length of Spectrum’s various ‘new customer’ and ‘retention’ promotions. When the year is up, your bill goes up — sometimes dramatically.

In Cleveland, Ohio some customers are finding bills increasing $18-30 a month or more, sometimes increasing more than once as rate promotions and free set-top equipment deals end at different times in the year.

It is not unusual to find customers paying $180-225 or more a month for Spectrum’s “triple play” package of television, phone, and internet service, after promotions end. A significant percentage of customers still holding legacy Time Warner Cable and Bright House plans are finding those packages increasing in price as well. In comparison, new customers with a triple play package generally pay between $100-120 a month, depending on equipment.

Some of the rate changes Spectrum imposed over the last 12 months include:

• Equipment rate increases (usually around $1.00 a month per box)
• New “Secure Connection Fee”: $1.00/mo per box – Spectrum claims this fee covers “those measures Spectrum employs to manage and secure the connection between Spectrum’s system and the Spectrum receiver and other devices Subscriber uses to access Spectrum’s services.”
• Broadcast TV Surcharge rate increases
• Internet service rate increases

Although Spectrum has reportedly become more amenable to offering retention deals to customers threatening to leave, the best deals are still for new customers. Some have dropped Spectrum service and signed up again under the name of another household member to secure a better deal. Others will have to wait 30 days after ending service before one is qualified for a new customer deal once again.

WKYC in Cleveland reports some Spectrum customers are upset about sudden bill changes. (2:34)

The Senate approved a resolution on a largely party line vote Wednesday that sends a symbolic message to the FCC it erred when it voted to repeal net neutrality.

The final vote pitted all 49 Democrats against all but three Senate Republicans to condemn the FCC’s decision to rollback the rules, scheduled to take effect in June. The three Republicans that joined the Democrats in favor of preserving net neutrality were Susan Collins from Maine, Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, and John Kennedy from Louisiana — the latter two a surprise.

“Today is a monumental day,” said Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) during debate over the resolution. “Today we show the American people who sides with them, and who sides with the powerful special interests and corporate donors who are thriving under this administration.”

The measure faces a much tougher fight in the Republican-dominated House, where it may have trouble even coming up for a vote.

Using the Congressional Review Act, a law that permits Congress to revisit — and reject — decisions by federal agencies within 60 “session days” of their approval, Democrats drew a clear line in favor of net neutrality, which may become an issue in the midterm elections if the Republican-controlled House refuses to bring the measure up for a vote. If the measure passes the House, it will require the signature of President Trump to take effect. That may be unlikely, considering the president once claimed net neutrality was a plot by the Obama Administration to gain control of the internet.

Kennedy explained his vote in favor of net neutrality as an issue of trust.

“You either trust your cable company or you don’t,” Kennedy explained. “If you trust your cable company, you won’t like my vote. Under the 2017 order, a cable company can censor, throttle, or employ fast lanes so long as it discloses. The response from the other side of that is, well, just switch cable companies. But 22% of Louisianans and 19% of all Americans have access to only one internet service provider that can provide the minimum FCC mandated speed. So what are they going to do?”

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai reiterated his belief net neutrality protections were not needed and would deter investment by cable and telephone companies in their networks, a claim hotly disputed by consumer groups that point to evidence investment rose even after net neutrality took effect.

The issue of keeping the internet free and open remains bipartisan, with wide percentages of Republicans and Democrats in favor of net neutrality. That may put Senate Republicans who voted against the measure and are up for re-election on the hot seat this fall.

NPR:

This issue doesn’t cut along clean party lines, said Steven Kull, who runs the Program for Public Consultation at the University of Maryland and has studied public attitudes on net neutrality. The program’s research has found that majorities of Americans support government-mandated net neutrality protections.

“People are on the Internet a lot and it’s a big part of their daily experience and the prospect that it will be changed in some fundamental way is disturbing to quite a lot of them,” Kull said.

Fear is a great motivator for voters. Senate Democrats believe their resolution that put every Democrat on record in support of net neutrality — and most Republicans on record against it — can turn what was once considered a wonk issue, into a wedge issue this November. “People underestimate the passion of Internet voters, at their peril. They are mad, and they want to know what they can do, and this vote will make things crystal clear,” he said.