(Image courtesy: FCC.com)

Comcast is getting into the wireless mobile business.

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts made the surprise announcement at this morning’s Goldman Sachs Communacopia investor conference, telling attendees Comcast will offer service beginning in mid-2017.

Roberts added the service will depend heavily on Comcast’s installed base of 15 million Wi-Fi hotspots, mostly from cable modem/gateways already installed in customer homes. When away from a hotspot, Comcast’s cellular service will depend on Verizon Wireless.

The deal with Verizon Wireless was expected, because Comcast has maintained an agreement with Verizon since 2011 that allows both companies to sell each other’s services to consumers. The agreement allows Comcast to obtain service from Verizon Wireless at fixed wholesale prices.

That means Comcast can introduce its wireless service without having to build wireless infrastructure like cell towers.

“We believe there will be a big payback with reduced churn, more [customer] stickiness and better satisfaction,” Roberts said.

Comcast will continue the cable industry’s tradition of not directly competing with other cable operators and will not accept customers outside of an existing Comcast service area. Comcast will likely offer the service in a bundle with other services. This will result in a quad-play package for Comcast, bundling cable TV, internet, phone, and cellular service.

Roberts did not talk about pricing.

The country’s largest cable industry lobbying group has decided to drop the word “cable” from its name, rebranding itself NCTA – The Internet & Television Association.

It is the fifth name for the cable industry’s trade association since its inception in 1951 as the National Community Television Council. The name change was introduced by its president and CEO Michael Powell, a former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Since 2001, when the group was rebranded the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, the NCTA has gradually shifted its emphasis away from television and towards the internet.

“Modernising our brand injects a new sense of excitement into our effort to represent an industry that is America’s largest and fastest home internet provider and the creator of the world’s best television content,” Powell said.

The group is expected to continue to spend heavily on lobbying Congress to take the industry view on matters regarding television and broadband.

History of the NCTA

• 1951: National Community Television Council was formed in September 1951, after a handful of community antenna (CATV) operators met at a hotel in Pottsville, Pa.;
• 1952: The group rechristened itself the National Community Television Association in January 1952;
• 1968: As “CATV” became less popular than simply calling it cable television, the NCTA again renamed itself as the National Cable Television Association;
• 2001: As internet access began to play a prominent role for cable operators, the NCTA again rebranded, this like as the National Cable & Telecommunications Association;
• 2016: With broadband now offering the greatest percentage of cable industry profits, the group dropped “cable” from its name, now calling itself NCTA – The Internet & Television Association.

Charter channels Don Rumsfeld

A Charter Communications executive told a western Massachusetts cable advisory board he had no idea how much Charter’s set-top boxes cost the company.

The question was just one of many asked by concerned public officials and residents worried cable bills could skyrocket as much as 50 percent after Charter takes over for Time Warner Cable early next year in the region.

Charter will require all cable television subscribers to rent a set-top converter for each connected television that will cost $6.99 a month each after a two-year grace period. The Five-Town Cable Advisory Committee that represents the interests of residents of Great Barrington, Lee, Lenox, Sheffield, and Stockbridge, Mass., call that illegal, claiming it violates a 10-year agreement signed in 2013 with Time Warner Cable and transferred to Charter in 2015.

Charter promised officials there would be no changes after taking over Time Warner Cable’s 10-year contract, but officials and some residents are now pushing back against the cable operator after learning customers paying $14 a month for 20-channel basic service will now have to pay at least $21 — a 50% rate hike — to keep cable service after Charter Spectrum arrives.

The Berkshire Eagle covered an open meeting held last night at the Great Barrington Firehouse, where residents and officials wondered why they could only lease a cable box from Charter, and asked the company to share how much the set-top box actually costs the company.

Charter representative Tom Cohan and his lawyer responded they did not know the cost of the equipment and added Charter’s upgrade, which will digitally encrypt all cable television channels, would have happened with Time Warner Cable as well.

Cohan also declared that since Charter views the encrypting of cable channels as “an upgrade,” that means they are not in violation of the agreement with the towns, and they have no say in the matter anyway.

“As the cable operator, we have authority over what technology we use,” said Cohan.

Town officials pointed out there has not been a case of prosecutable cable theft over the last five years, making encryption unnecessary.

“It’s not proper to make us pay for something we don’t need and don’t want,” said Linda Miller, the committee’s chairwoman. “We don’t want to file a lawsuit, but we will if we have to.”

Some Verizon Wireless customers are reporting data usage numbers spiked on their bills to unprecedented levels this summer, giving the cellular company’s bean counters a heaping helping of overlimit fees, charged when customers exceed their data allowance.

The phantom usage problem has become noticeable enough to win attention from the consumer reporter at Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer, who found her own family of four suddenly blowing past their shared 15GB a month, resulting in a $30 overlimit fee.

“My family’s data usage has mysteriously increased significantly every month since February, except for one month,” wrote Teresa Dixon Murray. “My family of four pays for 15GB a month. We’re grandfathered in the old More Everything family share plan. We typically were using no more than 10GB a month. But for the last six months, that has increased steadily — and inexplicably. 8.2. Then 9.7. Then 10.6. Then 12.7. Two months ago, we got alerts that we were nearing our allotment and managed to take care to avoid going over. Last month, despite our efforts, we went over by 1.057GB, and were charged an extra $30.”

Murray questioned why her family’s phones were burning through their data allowance in the middle of the night, while connected to the family’s home Wi-Fi.

A Verizon representative explained phones may be connecting to Verizon’s network because of a new feature installed on some phones, including the Apple iPhone, called “Wi-Fi Assist.” This feature, which could also be called “Verizon Profit Assist” automatically ignores the fact you are connected to Wi-Fi and switches back to the Verizon Wireless network if the phone determines your Wi-Fi connection is “poor.”

“So what’s the definition of poor? I guess Verizon and our iPhones decide that,” Murray questioned.

This feature can be switched off from your phone settings.

They are coming.

But that hasn’t always stopped the overlimit fees. Some customers report they still incur overlimit fees even after switching cellular data off when they reach a warning from Verizon they are about to exhaust their allowance. Verizon charges $10 in overlimit fees, even in instances where the offending extra usage amounts to .0001GB.

Verizon claims its usage meter only provides an estimate of usage, and there are instances where the warning comes too late for a customer to stop using data before they’ve already exceeded their plan allowance. Verizon’s solution is to sell a $5/month “family coverage” add-on that allows parents to monitor data usage before it gets out of hand. But Verizon doesn’t guarantee it will stop overlimit fees based on the measurements of usage it provides.

That add-on plan may or may not have helped Valarie Gerbus, who is now facing a $9,100 Verizon cell phone bill she is adamantly refusing to pay.

The suburban Tampa customer regularly paid $118/month for her cell phone plan, which included 4GB of data usage — an amount she never exceeded, at least until July. Gerbus was shocked to open her bill and discover her normal monthly bill now also included $8,535 in overlimit fees for using 569GB of data in a single month:

(Image: The Plain Dealer)

On July 21, Verizon sent her a text, notifying her that she had used nearly all of her 4 gigabytes of data. The text said she could get 4 more gigabytes for $20. Realizing that she had two weeks before the end of the month, Gerbus bought the additional data.

Within an hour of the purchase, she received another text that told her she only had 10 percent left on the data that she had just purchased. The next text message she received said she could change her plan to 8 gigabytes for an additional $20 a month. She said she bought that upgrade to ensure she didn’t have any data overages.

In a span of several hours, she estimates that she received 40 to 50 texts saying that she needed to purchase more data. She turned the notification off, believing that there had been a glitch in Verizon’s system.

Gerbus said she realizes now that she should have contacted the company at that point, but she didn’t, as she feared being placed on hold by a customer service representative.

She later went to work and planned on paying the bill online. When she found her online statement, it said she owed $6,480 for using 490 gigabytes of data. She was shocked.

“I told them that I won’t pay the bill,” Gerbus told the newspaper. “I can either wait until they take it to a collection agency or when they take it to court. Either way, my credit history will be ruined. I can go bankrupt here.”

Verizon said they are not aware of any widespread problem, but is looking into phantom phone usage at night and some of the more extreme examples of bill shock, where bills extend into the thousands of dollars.

Affected customers report the high bills are, in some cases, tearing families apart.

“It got to the point that we were battling in our family,” reported Lockport, N.Y. resident Tom Walker, who told the newspaper their data usage soared for no apparent reason. “We were really asking each other, ‘Have you been on Facebook too much? What have you been doing?’ We were trying to figure out who was using all this data.”

Gerbus is almost thankful to pay Verizon Wireless a nearly $600 fee to exit her contract early as she switches to T-Mobile. Verizon’s engineers have no explanation for Gerbus’ bill, other than noting her phone contacted Amazon.com at least 400 times over a few days.

Providers with usage caps and usage-based pricing often consider their usage meters more reliable than their own customers, and when customers complain, many representatives trust the meter and insist on payment. When a customer like Gerbus complains about usage that is considerably above average usage, customer service representative are not always receptive.

“I told them that there was no way that I could have gone from 490 to 560 in a day,” Gerbus said. “The [Verizon] person said, ‘Yes there is.'”

Walmart is recommending customers consider cutting off cable television for good with a step-by-step guide advocating an end to high-priced bills for hundreds of channels you’ll never watch:

When you sign up for cable, you are sold on the possibly hundreds of channels you will have access to, but how many do you actually watch? Most people find that they have, at most, a couple dozen channels that carry all of their favorite shows, while the rest are just filler. Unfortunately, whether you watch them or not, you’re still paying for all of those extra channels. Part of the tremendous savings (an average of $80 a month) in cutting the cord is moving to services that offer a smaller set of channels representing only what you want to watch. Not only do you just have the channels that you actually want, but streaming services are far more convenient, since they’re geared towards on-demand delivery of content. You watch what you want when you want. Most are month-to-month, meaning you can switch it up anytime rather than being stuck in a long-term contract.

The guide gives Walmart the obvious opportunity of selling customers on new televisions and equipment to enhance their streaming experience, and they don’t forget to mention how to hook up an antenna they just happen to sell to get local stations back on your cable-less television.

Walmart also uses its “cord-cutting” guide to upsell customers on VUDU, an often-forgotten pay-per-view streaming service Walmart just happens to own.