Rural Alltel wireless broadband customers are getting the axe as the company’s new owners have started pulling the plug on customers caught roaming too much with their service.

Not all of Alltel customers have become Verizon Wireless customers after Verizon bought Alltel in 2008.  In areas where Verizon Wireless already provided service, FCC rules required Alltel to sell its assets to other cell phone companies like AT&T or several regional providers.  One such company, Allied Wireless, bought the rights to use the Alltel name for its service.  But it’s not the same Alltel customers in southern Illinois remember.

Scott Sneddon, who lives near Benton, discovered that for himself when trying to log in using his Alltel Aircard.  When the service wouldn’t work, he called Alltel to learn they had unilaterally canceled his wireless broadband service because he was roaming off Alltel’s original network too often.  For the Sneddon family, that meant the Internet itself would no longer be available to them as they have no access to DSL or cable broadband service.  Sneddon received no warning and no second chance.

Sneddon is concerned because Alltel’s unlimited service plan did not carry the typical 5GB monthly usage allowance other providers enforce.  Despite having a two year contract, Alltel was able to pull the rug out from under his service because the company wanted to cut its roaming costs.  Although the Sneddon initially faced a $400 early cancellation penalty to switch providers, the media attention Alltel received made them relent — Alltel customers in similar positions who find themselves out in the wireless broadband cold will not have to pay a penalty to cancel all of their Alltel services.  Additionally, the company has promised to refund one month of service and refund all wireless broadband equipment charges incurred by dropped customers.

For rural America, incumbent wireless providers disconnecting service for customers they don’t want to serve is just another broken broadband promise.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WSIL Harrisburg Alltel Drops Illinois Customers 6-27-10.flv[/flv]

WSIL-TV in Harrisburg, Ill., shares the stories of two Illinois families left without Internet service when Alltel suddenly canceled their service “for roaming too much.”  (4 minutes)

No Cable? No DSL from FairPoint Communications on those phone lines either.

Ossipee (Carroll County), New Hampshire

Some residents of Ossipee, New Hampshire have gotten so desperate for broadband service, they’ve planted lawn signs begging Time Warner Cable to provide it.  Ossipee, population 4,211, is located in the western half of New Hampshire.  Its decidedly rural charm has made it popular for vacationers and those seeking a quiet New England lifestyle.

Unfortunately, for those on Water Village Road, it’s too quiet.  There is no broadband service available.

FairPoint doesn’t offer DSL service in the immediate area and Time Warner Cable, although willing to wire neighbors 1/2 mile away, will not provide service to Water Village Road residents.

Time Warner Cable says it provides service where there are 15 or more homes per mile.  Water Village Road only has 13.95 homes per mile.  The company says it will cost about $100,000 to extend service, and has offered to pay $15,000 towards the cost, with the rest coming from the pockets of residents.

So far, they have refused.

Residents do have one way to get cable and Internet service from Time Warner Cable — commit a crime that lands them at the Carroll County Jail, less than a mile down the road.  It has cable.

As for the signs, Time Warner told WMUR-TV it appreciated the interest, but it still doesn’t make economic sense to provide Water Village Road residents with service.

(See more pictures of the lawn signs below the jump.)

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WMUR Manchester Company Says Area Not Dense Enough For Service 7-14-10.flv[/flv]

WMUR-TV reports on the campaign by several Ossipee, N.H., residents to embarrass Time Warner Cable into bringing them cable and broadband service.  (2 minutes)

… Continue Reading

Inouye

Three senior Democrats on the Senate Commerce Committee have characterized the Federal Communication Commission’s national broadband expansion plans as inadequate — firmly rooting America as second class citizens in a global broadband market.

In three separate letters to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, the senators criticized the chairman’s plan for broadband targets set too low, both in vision and in speed.

Genachowski’s plan calls for Americans to have universal access to at least 4/1Mbps service no later than 2020, a goal Genachowski described as “an aggressive target.”

But in a letter obtained by CQ, Senator Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) noted that such speed goals were set low in comparison to other countries, many of which are on target to achieve 100Mbps broadband well before 2020.

“What is the FCC’s rationale for a vision that appears to be firmly rooted in the second tier of countries?” Inouye wrote.

Begich

Senator Mark Begich (D-Alaska) wanted to know how Genachowski settled for 4Mbps download speed, noting that seemed to him to be too modest.

In fact, speed goals in the National Broadband Plan were a major point of contention in the National Broadband Plan, with lobbyists from AT&T and Verizon pushing hard for the lowest possible speed goals.  That is because they are the largest traditional landline providers saddled with aging copper wire networks which provide broadband to most rural Americans through DSL.  Most Americans living outside of major population centers rely on phone company-delivered DSL service typically speed rated at 768kbps-3Mbps.  Because DSL service is distance sensitive, a speed target of just 4Mbps requires a considerably lower investment than a target of 20Mbps or higher.  It is likely 100Mbps service, outlined as a goal for at least 100 million Americans, will first be achieved through fiber and cable networks in large cities, and not from phone company DSL service.

The difficulty for rural Americans to achieve a fair shake in broadband was highlighted by Senator Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota).  He cited his state’s poor ranking — 42nd in broadband speed, as evidence Americans in rural states suffer with considerably lower quality broadband service.  The FCC’s National Broadband Plan, Dorgan fears, may only recreate the digital divide, only with different levels of speeds.

Dorgan

If 100 million Americans can access broadband services at 100Mbps, a rural speed target of 4Mbps will make new, high bandwidth-dependent Internet services just as off-limits to rural America as basic broadband is today in many areas.

Genachowski promised to review broadband speed targets every four years, making adjustments when necessary to be certain rural Americans receive broadband service comparable to urban areas.

But with the wide disparity in speed goals for urban and rural America, that may be impossible in the short term, especially as telecom industry lobbyists continue to pressure Congress for less regulation and no government mandates.

Rep. James Boles Jr. of Moore County seen yawning as the North Carolina Legislature worked long hours to close the session for the year. (Photo: Charlotte Observer photographer Corey Lowenstein)

A bill to temporarily ban municipal broadband projects in North Carolina went down in flames early Saturday after a marathon 19-hour closing session of the legislature allowed a handful of pro-consumer legislators to finally corner and kill the bill.  But that victory would not have come without a coordinated effort by consumers and communities across the state vociferously objecting to legislation designed to protect the duopoly of phone and cable service offered by Time Warner Cable, AT&T, and CenturyLink.

This was the fourth attempt by big telecom companies to get state legislators to do their bidding.  It’s almost as if they want to work harder to stop competitors from delivering service than they work at delivering it themselves.  North Carolina is ranked 41st out of 50 states in broadband adoption. Significant areas of the state are not served by any broadband provider, and broadband speeds experienced by customers in North Carolina are among the slowest in the country.

This year’s battle was among the most difficult because its biggest backer, retiring Senator David Hoyle (D-Gaston), was considered a heavyweight in the legislature, serving in the North Carolina Senate for 18 years.

The drama that would eventually wind its way to the bill’s demise began late Friday evening in an overnight session of the state legislature.

Catharine Rice from the SouthEast Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (SEATOA) is our tour guide through the winding, treacherous waters of a North Carolina legislature in its final hours of the session for the year:

Saturday morning, July 11, at 5 a.m., the NC House of Representatives killed Senator Hoyle’s (D-Gaston) attempt  to force a moratorium on municipalities seeking to provide their communities broadband service. This was the industry’s 3rd (actually 4th) attempt to stop municipalities from providing superior broadband infrastructure to the communities.

Rep. Luebke

The bill died on Saturday after a one-two punch. First, the House Ways & Means Committee had refused to hear S1209 since June 8, under the hands of Committee Chair-Rep. Faison (D-Orange, Caswell), when it crossed from the Senate to the House. Then late Friday evening, the House itself added an amendment to its Study Authorization Bill (SB900) permitting, but not requiring, the Revenue Laws Study Committee to study the laws and circumstances surrounding municipalities providing broadband service to their communities, but dropping all other terms of S1209, mainly  the moratorium. The Senate concurred with House bill 900 unanimously later in the evening (9:49pm) and it was enrolled for review and signature by the Governor. (See Sections 7.5 (a) and (b) here)

Ten minutes later, Sen. Clodfelter introduced H455, a bill whose effect would have changed the approach of the House’s version of the municipal bbnd study. With H455, Senator Clodfelter gutted a House kidney awareness bill, and poured into it the “study” portion of S1209 (Hoyle’s Anti-Muni broadband bill), changing the House version by setting a date certain when the study (and recommended legislation) would have to be completed (March 2011), and increasing the number of seats on the subcommittee from 12 to 14, adding assigned seats for telephone coops and the NC County. The House version did not mandate a study, but made it optional, did not specifically authorize the committee to recommend legislation, and set the seats for the subcommittee at 12, naming 8 with an additional four unassigned seats. Clodfelter’s H455 contained two other sections, one addressing a fluke in sales tax refunds for MI-Connection, the Mooresville-Davidson muni broadband system.

Around 2:45 Saturday morning, on Rep. Paul Luebke’s (D-Durham) motion, the House denied concurrence with the Senate on H455 (96 to deny, 1 to allow). At 3:45 a.m., the House approved a Senate/House conference committee report for the purpose of keeping only one section of H455, (effectively deleting H455′s changes to the House study version of S1209). H455 (here) now provides a state sales tax refund status for Davidson and Mooresville’s MI-CONNECTION system, status the two towns would have if individually providing cable service, but from which they were disqualified by having  joined together to provide broadband cable  service.  On a vote of 91 to 6, the House approved the Senate/House conference report. At 4:55 a.m. the Senate concurred with that report and it was enrolled for the Governor’s attention.

Source: SpeedMatters/CWA

Bottom line, the effort to place a moratorium on consideration for new municipal broadband projects in the state is dead for 2010.  The next opportunity big telecom has for another anti-consumer bill is in January 2011.  At least the North Carolina legislature passed some additional ethics and government reform measures that will give consumers even more tools to fight the next battle:

• It toughens penalties for illegal campaign donations above $10,000.  As we’ve seen repeatedly, big campaign contributions can make all the difference when legislators throw their constituents’ interests under the bus.  Big phone and cable interests are among the most generous contributors, making it easy to find one or more members willing to carry their legislative agenda forward;
• Requires board and commission members to account for campaign fundraising activities for elected officials who appointed them.  A case of mutual back-scratching, powerful legislators can often find places for their special interest friends and supporters to serve on state commissions and boards.
• Expands personnel information that must be released to the public about state employees.  We saw the implications of conflicts of interest in the legislature this past session when one member contemplating municipal broadband bans also happened to be one of Time Warner Cable’s engineering contractors.  More information, this time about past work by state employees, prevents these kinds of conflicts from staying secret.

Please thank Reps. Faison and Luebke for their hard work to stop the broadband moratorium.  It’s unfortunate Rep. Faison’s efforts to bring better broadband to Caswell County, part of his district, were unsuccessful.  But at least Caswell County leaders won’t face a broadband moratorium should they wish to renew their efforts to provide broadband service where CenturyLink will not.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WBTV Charlotte Salisbury A Wired Community 5-2010.flv[/flv]

Why we fight.  Communities like Salisbury, N.C., can now move forward on their own municipal broadband projects.  Back in May, WBTV-TV in Charlotte highlighted Fibrant, the community’s answer to bad service from incumbent providers.  (4 minutes)

Frontier Communications rented a conference room at the Charleston Embassy Suites, calling it a "command center" for the transition. (Courtesy: Charleston Gazette/Lawrence Pierce)

No state faces a larger impact from Verizon’s exit than West Virginia.  The epitome of the kind of market Verizon doesn’t want to serve any longer, West Virginia suffered through several years of Verizon not keeping up with required investments in the aging landline network, and service had markedly deteriorated as a result.  West Virginia is mountainous — expensive to maintain infrastructure, often rural — reducing potential revenues, and economically-challenged — killing the chances of making “triple-play” sales (and profits) in communities where customers have to watch every penny.

West Virginia was also the epicenter of the loudest controversy over the sale, as unions and consumer groups opposed the transaction because of its enormous threat to an entire state’s landline network.  A failure by Frontier would result in the kind of drama experienced by northern New England customers of FairPoint Communications, who suffered with more than a year of horrible service and inaccurate billing.

So news that Frontier has run into problems in the state just one week in, despite sending 250 extra employees into the area for the conversion, has raised concerns with the Public Service Commission, as well as those impacted by problems and outages.  Frontier has tried to put its best face forward, with employees holed up in a self-described “command center” in a conference room at the local Embassy Suites in Charleston.  On the day before the handover, press photographers were able to snap pictures of Frontier employees seated at long conference tables facing one another, with laptops open.  A digital projector showed PowerPoint slides that promoted the “new Frontier” while a temporary company banner tacked to a corner wall rippled over a stand.  A high tech glitz and glamor presentation this was not.

David Armentrout, president and chief operating officer of FiberNet was underwhelmed by all of it.  His company requires connections with West Virginia’s landline provider to deliver full service to his clients.  Prior to the handover, Armentrout said FiberNet had 43 outstanding trouble tickets on file with Verizon.  But Verizon apparently never handed over those support tickets to Frontier, effectively losing them after the transition.  Now that Frontier has taken over, Armentrout’s company has had to open 113 trouble tickets for problems old and new.

Armentrout complained about the lack of results from Frontier in the pages of the Charleston Daily Mail:

Armentrout said that after consistently being put on hold for more than an hour when trying to reach Frontier to talk about outstanding trouble tickets, “we had a meeting with their senior team on Saturday. We said this was not acceptable. Since then they’ve given us a work-around with two dedicated Frontier employees. When we get an hour hold time, we contact these dedicated employees.

“Another issue we’ve had is, we’ve had to contact our customers directly to verify the status of their trouble tickets because the (Frontier) system doesn’t tell us the status,” he said. “As a result of having to contact our customers directly and working with Frontier on all of these issues since July 1, our dedicated team has spent over 200 man-hours working on these issues.

“When you look at the results: six of 43 completed and three of 113 completed, we’re doing a lot of work and spending a lot of man hours but not really seeing a lot of service issues being resolved.

“Unfortunately on Friday the Public Service Commission was closed,” Armentrout said. “We made attempts to get in touch with them because we recognized we would have the problems we’re continuing to have today. I want our customers to know we’re doing everything we can to get these issues resolved.

“Several individuals within Frontier have exhibited good-faith efforts to resolve these issues,” he said. “We commend them for their efforts. But what we’re looking for is results. We need to get these issues fixed. They’ve made efforts but at the end of the day we’re still not getting where we need to be.

“Come Tuesday when business gets back to normal we can expect these numbers to increase unless we get these issues resolved,” Armentrout said. “Our intention is to go to the Public Service Commission on Tuesday and get them involved to make sure these issues are getting resolved as quickly as possible. It has been a long weekend.”

Ken Arndt, president of Frontier’s Southeast Region, issued a statement Sunday that unconvincingly blamed some of the delayed fixes on the recent death of West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd:

“We are doing the necessary work needed to correct old and current issues. It’s Day 4 and overall this has been a very successful conversion. That is especially true when you remember that Day 2 was marked by the presence of the President and Vice President of the United States and many members of Congress at the memorial for Sen. Robert Byrd. We made sure Frontier’s system performed flawlessly.”

The newspaper notes Verizon’s landline network in the state is notorious for having problems when there are storms, and since the July 1st transition there have not been any.  Armentrout agrees, hoping that Frontier’s outstanding issues get resolved before the first major storm hits the state, which could come as early as Friday.  Armentrout calls the first severe weather challenge Frontier faces “the mid-term exam.”

Taking the longer view, Frontier promises it will spend millions in West Virginia to update the state’s landline infrastructure and expand broadband availability.  Frontier announced the hiring of nine regional managers to oversee operations across the state, including Mitch Carmichael, a delegate in the West Virginian legislature representing Jackson.  Carmichael is a former computer salesman who will now manage Frontier’s Parkersburg office.

Customers are less impressed.  Many have experienced lengthy outages with their DSL service since the transition — a bad omen for many Charleston residents who immediately called Suddenlink, the area’s cable company, to switch service providers.  Another Charleston customer called Frontier’s continued reliance on a Yahoo!-provided “front end” “really low class.”  In nearby Huntington, a few customers couldn’t say much about what changed after Frontier took over because their phone service went out on the 1st and was still out a week later.

“I hope they don’t raise the bill since we have not had any phone service at all since 11:00am on July 1st when Frontier took over,” wrote one customer. “With my phone service out since Saturday and a new promise of repairs to be made by Tuesday July 6th, I am waiting to see where Frontier improves service in rural West Virginia. The Verizon employees would just as soon as to tell you anything — same people, just a different company. Frontier needs to have a major house cleaning, as their tales haven’t changed along with the service,” writes another.

A handful also complained that their Frontier phone service cost plenty more than what Verizon charged:

“My parents have Frontier and their bill is twice as high as my Verizon. We have the DSL and the freedom package (unlimited long distance, call waiting, voicemail and caller ID) and my bill is $78 a month.  My parents only have local calling, call waiting, voicemail, caller ID, and DSL and their bill is over $120 with no long distance,” he writes.  “How is this take over going to help anyone other than Frontier? I’m going to cable for Internet and phone.”

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WSAZ Charleston Frontier Carriers Experience Minor Problems 7-6-10.flv[/flv]

WSAZ-TV in Charleston says some companies are experiencing minor problems in the West Virginian conversion from Verizon to Frontier.  (2 minutes)