Customers of Lithuania’s Teo are getting a free speed upgrade — from 500Mbps before to 600Mbps now — on the company’s fiber to the home network. They are also paying less than half the price of what you pay for 15Mbps.

“Internet bandwidth is constantly increasing and high-speed becomes a market norm,” said Teo’s Nerijus Ivanauskas. “Therefore, we see that the added value that customers receive from purchasing a basic service becomes an increasingly important factor when choosing a service provider.”

Lithuanians have several choices for broadband service and price competition has kept broadband speeds faster than what North Americans typically receive, at a fraction of the price. Fiber to the home service is increasingly common in populated areas and is very affordable. Budget-minded customers happy with 100/100Mbps Internet access can get it from Teo for less than $13.50 a month.

Teo’s fiber network passes 837,000 households as of the first quarter of this year. That represents almost 70% of Lithuania. Lithuania was already well ahead of the United States and Canada, with an average broadband speed of 45.11Mbps — 4th place in the European Union and 9th fastest country in the world. Teo also leads the world in fast Wi-Fi. More than 3,000 Teo hotspots serve up speeds averaging 15.4Mbps to every connected client.

As broadband speeds continue to soar in Lithuania, Internet Service Providers have been forced to offer extras to customers to compete. Teo offers 300GB of free cloud storage space, free anti-virus protection, and special parental controls to help protect children from adult content.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Teo Internet Speed Lithuania 6-2015.mp4[/flv]

A Teo advertisement showing off its fiber broadband speeds, ubiquitous free Wi-Fi network, anti-virus and child protection features. (0:45)

Ranger

While fast-forwarding through the 5,000th time I’ve briefly endured the mangling of Blondie’s “Rapture,” in those 2015 Acura RDX ads, I concluded two things:

• I will never buy an Acura RDX, if only to deliver the message that grating ads first thing in the morning will not win you any sale from me;
• I have not watched a commercial (on purpose) since 2011.

Ironically, the young woman behind the wheel of the aforementioned Acura is none other than Chelsea Ranger, who became a YouTube sensation after her husband recorded his wife rapping in the car to Salt-n-Pepa’s “None of Your Business,” itself an irony. Ranger’s singing was viewed by 17 million people watching a recorded YouTube video instead of cable television. Like popcorn, nobody quits after just one. YouTube is a confirmed time wormhole, where hours can disappear in what seemed like just a few minutes. This phenomena can also be experienced with Netflix, Amazon, or a myriad of other multimedia websites where on-demand entertainment is always on. How can it be 2am already? Darn, it’s too late to watch Anthony Bourdain and 18 minutes of ads on CNN now.

Advertisers wondering how many viewers actually spend time watching their commercials are right to be worried. Some have tried to cover their bases by spreading ad budgets around to include online video advertising. But when the online ads become meddlesome (Hulu, anyone?), here comes ad blocking software. No more Geico ads on YouTube, but the experience is less fulfilling watching a blank screen for a few minutes on certain other services. You might actually have to talk to the person sitting next to you.

What cannot be found online can be recorded with a DVR, if only to build up enough buffered video to blow right past those ad breaks. Others collect entire seasons of favorite shows, reserved for binge viewing later. All of this after-the-fact viewing is conditioning you (like a gateway drug) for a future life without linear/live television. You started just to be rid of the advertising, but now you seriously toy with getting rid of cable TV if you can find enough to watch online.

There are exceptions, of course. News and sports junkies are often uncomfortable watching recordings of in-the-moment events. Others cannot imagine losing sports aired on ESPN or CNN for breaking news. But beyond these groups, the chains that hold us to the linear 500-channel pay television universe are rusting.

Phillip “Ad nauseum” Dampier

Getting off the cable television drug is easiest if you never started. That is why Millennials, often cable-nevers, are among the least likely to buy a cable television package. They don’t miss what they never watched, preferring the personalized viewing of their mobile device or tablet over the family television. For those that grew up with the cable box and have never been without it, there was always suspicion that the stories from brave souls who canceled service and never regretted it come from closeted book-reading Luddites.

But consider for a moment you may already be watching less cable television than you think. Spend a week and take note of how much time you spend with the cable box. Then compare it with how many hours you watch Roku, YouTube, Apple TV, Netflix, or any other non-linear television experience. If you can find more to watch on YouTube than on cable, ditching pay TV may not be as hard as you think.

The cable industry’s response to the challenge of online video has been to shoot itself in the foot. Despite the constant complaints that cable programming costs are rising out of control, there is always room for more networks customers did not ask to receive. Navigating cumbersome set-top box software means many customers won’t find those new channels anyway. But they will pay for them.

The higher the price of cable television, the less value many place on it.

Cable operator (and network) greed has effectively ruined the industry’s best chance to prove continued value in an increasingly on-demand viewing world. TV Everywhere was supposed to make the 500 channel universe accessible online and on-demand for authenticated paying customers.

Some networks want customers to watch on their websites, others deliver shows on-demand from a set-top box. Instead of envisioning a TV Everywhere model to compete with online video, most cable companies are turning it into the equivalent of a DVR viewing experience with the fast-forward button disabled.

Comcast and Time Warner Cable make enormous amounts of free video available to customers. At the beginning, programmers used an informal honor system. In return for a quick pre-show advertisement and limited commercial interruptions, viewers wouldn’t bother ad-skipping if it meant they could watch a one-hour show in less than 50 minutes. Start inserting five 30 second commercials in every ad break and viewers will start looking for the remote control.

The challenge: should cable companies side with their customers and deliver a compelling TV Everywhere experience or with their bean counters, cramming ads into every available spot. Many are choosing the money. When customers rebelled and began to fast forward through the ads, the cable company retaliated by disabling that option (sometimes, it must be admitted, at the behest of a cable or broadcast network).

But it has gotten worse. For absolutely no reason other than to torture customers, Comcast is notorious for running a very small number of ads aired over and over and over again. Nothing makes television less fun than the same car ad repeated 10-15 times in a single one-hour show. Less is more is not a concept known to the cable industry. As a result, they will now have fewer television customers.

There is nothing about this quest for cash that has not been repeated in other forms of entertainment. Corporate commercial radio with 10 minute ad breaks drove listeners to Sirius XM or MP3 players. Running three minutes of ads to a captive movie theater audience that just paid $10 for a seat will not bring a theater chain any fans. The traditional 30-second ad is increasingly dead in the online world and advertisers and the companies that show them should adopt to the new reality instead of trying to force compliance to the “old ways.”

The cable industry earned its bad reputation by not listening to customers. Now that those customers have a choice to watch something else, the $80 cable TV bill is increasingly expendable as viewers cut the cord and never look back.

Is your linear TV experience not what it used to be? How often are you watching non-news/sports shows live? When the commercials start, do you reflexively reach for the remote control? Are you spending time with cable’s TV Everywhere on demand services? Share your thoughts in the comment section.

Wireless World of Emerson

A Verizon Wireless salesman that left a voicemail message offering a customer a new service plan that could save her money forgot to hang up the phone when he finished his message and broke into song singing, “Lies, lies, lies, selling lies” while criticizing his co-workers for reneging on the savings he promises.

“David” from the “Verizon Wireless Store” called Kristin Capone because she had evidently bought a phone from him last year.

“I’m just calling my customers letting them know that earlier this month there were changes in the price plan and there is a chance I can save you money,” David offered.

After thanking her for her time, the employee at Wireless World of Emerson, a “Premium Verizon Dealer” in Emerson, N.J., did not bother to hang up, and had some choice words for Capone and his co-workers that Capone shared on YouTube.

“Lies! Lies! Lies!,” David sang. “Selling lies. Can’t save her a f@@@ing dime. Come in, we’ll save you some money. Just like that. She comes in, sees to one of you guys. You guys look in and say, oh no, there’s nothing we can do and then I end up looking like a dou@@e and then she won’t want to buy.”

“David” seems to acknowledge his bad attitude at the end of the message.

“I’m being a crabby car salesman.”

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Crabby Verizon Salesman Forgets to Hang Up.mp4[/flv]

A public relations headache for Verizon Wireless as one of its “premium dealers” decides to dismiss promises of savings as “selling lies.” (Warning: Contains profanity.) (1:42)

John Malone’s Liberty Global has bought out Puerto Rico’s second biggest cable television operator — Choice Cable TV — and will convert its customers to Liberty Cablevision of Puerto Rico.

Liberty joined Searchlight Capital Partners to close the $272.5 million purchase, which will make Liberty Puerto Rico’s largest cable company, passing more than one million homes and serving about 750,000 customers.

Liberty put $267.5 million of the purchase on its credit card, using debt borrowing from another Malone-controlled entity — Liberty Cablevision — to fund most of the deal. Liberty Global contributed just $10.2 million in equity and its partner Searchlight kicked in $6.8 million in equity.

The deal gives Malone’s company a total cable monopoly on the island. Choice Cable was the last standing cable operator not owned by Liberty, and served customers in western, southern, and central Puerto Rico. Choice itself consolidated several independent cable operators, including Cable TV Northwest (Aguadilla), Dom’s Cable TV (San Germán), Cablevision Mayaguez and TelePonce Cable TV. Now it has been consolidated itself.

Choice Cable used to offer service in these Puerto Rican communities. Most of the rest of the island is served by Liberty Cablevision, which will now have a total cable monopoly across the unincorporated U.S. territory.

According to Liberty Global, the combined cable company will be expected to generate at least $390 million in annual revenue. If it doesn’t, rate increases could be on the way. Channel changes have already been introduced.

Liberty Puerto Rico added 18 new channels to the Choice Cable lineup at no extra cost. The Choice Pak package includes the new channels: AMC, AXS TV, beIN in Spanish and English, Cablevision, Disney Jr., Fox Sports 1, FX, Lifetime Real Women and PBS Kids. The Top Choice package will include: Crime & Investigation, DIY, Esquire, Fox Sports 2, History in Spanish, IFC, Military History and NBA TV.

But several other channels will be dropped: MTV, VH1 and Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, Spike, TV Land and Palladia HD. These Viacom-owned channels were discontinued last year by Liberty in a dispute over programming fees.

Liberty intends to offer up to 120/4Mbps Internet speeds, over 100 HD channels (352 channels total), and a “better balance of English and Spanish language networks” to current Choice customers.

Verizon Voice Link

The Communications Workers of America today claimed Verizon is refusing to repair broken landlines and is once again trying to steer customers to a controversial wireless landline replacement Verizon calls Voice Link.

“Verizon is systematically abandoning the legacy network and as a consequence the quality of service for millions of phone customers has plummeted,” Bob Master, CWA’s political director for the union’s northeastern region, told the Wall Street Journal.

The CWA will file public information requests this week with state regulators in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania seeking more detailed information about how Verizon is utilizing Voice Link.

Stop the Cap! has received several messages from Verizon customers over the last six months, most in New York City, that were offered Voice Link as a temporary solution to ongoing landline service problems including no dial tone, intermittently failing lines, and those with crosstalk or static problems.

“It is crazy how long Verizon can take to fix a phone line in Manhattan,” wrote our reader Helen. “The problems started in February and we lost service for what turned out to be almost a month. We had four broken repair appointments and every date they promised it would be fixed it wasn’t. Can you imagine a whole month without a phone line?”

Helen tells us that Verizon started leaving messages on her voicemail apologizing for the problems, but offered Voice Link, a wireless landline replacement in the interim.

“At least it was something I told my husband, but he didn’t like the idea because Verizon would probably forget about us after putting it in,” she said. “I won the argument but we lost in the end because Voice Link never worked properly.”

Helen complained Voice Link made phone calls difficult to understand and often her phone didn’t ring when calls came in.

“Everyone sounded like they were underwater and it was hard to understand people,” she said. “Callers would tell me they heard five rings when calling me, but I only heard one, if that.”

“We switched to Time Warner Cable phone service and it was installed fast,” she said. “But then the fax machine wouldn’t work right so we still need Verizon after all.”

Helen’s apartment building is not yet wired for FiOS because of problems the building management allegedly had with Verizon technicians in the past. She is willing to sign up, but thinks Verizon is not doing itself any favors treating customers badly when their old landlines fail.

“It makes you think how long it will take them to show up if a rat chews through a fiber cable next year.”

The fact Verizon offers Voice Link to customers while phone repairs go uncompleted for extended periods worries the CWA, who accused Verizon of “steering” customers to the wireless replacement.

Verizon spokesman Rich Young says about 13,000 customers have decided to keep Voice Link as a permanent solution to their landline woes and have never gone back to their old copper service.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Verizon Voice Link A Reliable Alternative.mp4[/flv]

Verizon calls its Voice Link wireless landline replacement a reliable alternative in this promotional video produced in 2013. (2:24)

Thomas MacNabb, Verizon’s director of operations, also defends Voice Link, claiming it represents Verizon giving customers the best possible service when weather-related outages arise.

But retired AT&T executive W. Kenneth Lindhorst counters Voice Link is no upgrade, relying on old 1990s technology, and does not work with credit card machines, faxes, security and home medical monitoring, or wireless data.

“They come in with the implication that they are upgrading services in the neighborhood. They do not tell you that they are switching from a regulated basic to an unregulated service,” Lindhorst said. “They don’t like to be regulated by government. They don’t like their customers to be protected by government.”

Lindhorst is part of Don’t Hang Up On New Jersey, a group fighting Verizon’s efforts to replace Superstorm Sandy-damaged telephone lines with Voice Link. Two bills in the New Jersey legislature: A2459/S278 are seeking a one year moratorium on Verizon replacing damaged copper wiring with any alternative technology, including wireless, until further studies can be done.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Verizon Voice Link Hanging Up On NJ.mp4[/flv]

Verizon Voice Link is “hanging up on New Jersey” according to a consumer advocacy group. An interview with retired AT&T executive W. Kenneth Lindhorst suggests Verizon wants to use the service to escape regulatory oversight. (2:00)