The pushy door-to-door salesman is back, and he’s working for CenturyLink.

Lake Oswego (Ore.) residents have been the unwelcome recipients of repeated doorbell ringing by a small army of young CenturyLink salespeople.  Described by some residents as “rude,” “pushy,” and intrusive, the salespeople pelted would-be customers with questions about how many televisions and computers were found within their homes, and what kind of telecommunications services they had.

Some residents were so alarmed by the aggressive and suspicious sales tactics, they called police.

“They were persistent, they came to my door four times,” Lake Oswego resident Betty Endress, who lives in a private gated community, told KOIN-TV. “We have a ‘no solicitation’ policy.”

Endress refused to open the door because, in her words, it was CenturyLink — a company nobody had heard of.

In fact, CenturyLink acquired Qwest, the former Baby Bell that predominately serves the mountain west states.

CenturyLink admits the aggressive sales force belongs to them.  They are being sent into neighborhoods where the company recently upgraded its broadband service, trying to lure customers away from the cable competition.  But one South Portland resident was so alarmed when three salespeople showed up on his doorstep all at once, he called 911.

Telecommunications providers have been victimized by some criminals who represent themselves as company employees to force their way into residential homes to commit crimes.  CenturyLink says concerned residents should ask to see CenturyLink branded identification badges, uniforms, and a copy of the license permitting them to pursue door-to-door sales.

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Residents in private, gated communities told KOIN-TV in Portland they’d prefer not to be visited by CenturyLink salespeople on their doorsteps, whether the sales force holds a business license or not.  (3 minutes)

The House on Tuesday approved a five-year moratorium on new wireless taxes to keep states and localities from padding cell phone bills with new fees for wireless services.

The non-controversial measure easily won bipartisan support and passed quickly on a voice vote with just one member of Congress rising to oppose the measure.

The Wireless Tax Fairness Act, sponsored by Representative Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat and Trent Franks, an Arizona Republican, was heavily backed by the wireless industry.  The legislation doesn’t stop local and state governments from imposing existing taxes, but would keep new taxes off cell phone bills if the measure becomes law.  AT&T and Verizon spent heavily to promote the bill, noting customers are cutting back their cell phone and data plans in response to increasing taxes which run as high as 23% in some states.

Historically, state and local governments have seen cell phones as a luxury item, and have targeted them with taxes to help sustain government budgets.  But as consumers increasingly turn to cell phones as landline replacements, the days of such technology being used mostly by the well-heeled are well past.  Lofgren sees the burden of cell phone taxes on Californians, who have dropped traditional landline services in favor of smartphones and wireless broadband.

“We need to encourage the development and adoption of wireless broadband, not tax it out of existence,” said Lofgren.

An identical Senate companion bill was introduced by Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), where it also seems to be getting bipartisan support.

Taxes on wireless services now meet or exceed those charged for alcohol and tobacco in several states.

[For flat monthly taxes and fees, average monthly consumer bill is estimated at $48.16 per month per CTIA – The Wireless Association.]

Source: Committee on State Taxation, 50-State Study and Report on Telecommunications Taxation, May 2005. Updated July 2010 by Scott Mackey, Kimbell Sherman Ellis LLP using state statutes and regulations.

The taxes levied are supposed to pay for everything from school funding to law enforcement to 911 services.  Some states impose 911 surcharges that local municipalities also charge themselves.  The free-for-all takes an even bigger bite as consumers adopt more expensive plans that include wireless data.

How much consumers would save with the passage of the legislation is unclear, because existing taxes are not impacted.  The measure also does nothing to stop the wireless industry from adding bill padding fees they conjure up themselves.

But the wireless industry still calls the House passage a “crucial step toward providing wireless subscribers with some much needed relief.”

[flv width=”520″ height=”308″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Cell Phone Taxes 11-3-11.flv[/flv]

WKRG in Mobile, Ala. reports cell phone taxes are reaching an all-time high.  Nearby viewers in Pensacola, Fla. probably weren’t too happy to learn Florida is rated the 4th highest-taxed-state.  The Wireless Tax Fairness Act may prevent taxes from rising further, but it won’t stop existing fees.  Also included: Rep. Franks’ statement on the House floor introducing the bill and urging fellow members to support it.  (3 minutes)

Phillip Dampier on USF Reform: It might have been great, it could have been a lot worse, but ultimately it turned out to be not very good.

Last week, the Federal Communications Commission unveiled their grand plan to reform the Universal Service Fund, a program originally designed to subsidize voice telephone service in rural areas deemed to be unprofitable or ridiculously expensive to serve.  Every American with a phone line pays into the fund through a surcharge found on phone bills. Urban Americans effectively subsidize their rural cousins, but the resulting access to telecommunications services have helped rural economies, important industries, and the jobs they bring in agriculture, cattle, resource extraction, and manufacturing.

The era of the voice landline is increasingly over, however, and the original goals of the USF have “evolved” to fund some not-so-rural projects including cell phone service for schools, wireless broadband in Hollywood, and a whole mess of projects critics call waste, fraud, and abuse.  For the last several years, USF critics have accused the program of straying far from its core mission, especially considering the costs passed on to ratepayers.  What originally began as a 5% USF surcharge is today higher than 15%, funding new projects even as Americans increasingly disconnect their landline service.

For at least a decade, proposals to reform the USF program to bridge the next urban-rural divide, namely broadband, have been available for consideration.  Most have been lobbied right off the table by independent rural phone companies who are at risk of failure without the security of the existing subsidy system.  Proposals that survived that challenge next faced larger phone company lobbyists seeking to protect their share of USF money, or by would-be competitors like the wireless industry or cable operators who have generally been barred from the USF Money Party.

This year, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski finally achieved a unanimous vote to shift USF funding towards the construction and operation of rural broadband networks.  The need for broadband funding in rural areas is acute.  Most commercial providers will candidly admit they have already wired the areas deemed sufficiently profitable to earn a return on the initial investment required to provide the service.  The areas remaining without service are unlikely to get it anytime soon because they are especially rural, have expensive and difficult climate or terrain challenges to overcome, or endure a high rate of poverty among would-be customers, unable to afford the monthly cost for the service.  Some smaller independent phone companies are attempting to provide the service anyway, but too often the result is exceptionally slow speed service at a very high cost.

The new Connect America Fund will shift $4.5 billion annually towards rural broadband construction projects.  Nearly a billion dollars of that will be reserved in a “mobility fund” designated for mobile broadband networks.

The goal is to bring broadband to seven million additional households out the 18 million currently ignored by phone and cable operators.

The FCC believes AT&T will take a new interest in upgrading its rural landline networks, even as the company continues to lobby for the right to abandon them.

Unfortunately, the FCC has set the bar pretty low in its requirements for USF funding.  The FCC defines the minimum level of “broadband” they expect to result from the program — 4/1Mbps.  That’s DSL speed territory and that is no accident.  The phone companies have advocated a “less is more” strategy in broadband speed for years, arguing they can reach more rural customers if speed requirements are kept as low as possible.  DSL networks are distance sensitive.  The faster the minimum speed, the more investment phone companies need to make to reduce the length of copper wiring between their office and the customer.  Arguing 4Mbps is better than nothing has gotten them a long way in Washington, but it also foreshadows the next digital divide — urban/rural broadband speed disparity.  While large cities enjoy speeds of 50Mbps or more, rural towns will still be coping with speeds “up to” 4Mbps.

The FCC does not seem too worried, relying heavily on a mild incentive program to prod providers to upgrade their DSL service to speeds of 6/1.5Mbps.

The irony of asking AT&T to invest in an aging landline network they are lobbying to win the right to abandon is lost on Washington, and future speed upgrades for rural America from companies like Verizon are in serious doubt when they sell off their rural areas to companies like FairPoint and Frontier and leave town.

Critics of USF reform suggest the program is still stacked in favor of the phone companies, and considering the state of their copper wire networks, would-be competitors are scratching their heads.

The cable industry, in particular, is still peeved by reforms they feel leave them at a disadvantage.  Of course, Washington may simply be recognizing the fact cable companies are the least likely to wire rural America, but when they do, the service that results is often faster than what the phone company offers.  The nation’s biggest cable lobbyist — ironically also the former chairman of the FCC, Michael Powell — still feels a little abused after reading the final proposal.

“While we are disappointed in the Commission’s apparent decision to ignore its longstanding principle of competitive neutrality and provide incumbent telephone companies an unwarranted advantage for broadband support,” said National Cable & Telecommunications Association President Michael Powell, “we remain hopeful that the order otherwise reflects the pro-consumer principles of fiscal discipline and technological neutrality that will bring needed accountability and greater efficiency to the existing subsidy system.  We are particularly heartened by the Commission’s efforts to ensure that carriers are fairly compensated for completing VoIP calls.”

Wireless operators are not happy either, because the arcane requirements that come with the USF bureaucracy were written with the phone companies in mind, not them.  Small, family-owned providers find it particularly difficult to do business with the USF, if only because they don’t have the staff or time to navigate through endless documents and forms.  Phone companies do.

Your phone bill is going up.

Many consumer groups are relieved because it could have been much worse.   The FCC could have simply capitulated and adopted the phone companies’ wish-list — the ABC Plan.  Thankfully, they didn’t, but the FCC has naively left the door open to substantial rate increases for consumers by not capping the maximum annual outlay of the fund.  That follows the same recipe that invited higher phone bills and questionable subsidies awarded in an effort to justify the original USF program even after it accomplished most of its goals. Consumers may face initial rate increases of $0.50 almost immediately, and up to $2.50 a month five years from now.

The FCC, unjustifiably optimistic, suspects phone companies and other telecommunications interests won’t gouge customers with higher prices.  They predict rate increases of no more than 10-15 cents a month.  I wouldn’t take that bet and neither will consumer groups.

“We’re going to press the FCC to ensure that these are temporary increases, because history has shown that these types of costs tend to stick around and go on and on and on,” said Parul Desai, policy counsel for Consumers Union.

An even bigger question left unanswered is just how far the FCC will get into the broadband arena when it refuses to take the steps necessary to ensure it has an admission ticket.  The agency has avoided classifying broadband as a telecommunications service, an important distinction that would bolster its authority to oversee the industry.  Without it, some members of Congress, and more importantly the courts, have questioned whether the FCC has any business in the broadband business.  Just one of the many high-powered players in the discussion could test that theory in the courts, and should a judge throw the FCC’s plan out, we’ll be back at square one.

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Verizon’s chief lobbyist Tom Tauke spent a half hour last weekend on C-SPAN taking questions about USF reform and the side issues of IP Interconnection and Net Neutrality policies. Tauke supports consolidation of small phone companies into fewer, larger companies.  He also expands on his company’s lawsuit against Net Neutrality, which fortuitously (for Verizon) will he heard by the same D.C. Court of Appeals that threw out the FCC’s fines against Comcast for throttling broadband connections.  Politico’s Kim Hart participates in the questioning, which also covered wireless spectrum issues impacting Verizon Wireless, AT&T’s stumbling merger deal with T-Mobile, and Verizon’s latest lawsuit against the FCC for data roaming notification rules.  (28 minutes)

The phone company gives its WeatherLine the boot.

Verizon and other phone companies are finding it increasingly profitable to get out of the information business, and the days of calling numbers for the current time of day or hiring someone to deliver local weather, sports scores or lotto numbers are increasingly behind us.

For decades local phone companies have run recorded announcement services, first as a free public service and then as a profit center.  The venerable “Time of Day” service, which in some areas was broadened to include the current temperature and an abbreviated weather forecast, was initially envisioned as a labor saver.  That’s because your grandparents used to call and bug the operator for the current time to synchronize their clocks, which tied up switchboards and potentially delayed emergency calls long before there was a “911” to call instead.

In the 1970s, phone companies began to realize they were giving away a lot of information for free, and with some numbers getting tens of thousands of calls a day, that meant leaving money on the table.  And so began “recorded information message charges,” typically around 8.3-25 cents cents a call (phone companies always round up no matter what) charged when customers dialed numbers with prefixes of 974 or 976.  Later still, the 900 area code would open the door to even more expensive pay-per-minute services.

Some phone companies charged for the local time and weather, others gave away the local forecast for free.

For Washington, D.C. residents, Verizon’s local weather line died a quiet death last week.  Callers to (202) 936-1212 now hear a message telling them the number has been disconnected.  And so ends an era.

It’s not to be completely unexpected.  Smartphone owners can get the time or weather just by looking at their phones.  The Weather Channel and NOAA Weather Radio provides much the same service 24-hours a day.  Some cities have competing weather lines each delivering the weather to interested callers.

But Verizon’s 936 number has become so ingrained in local residents’ heads, it’s now a valuable commodity one company wants to purchase.

Telecompute, which runs recorded information lines across the country, wants to pick up where Verizon left off.  They are attempting to negotiate with the phone company to acquire that magic 936 number for their own weather line, already running at (202) 589-1212.  But that’s no 936 number.

If you believe the Internet age has made the concept of recorded information lines obsolete, and Verizon certainly thinks that’s true, you might be surprised to learn Telecompute’s lesser-known, existing weather line receives over 2,000 calls a day.  That’s welcome news for Howard Phoebus, the veteran forecaster who will keep his job providing customers in the District, Virginia, and Maryland their daily forecast.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/976-8881 Commercial.mp4[/flv]

A commercial for a California 976 dial-a-date number.  Warning: 80’s feathered hair and fashions may cause allergic reactions in some viewers.  (1 minute)

In August, Time Warner Cable’s billing system went haywire for some 15,000 Ohio customers, some of whom found their promotional rates canceled, resulting in a doubling of their monthly bills.

One such Time Warner customer is Linda Sacash, who lives in Russell Township.  She had a three-year deal, in writing, with Time Warner that provided her family with a triple play package of Internet, telephone, and cable service for $89.95 a month.  But when her August bill arrived, Time Warner insisted she owed twice that amount — $179.

Sacash, among others, started calling Time Warner to complain about the inaccurate bills and was told the cable company unilaterally decided to expire promotional packages a year early.  Sacash wasn’t happy with that explanation, and noted a clause in her written agreement that limited rate increases to no more than 10 percent a year.  That didn’t matter much to Time Warner, who looked forward to receiving her new $179 payment by the due date on her bill.

Time Warner’s attitude changed, however, when WEWS-TV consumer troubleshooter Joe Pagonakis turned the camera on himself, and called the cable company looking for answers:

The company responded immediately, admitting some 15,000 bills were processed inaccurately during the summer.

Time Warner quickly corrected Sacash’s bill, and confirmed that her promotional offer will remain in place until November 2012, as stated in the Time Warner service invoice.

If considering a promotional offer, get it in writing and keep the paperwork for the length of the promotion, just in case your provider decides to renege on the deal. If signing up for a promotion over the phone, always get the name, extension/employee ID, and the exact details of the offer and keep those details in your files.  It’s often easier to get a company to stand up to their commitments when you have the name and extension number of the employee who sold it.

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WEWS-TV in Cleveland intervenes on behalf of a local woman who faced a doubling of her cable bill when Time Warner elected to end her promotion a year early.  (2 minutes)