Verizon Wireless unveiled their new “Share Everything” Plans this morning, claiming consumers wanted “simpler, easier-to-understand” plans that let them share their data plan across multiple devices:

But a closer examination of the plans, to be introduced June 28, shows many Verizon customers will face substantially higher cell phone bills if they choose one of Verizon’s newest plans. Perhaps more importantly, customers upgrading to a new subsidized phone/contract renewal on or after that date will be forced to forfeit any grandfathered unlimited data plans they still have with Verizon.

“It is an effort to move ARPU up,” Walt Piecyk, an analyst with BTIG LLC in New York told Bloomberg News, referring to average revenue per user, a measure of how much each customer spends each month.

Obviously acknowledging that customers are using fewer voice minutes and are increasingly finding ways around text messaging charges, Verizon’s new plans sell customers on the idea they can now talk and text as much as they want, but as far as data is concerned, customers will potentially pay much more for less service.

Those light on talking and texting are most likely to be hit hardest by the new cell phone plans.

Verizon formerly charged $50 a month for a basic Nationwide Talk Share plan that included 700 shared voice minutes. Smartphone users also paid $29.99 a month for unlimited data. Together, that amounts to $80 a month. Under Verizon’s $40 “Share Everything” Plan, customers can talk and text all they want, but their unlimited data plan is gone, replaced with a 1GB basic plan for $50. That costs $10 more than customers used to pay on Verizon’s 700 minute plan with an unlimited use data plan. Need 2GB a month? Add an extra $10, bringing you a Verizon phone bill of at least $100 a month for the first line on your account, before taxes and fees.

Other family member lines may also be hit. Verizon used to charge $9.99 a month for extra lines on a shared account. The new price is $30 for a basic phone, $40 for a smartphone. Those family members with smartphones on an older Verizon account each would also incur $29.99 a month for their own individual data plan, which was also unlimited.

Although the base fee for the additional line with a data plan still remains around $40 a month, family members will be forced to share the primary line’s data bucket. Customers will quickly find a 1GB data plan is not going to last long on an account with two or three smartphones. That means expensive upgrades, which start at $10/GB.

Accounts with a mix of smartphones and basic phones face an even stiffer price hike. The $9.99 a month customers used to pay for a basic phone for grandma will now run $30 a month. She won’t be talking or texting much, so the extra features built into Verizon’s new plan will represent a pointless $20 monthly rate increase and an invitation to set grandma up with her own prepaid cell phone instead.

Verizon’s new “Share Everything” concept clearly builds major profits into Verizon’s future:

• Customers are forced to pay for unlimited voice and texting services, even as those services lose popularity, costing Verizon little to nothing;
• Data customers are encouraged to add additional devices to their account, but as more data gets used, ongoing upgrades to your data plan at an increment of $10/GB or more will be required;
• Customers considering a new Apple iPhone or other smartphone will be forced to forfeit any existing unlimited data plan to upgrade, which guarantees future profits from customers consuming increasing amounts of data.

Pendleton County, W.V.

Pendleton County, W.V. residents are frustrated by another landline service outage afflicting Frontier Communications in the eastern panhandle region of the state.

The latest disruption began early Friday morning, leaving limited phone service throughout the county, with customers unable to dial any number that was not within the local 249 exchange.

Customers found cell phone service spotty, as it traditionally always is in the county, leaving some with no way to communicate and frayed nerves.

WHSV-TV reports Rosa Propst was extremely upset by the outage which dragged on for nearly two days. Propst’s father was hospitalized in another county and medical personnel could not reach her to report her father’s deteriorating medical condition.

Her ill father was also upset because he could not reach his daughter — or just about anyone else in Pendleton County over the weekend.

“I would have held Frontier responsible for not giving us an emergency services line where we could get to a hospital or call the hospital,” Propst told the station.

Frontier eventually found the problem — a series of fiber cuts over the length of 1,000 feet of cable. A Frontier spokesperson said the company had to replace about 7,000 feet of cable and had to find workers willing to climb 40 foot telephone poles in what was characterized as a rugged area.

Customers complained this was not the first significant outage for Frontier customers in the area.

The company eventually repaired service early Sunday morning.

Frontier has been accused of lacking network redundancy, letting phone companies bypass damaged lines by switching to backup infrastructure.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WHSV Harrisonburg Customers in Pendleton County Frustrated Over Limited Phone Service 6-10-12.flv[/flv]

WHSV first reported the major service outage to viewers during the weekend local news, noting customers between Brandywine and Sugar Grove had lost landline service. (2 minutes)

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WHSV Harrisonburg Family in Pendleton County Frustrated Over Phone Service 6-12-12.flv[/flv]

 In this second report, WHSV talks with the Propst family about the human impact extended service outages can have on customers.  (2 minutes)

Lingle

Oceanic Cable, a division of Time Warner Cable, will soon be devoting some prime channel real estate to former Republican governor Linda Lingle. Lingle is getting her own cable channel that will feature nothing but on-demand programming produced by the Senate candidate’s campaign.

While neither the campaign or Oceanic Cable will currently disclose how much Lingle is spending to rent the channel space, Oceanic viewers will have yet one more channel on their cable lineup they did not ask for or necessarily want.

The new Lingle Channel has been granted a prominent position on the cable company’s digital lineup on channel 110, right between Fox News Channel and Headline News.

The other candidates in the election admit they can’t afford to launch their own 24-hour cable channel or prefer to take issues direct to voters and not “filter them” through a carefully coordinated cable message produced by the campaign.

Lingle has raised $3.1 million for her campaign. She leads over John Carroll who has $23,000 on hand; Rep. Mazie Hirono, $2.3 million; and Ed Case, $615,000.

[flv width=”360″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KHON Lingle Gets 24 Hour Cable Channel 6-6-12.mp4[/flv]

KHON in Honolulu reports Oceanic Cable customers are about to get a new channel on their lineup, whether they want it or not.  (3 minutes)

Time Warner Cable and Comcast are facing class action lawsuits filed in California federal court alleging both cable operators retain Social Security numbers, credit card information and contact information after customers stop doing business with the companies.

The two lawsuits claim Comcast and Time Warner Cable are in violation of the 1984 Cable Communications Policy Act which, among other things, requires cable operators to “destroy personal information when it is no longer needed for the purposes for which it was collected (and there are no pending requests for access).”

According to the plaintiffs, both companies are retaining personal information about their ex-customers indefinitely, and are not sending required annual privacy notices to former customers disclosing this fact.

The CCPA allows individuals to collect $100 for each day the cable company is in violation of the law.

The lawsuit argues that this non-essential information exposes former customers to possible identity theft or illicit action by company employees that could potentially lead to unauthorized charges or account withdrawals.

That fear is not far-fetched. Just two weeks ago, GCI — a cable company in Alaska, found itself contacting at least 400 customers who had their personal financial information stolen by an employee.  Some customers were also contacted by their credit card issuers over incidents of unauthorized credit card charges.

[flv width=”512″ height=”308″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KTUU Anchorage GCI Warns Customers of Fraud 5-24-12.mp4[/flv]

KTUU in Anchorage reports a GCI employee accessed cable customer account information to commit identity theft and credit card fraud.  (3 minutes)

AT&T customers with questions about their latest bill may get personalized answers through an innovative new “SimpleView” video bill explanation service the company is unveiling to their U-verse customers.

Using SundaySky’s SmartVideo technology, AT&T can generate an on-demand, customized analysis of a customer’s latest bill in a professionally produced video presentation.

“SundaySky has a pretty basic technology that is doing amazing things for us in the cost side of our business and caring for customers,” said John Donovan, chief technology officer for AT&T. “When we get new customers and they look at bills, if they have any confusion, SundaySky gives them the ability to press a link. The link dynamically builds a custom video that walks through their own bill. The impact for our company is fewer calls into customer care, shorter calls of those that come in and enormous satisfaction of the customers.”

The video accounts for new services recently added and shows how many days a customer was billed for a service. It also explains miscellaneous charges and fees that may have been added, and even thanks customers for their last payment.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/ATT SimpleView U-verse bill demo 6-5-12.flv[/flv]

Watch this demonstration of AT&T’s new SimpleView video bill explanation, now rolling out to U-verse customers.  (3 minutes)