[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Cox Ads 5-2012.flv[/flv]

Cox Cable has slammed its phone company competition in a series of new TV commercials that call out antiquated and slow DSL. But customers switching to Cox have to endure that company’s unjustified Internet Overcharging schemes.  Cox arbitrarily limits your Internet usage in an effort to maximize profits and reduce costs.  Watching the online video Cox advertises could put you perilously close to your monthly allowance. Exceed it once too often and you may find your account shut off.

Cox executives promise they’ll listen to customers and what they want. Stop the Cap! urges you to participate in our pushback against Cox usage caps. Tell the cable company it does no good selling their broadband service for online video when the company threatens to shut it down if you watch “too much.”  (2 minutes)

Mayweather

Stop the Cap! reader Nick in Grand Rapids dropped us a line to share yet another Comcast customer service bungle.

Last Saturday, several Comcast customers who paid an incredible $60 to watch the pay-per-view Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s fight against Miguel Cotto were themselves knocked out when their screens went dark with six rounds yet to be fought.

Mayweather is a Grand Rapids native.

Outraged, customers called Comcast late Saturday night looking for an explanation and a refund (after they called friends to find out who won).

Comcast couldn’t be bothered.

‘Call back Monday,’ came the response from Comcast customer service reports Shaun DeWolf.

Monday came and went and Comcast still had not refunded his money.  He called WOOD-TV 8 looking for some justice.

“It’s done and over with now,” DeWolf told 24 Hour News 8. “But at least [give me a] refund and a reason why it went out.”

The newsroom called Comcast.

A Comcast spokesperson told WOOD-TV the cable system had no major outages Saturday.  DeWolf assumed that might be the response and took snapshots of the TV screen showing Comcast’s general pay-per-view information… and no fight.

Other viewers reported similar problems.

Comcast said it is looking into the matter, but there has been no definitive decision about whether DeWolf will get his $60 back. That is ultimately all he cares about, DeWolf told the station.

If this happened to you, Comcast recommends calling customer service at 1-800-COMCAST or go online to file a complaint.

[flv width=”360″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WOOD Grand Rapids Comcast users Mayweather fight cut out 5-7-12.mp4[/flv]

WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids intervened to help get a Comcast customer a refund for an expensive pay per view event he never got to watch.  (2 minutes)

A Comcast discount mix-up leaves customers with substantial rate hikes. (Image: KVAL News)

Several Comcast customers in Springfield, Ore. are facing a whopping $100 rate increase on their Comcast service after the cable company discovered they were getting a company-applied discount Comcast later determined they were not entitled to receive.

Elizabeth Thornton, a pensioner living on modest military and social security benefits is among them. When her latest cable bill arrived, instead of the usual $95.28, Comcast raised the price by almost $100 to $193.23.

That’s a lot more than expected, and it left Thornton upset trying to figure out how to cover the bill.

It turns out an undetermined number of Comcast customers in Springfield were given discounts for fire stations, which enjoy 50% off regular Comcast prices. Thornton agreed to a one-year contract at the lower price Comcast employees offered, even though the company later determined she was unqualified to receive that price.

Comcast has been discovering the error when customers call regarding their accounts.

Now affected customers want to know why it is okay for Comcast to lock people into price-guaranteed service contracts they later renege on.

Comcast spokesperson Theressa Davis told KVAL News the fire station discount was the company’s mistake, and the cable company will now reach out to affected customers to offer “an appropriate discount.”

[flv width=”432″ height=”260″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KVAL Springfield Its not fair Springfield woman has Comcast bill mix-up 5-5-12.mp4[/flv]

KVAL News visited with the daughter of Elizabeth Thornton, who is upset because Comcast raised her monthly rate by almost $100, leaving her unsure how she’ll pay the bill.  (2 minutes)

Phillip "An Ex-Frontier Customer" Dampier

The other week while sitting in the dentist’s office waiting for my wallet to be drilled, I overheard a conversation at the reception desk over the latest effort by Frontier Communications to shoot itself in the proverbial foot.

“I decided to get rid of my phone line the other day and when I called Frontier to disconnect, I was told I would owe them more than $150 in disconnection fees for a contract I never knew I had with them,” opened the conversation.

“That happened to my sister as well, and she couldn’t believe it because nobody ever told her she was on a contract,” came the reply.

“I never knew I was either, and I told the representative they needed to show me where I signed up for anything like that or else I’m not paying it,” insisted the latest victim of Frontier’s phantom service contracts.

Within a minute or two, all had decided they were done doing business with the phone company that got its start more than 100 years ago as the well-regarded Rochester Telephone Corporation.  In 2012, there was no turning back after $150 “disconnect” penalties and other insults.  They were intent on being rid of Frontier once and for all.

With customer unfriendly policies like that, it comes as no surprise Frontier has been losing customers in the Rochester market for years, mostly to cell phone providers or Time Warner Cable — the latter which delivers more value and far superior broadband speed in western New York communities not served by Verizon FiOS.

Surprise... you're on a contract with a $150 cancellation penalty.

Twenty years ago, Rochester Telephone delivered excellent value, charging about half what then-NYNEX customers in Buffalo and Syracuse paid for telephone service. But as Frontier has increasingly disengaged from being an aggressive contender for telecommunications services in Rochester, people in this region of one million noticed, especially when Verizon’s fiber to the home service arrived in Buffalo, Syracuse, Albany, and beyond.

What did Frontier offer? Not much. Frontier’s local general manager Ann Burr, who used to be in charge at Time Warner Cable locally, told local media Rochester didn’t need faster broadband speeds. That’s a fitting argument for a company that doesn’t deliver them and believes 3Mbps broadband is plenty fast enough.  If you don’t like it, feel free to leave, so long as you aren’t trapped with that long-term service contract you never knew you had. (The New York Attorney General’s office has already spanked Frontier once for the practice, forcing them to issue refunds, and judging from last week’s conversation, it appears the problem has not abated.)

The fact is, Frontier offers little compelling to the landline customers they have left.

Rochester’s experience with Frontier seems apropos when contemplating the phone company’s latest quarterly results, which one analyst called “ugly.” Having listened to at least a dozen of Frontier’s quarterly conference calls with investors over the past three years, there seems to be no shortage of promises of better days to come.  Frontier is among the few companies I have heard call customer losses of 5-11% every quarter “an improvement.”

As one investor put it, the management at Frontier should win an Academy Award for feigned optimism.

This week, the company announced first-quarter earnings fell 51% thanks to lower revenue earned from the dwindling number of residential and business customers. But better days are ahead, really.

Road to nowhere?

Frontier has spent the last year treating their “system conversion” for ex-Verizon territories as the telecom equivalent of the Holy Grail.  Once achieved, the company can do anything. The reorganization underway internally at the company is supposed to improve its lackluster customer service, generate more marketing opportunities, save the company money, and open the door to a new chapter of a unified Frontier family, with ex-Verizon and always-Frontier employees coming together to do things “the Frontier way.”

How much longer investors will stick around waiting for the promised land remains an open question. The stock has already achieved a 52-week low, and if the company cuts its dividend — the primary point of attraction for investors — it will drop much lower.

Frontier’s management decisions have effectively left the company between a rock (Wall Street) and a hard place (its dwindling customers).  Much of the company’s success is predicated on rural broadband/landline service, where the company expects to face little competition.  But Verizon, the company that sold them much of their inherited network, has a little surprise for them.  After selling off the “junk” (a deteriorating copper landline network they no longer care much about), the company’s wireless division is coming back to town to poach Frontier’s customers.

Verizon’s grand plan is to pitch two products:

1. Home Phone Connect: Verizon’s landline replacement works with the customer’s home phones over Verizon Wireless’ network. Customers can share minutes on an existing Verizon Wireless plan for $9.99 a month or get unlimited calling for $19.99 a month. It comes with most popular calling features included.
2. Verizon HomeFusion Broadband: Verizon Wireless has excess capacity in rural areas, especially on 4G LTE-equipped towers, so why not put it to use? While commanding a premium at $60 a month for just 10GB of usage, customers who value speed over money may tolerate that diamond price.  If Verizon finds a way to relax that usage limit and lower prices, it could present a real competitive threat to phone companies delivering lower end DSL service.

[flv width=”480″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Home Phone Connect – Home Phone Transfer Verizon Wireless.flv[/flv]

Verizon Wireless introduces Home Phone Connect, a product designed to tell landline companies like Frontier to take a hike.  (2 minutes)

While Verizon isn’t likely to immediately grab major market share with either product, it foreshadows an intent to leverage their rural wireless network to remain a player, even in places where they have abandoned selling landline service.

How to Stop the Erosion

Turning things around? Frontier contemplates licensing U-verse from AT&T

Even in a barely-competitive marketplace, companies must invest to keep up. But that investment annoys Wall Street, which can depress the stock (and the all-important dividend). But improved service retains customers (and may even win a few ex-customers back). So news that Frontier was considering licensing U-verse technology to upgrade their major markets is a logical first step to stop the bleeding. Frontier is irrelevant delivering broadband at speeds of 3Mbps at out the door prices that meet or exceed what the much-faster cable competition charges. U-verse would allow Frontier to deliver faster broadband (up to 24Mbps is plenty fast for a lot of consumers), build its own IPTV offering instead of relying on satellite dish reseller agreements, and maintain landline customers, assuming the company prices its bundle correctly.

While we are big proponents of fiber-to-the-home service, it is clear Frontier will never spend the money to deliver it, even to their largest service areas. They will prefer the cheaper route of fiber to the neighborhood, relying on existing copper infrastructure to connect individual homes to the service. It represents a reasonable first step.

Frontier also must continue aggressive investments in their broadband network in more rural areas. Some of the company’s regional backbones remain woefully congested, and the company just doesn’t deliver the speeds it markets on its website in too many areas.

High speed should really mean "high speed"

Jameson, a Stop the Cap! reader, is a good example. He signed up for “Frontier Max DSL” which claims it can deliver up to 6Mbps in his part of east-central Indiana.  He ended up with 1.6Mbps instead, in part of because Frontier’s records were inaccurate.

I called Frontier tech support after reading some stuff on Stop the Cap! and another site, learning that since I live under 5000 feet from the DSL termination point (the Frontier building down the road) that I shouldn’t have any problems getting their highest speeds. I got lucky and got a customer support agent who understood my problem, and a tech support guy who genuinely seemed concerned about my issue. The tech guy checked Frontier’s records and I was labeled as being 30,000 feet from the building, but I’m really only around 4200 feet away, and my speeds were provisioned at 1.6mbps down and around 450kbps up. He put in a support ticket to have my speeds automatically raised up to the max I’m paying for.

Jameson ended up with around 7Mbps — a little better than the advertised speed, but only because he thought to ask and reached the right people at Frontier to follow through.

Some of our readers in West Virginia are not so lucky, having the mediocre speeds they fought to receive reduced further when a technician suddenly remotely adjusts speed provisioning on customer equipment to reduce their maximum broadband speed.

Frontier’s DSL problems don’t just exist in rural areas. We experienced it first-hand in 2009 when the company advertised up to 10Mbps speeds in Rochester, and delivered 3.1Mbps to us instead.

Consumer Reports documents this is not an isolated problem, with only two-thirds of Frontier customers getting the broadband speeds they pay to receive. If and when a competitor does better, Frontier loses another customer.

Finally, Frontier must improve its customer service. The company is notorious for giving inconsistent answers to customer questions, doesn’t always follow through on commitments, and maintains far too many “gotcha” terms and conditions on contracts that leave customers exposed to unjustified early termination fees.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CNET Verizon HomeFusion Broadband May 2012.flv[/flv]

CNET shows off the equipment used with Verizon’s new HomeFusion wireless broadband service.  (2 minutes)

When broadband advocates talk about the advantages of fiber-to-the-home service, commercial providers and their friends routinely criticize us for demanding “Cadillac” networks in areas that “don’t need” fiber-fast broadband speeds. Despite the fact the United States and Canada continue to fall further and further behind in the global broadband speed race, companies that answer to stockholders simply won’t hear of upgrading networks to the technology Asia and Europe increasingly takes for granted.

There is no question fiber broadband is costly to build, especially in rural communities where the cost per home will require a long-term payback for the upfront investment required. But that doesn’t stop community-owned networks and public co-ops from advancing forward.

Dakota Central Telecommunications and Dickey Rural Networks last month celebrated the completion of the largest fiber-to-the-home network in North America… in rural North Dakota.

Both providers, operated as co-ops, deliver speedy service to every home and business within a 10,000 square mile area.  Broadband at speeds of 20Mbps starts at $39.95 a month.  Want faster speeds? For $89.95 a month, you can purchase 50Mbps service.  A triple-play package of phone, broadband, and cable TV service runs $113.75 a month.

While DSL has been available in the past, it simply could not deliver the 21st century broadband speeds businesses and consumers need.

Both providers, collectively owned by the members who subscribe to the service, spent a combined $90 million on the expansive fiber network. But instead of throwing a hissyfit over the price tag, the collective feeling was this represents an investment in North Dakota’s future. Area businesses have already taken advantage of the new speeds to improve efficiency and think about new ways they can market their products and services online.

The decision to deploy fiber to the home service made sense because of its infinite expandability, dependability, and capacity.  Commercial providers like AT&T and Verizon that embarked on fiber upgrades deploy them only in the largest cities, where the cost per subscriber is lower and where investors believe the costs to build the networks will be recouped the fastest.  Now both companies have declared those networks to be largely complete, leaving large numbers of their customers off the upgrade list, stuck indefinitely with yesterday’s DSL technology.

That isn’t happening with community-owned providers and co-ops, where the goal remains to reach every possible customer. Rapid cost recovery is not the highest priority — delivering good service in their communities is. Most are willing to wait a little longer to pay off network construction costs in return for better service for everyone today.

USDA Under Secretary Dallas Tonsager says North Dakota’s fiber network is a “great role model” for the rest of the country.

“We’re going to use you as an example over and over and over again,” he said.

The USDA administers grants for rural broadband networks to help expand broadband service in underserved/unserved rural areas.

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WDAY in Fargo traveled to the unveiling of North America’s largest fiber broadband network and talked with residents about the transformational nature of fiber broadband.  (2 minutes)

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/North Dakota Fiber 4-12.flv[/flv]

This video shows how south-central North Dakota managed to build a fiber network that reaches every home within a 10,000 square mile area and how it is changing lives.  (7 minutes)