This SFR retail store is part of the Altice telecom empire

Two customer service representatives at Altice-owned SFR, a wireless carrier in France, may not have understood that the video they broadcast over Periscope showing the destruction of a difficult customer’s cell phone wasn’t just for their friends’ viewing pleasure.

France is buzzing today about the wider release of the video, showing the two employees complain that despite the fact the customer’s phone was being repaired, “he’s breaking our balls this morning. You know what we’ll do to his phone?”

The miracle of Periscope, which let’s you “explore the world through someone else’s eyes,” means everyone watching quickly found out as they obliterated the smartphone by repeatedly throwing it to the ground.

Their evil plan, shared with countless viewers, was first to prove it was not a dummy phone they were destroying, and then claim it was the condition of the phone as it was received.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/SFR Workers Destroy Customer Cell Phone Live on Periscope 3-31-16.mp4[/flv]

These two SFR employees apparently misunderstood that more than their friends would be watching Periscope as they destroyed a difficult customer’s cell phone. (French) (1:54)

After the first 10,000 views of the video-that-went-viral, SFR’s damage control team moved in… to rescue SFR’s reputation. The company tweeted it had identified the culprits, (later independently identified as employees of the SFR shopping center in Villeneuve d’Ascq) and they would be “severely punished.” Within hours, both men were fired.

But customers of this Altice-owned operation consider it business as usual. As Altice continues to fight for approval of its acquisition of Cablevision, its largest wireless holding in France is fighting to to be taken seriously by its dwindling customer base.

On Wednesday, the French Association of Telecom Users (AFUTT) released its 2015 Report on Complaints and Customer Dissatisfaction, and no company disappointed more than SFR.

Despite repeated assurances from Altice and SFR-Numericable executives that things were improving, the report found the exact opposite. SFR-Numericable (the combination wireless and cable operator) was the subject of 36% of all complaints against all French telecom companies among Internet users, despite only having a 21% market share. It was the only telecom operator in France to further decline in the ratings, for a second year in a row.

“We can assume the acquisition of SFR by [Altice-owned] Numericable resulted in some initial disruptions to the quality of their service,” the AFUTT report speculates. “The first reports of this appeared in 2014 and have continued and grown in 2015.”

That may be bring pause to New Yorkers and state regulators currently reviewing Altice’s application to acquire Cablevision. Several consumer groups and unions have specifically called out the management methods of Altice founder Patrick Drahi as responsible for many of the problems, noting his demands for forcible cost cutting, squeezing supplies, and exasperating unions have caused many employees to depart.

36% of all complaints about telecom companies in France are directed against Altice-owned SFR-Numericable, claims AFUTT.

Verizon’s loyal landline customers are subsidizing corporate expenses and lavish spending on Verizon Wireless, the company’s eponymous mobile service, while their home phone service is going to pot.

Bruce Kushnick from New Networks Institute knows Verizon’s tricks of the trade. He reads tariff filings and arcane Securities & Exchange Commission corporate disclosures for fun. He’s been building a strong case that Verizon has used the revenue it earns from regulated landline telephone service to help finance Verizon’s FiOS fiber network and the company’s highly profitable wireless service.

Kushnick tells the New York Post at least two million New Yorkers with (P)lain (O)ld (T)elephone (S)ervice were overcharged $1,000-$1,500 while Verizon allowed its copper wire network to fall into disrepair. Kushnick figures Verizon owes billions of dollars that should have been spent on its POTS network that provides dial tones to seniors and low-income customers that cannot afford smartphones and laptops.

Verizon’s copper network should have been paid off years ago, argues Kushnick, resulting in dramatically less expensive phone service. What wasn’t paid off has been “written off” by Verizon for some time, Kushnick claims, and Verizon customers should only be paying $10-20 a month for basic phone service. But they pay far more than that.

To ensure a proper rate of return, New York State’s Public Service Commission sets Verizon’s basic service charge of regulated phone service downstate at $23 a month. Deregulation has allowed Verizon to charge whatever it likes for everything else, starting with passing along taxes and other various fees that raise the bill to over $30. Customers with calling plans to minimize long distance charges routinely pay over $60 a month.

Unregulated calling features like call waiting, call forwarding, and three-way calling don’t come cheap either, especially if customers choose them a-la-carte. A two-service package of call waiting and call forwarding costs Verizon 2-3¢ per month, but you pay $7.95. Other add-on fees apply for dubious services like “home wiring maintenance” which protects you if the phone lines installed in your home during the Eisenhower Administration happen to suddenly fail (unlikely).

In contrast, Time Warner Cable has sold its customers phone service with unlimited local and long distance calling (including free calls to the European Community, Canada, and Mexico) with a bundle of multiple phone features for just $10 a month. That, and the ubiquitous cell phone, may explain why about 11 million New Yorkers disconnected landline service between 2000-2016. There are about two million remaining customers across the state.

New York officials are investigating whether Verizon has allowed its landline network to deteriorate along the way. Anecdotal news reports suggests it might be the case. One apartment building in Harlem lost phone and DSL service for seven months. Another outage put senior citizens at risk in Queens for weeks.

“They don’t care if we live or die,” one tenant of a senior living center told WABC-TV.

Verizon claims Kushnick’s claims are ridiculous.

“There is absolutely no factual basis for his allegations,” the company said.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WABC New York Seniors vent against Verizon after phone service outage 3-9-16.flv[/flv]

WABC’s “7 On Your Side” consumer reporter Nina Pineda had to intervene to get Verizon to repair phone service for a senior living center that lasted more than a month. (2:50)

Frontier Communications customers lucky enough to live in an upgraded or recently acquired service area may soon be getting Frontier Vantage, a new suite of enhanced products including a multichannel TV package, faster broadband, and phone service.

Frontier Vantage started life in Frontier’s fiber to the home market trial in Durham, N.C., and is set to accompany, not replace, the Frontier FiOS and U-verse brands, starting in a wide rollout in Connecticut. Much like the XFINITY brand today co-exists with Comcast, Frontier intends its new Vantage brand to signify a premium experience. It is part of Frontier’s larger plan to introduce IPTV service in more than 40 of its larger markets across the country over the next four years, with an even larger presence in former Verizon service areas in Texas, Florida, and California.

In all, Frontier expects to offer the enhanced service to more than eight million of its customers after upgrades are finished.

Frontier’s biggest challenge will be getting Vantage service to customers in its legacy service areas, where its reliance on ADSL and its slow broadband speeds are often inadequate for a shared broadband and IPTV platform. In upgraded service areas, other challenges are appearing, including firm rejections of Vantage in multi-dwelling units where complex owners have signed multi-year exclusivity contracts with cable operators.

“As far as Durham goes, some of the initial learnings are that we were locked out in many cases of securing long-term contracts with some of the apartments and condominium owners in the market because we didn’t have a video product other than a mini head-end that was using satellite, which was not the preferred solution,” said Frontier CEO Dan McCarthy in February. “In the first several weeks of introducing the product, we’ve already secured new contracts that would be substantial units right out of the gate. Our door-to-door sales process has been very successful so far, but we’re in the early days — it’s only been really about a month or so.”

McKenney

Much of the door knocking is taking place in Connecticut, where Vantage started replacing the older Frontier TV/U-verse platform on set-top boxes starting last Monday. Former AT&T customers have transitioned through three brand changes. Originally served by AT&T U-verse, Frontier’s acquisition of AT&T’s wireline facilities in the state introduced customers to Frontier U-verse/FrontierTV. As of this week, it is now VantageTV.

The new firmware introduces a Netflix “on-demand channel” (Ch. 800 in Connecticut) where subscribers can access Netflix content without having to use separate hardware like Chromecast or Roku. This is the first of several “apps” that Frontier will offer, allowing customers to reach Facebook, Twitter, home shopping, weather, and games over their set-top box.

Frontier also plans a ‘start-over’ feature that allows viewers to start at the beginning of a show already in progress, an enhanced on-screen program guide and easier access to a list of upcoming shows. A video-on-demand library will also be on offer, and Frontier claims it will include over 100,000 movies and TV shows.

Customers will also get a whole-home DVR that can record four shows at once on a 1TB hard drive. A limited number of markets will also be offered 4k video service.

Accompanying the TV package will be phone service and Internet access at speeds starting as 12Mbps up to 1,000Mbps, depending on the market and available infrastructure.

“This is the perfect time for Frontier to launch our premier products,” said Cecilia K. McKenney, executive vice president and chief customer officer and head of corporate marketing at Frontier. “‘Vantage’ conveys the ultimate customer experience and represents products and services that deliver value, solutions, and choice.”

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Frontier What is Vantage TV 3-24-16.mp4[/flv]

Frontier introduces Vantage TV to customers in Connecticut formerly served by AT&T U-verse. This introductory video shows Frontier’s new set-top box firmware includes direct support for Netflix. (2:16)

For more than 20 years, Boston residents have watched NBC for free on WHDH-TV Channel 7. But if Comcast gets its way, at least four million Beantown viewers may have to subscribe to pay cable television service to keep watching.

This morning, WHDH filed suit against the cable giant in federal court in Boston alleging Comcast broke federal and state laws and an agreement it signed with antitrust regulators when it announced it would not renew WHDH’s affiliation contract with NBC. Comcast acquired NBC in 2011, after agreeing to conditions preventing the cable company from engaging in anti-competitive behavior.

Media observers say Comcast has made no secret of its desire to buy WHDH or another Boston over the air station, to build its network of affiliates directly owned and operated by the cable company. Station owner Ed Ansin isn’t selling, at least not at Comcast’s current asking price. But eyebrows were raised when Comcast announced it would end its affiliation agreement with WHDH – a well-known, high-powered television station – and move NBC programming to New England Cable News (NECN), a low-rated Comcast-owned cable channel.

Unless something changes, NECN will disappear on Jan. 1, 2017, replaced by a new “NBC Boston” cable channel. The decision will also strand WHDH without a major network affiliation, which is likely to significantly cut the station’s value and ratings.

“Comcast has a reputation for pushing the envelope wherever they can but they’ve just done an awful lot of things wrong here,” said Ansin.

In an effort to limit the damaging optics of Comcast forcing free network television programming to pay cable, Comcast announced it would also relay its NBC Boston cable channel over a UHF channel in another state now showing Telemundo programming. Those without cable will have to adjust their antennas carefully to receive WNEU-TV Channel 60, in Merrimack, N.H, the new home of NBC for Boston-area cord-cutters and cord-nevers.

WNEU’s coverage area only reaches 50% of the Boston television market.

That may be good news for New Hampshire residents in Concord or Nashua that may have had trouble watching NBC shows over WHDH, but very bad news for about four million people inside Greater Boston who live where WNEU’s signal doesn’t reach, including those in primarily minority communities like Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, and Brockton. Those residents, along with other areas in southern Boston, will likely have to call Comcast and buy cable TV to keep watching NBC starting this January.

WHDH’s lawyers have now pushed back:

When Comcast, the largest cable company in the world, acquired NBC in 2011, there was widespread concern about the impact this unprecedented accumulation of power in the television industry would have on viewers and other market participants. Particularly in markets like Boston, where Comcast is the dominant cable provider, citizen groups, industry participants and government agencies expressed concern that Comcast would seek to leverage its cable holdings and in the process degrade its broadcasting presence and diminish the important public service role that broadcast television stations historically have played.  To address those concerns, Comcast promised its NBC affiliates (including WHDH) that it would negotiate affiliate extensions in good faith such that over the air access would be maintained, and cable interests would not influence those negotiations.  As part of the FCC’s approval of Comcast’s acquisition of NBC, the FCC adopted these same conditions in order to protect the public interest.

WHDH believes that Comcast has violated these conditions.  It also believes that Comcast’s actions violate Massachusetts law prohibiting unfair and deceptive business practices.  Finally, WHDH believes that Comcast’s actions violate federal and state antitrust laws because they have enabled Comcast to increase its monopoly power in the Boston television market, and the resulting decrease in competition will harm consumers, advertisers and other broadcasters.

In its suit WHDH is seeking an injunction and an order requiring Comcast to comply with its obligations under its agreement with WHDH and the FCC order. WHDH will also seek damages.

WHDH also accuses Comcast of stringing it along on the renewal of its affiliate agreement, claiming they were told discussions about an extension would begin “when the time was right.” WHDH says Comcast was plotting to launch its own cable network alternative all along, and didn’t negotiate in good faith. In July 2013, NECN ad sales representatives began telling advertisers it would soon become the local NBC affiliate. After WHDH protested to Comcast, the cable company claimed NECN’s statements were untrue.

“No major national broadcaster has ever terminated its relationship with a successful independent affiliate in a major market to build its own local affiliate from scratch,” WHDH lawyers wrote.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WHDH Boston Major announcement involving NBC and WHDH-TV 1-7-16.mp4[/flv]

WHDH in Boston informed viewers back in January that Comcast was not going to renew its affiliation agreement with NBC. Today, WHDH’s lawyers took Comcast to court. (3:27)

Phillip Dampier: One customer calls FairPoint’s deregulation logic “moosepoop.”

In 2007, Verizon Communications announced it was selling its landline telephone network in Northern New England to FairPoint Communications, a North Carolina-based independent telephone company. Now, nearly a decade (and one bankruptcy) later, FairPoint wants to back out of its commitments.

In 2015, FairPoint stepped up its push for deregulation, writing its own draft legislative bills that would gradually end its obligation to serve as a “carrier of last resort,” which guarantees phone service to any customer that wants it.

The company’s lobbyists produced the self-written LD 1302, introduced last year in Maine with the ironic name: “An Act To Increase Competition and Ensure a Robust Information and Telecommunications Market.” The bill is a gift to FairPoint, allowing it to abdicate responsibilities telephone companies have adhered to for over 100 years:

• The bill removes the requirement that FairPoint maintain uninterrupted voice service during a power failure, either through battery backup or electric current;
• Guarantees FairPoint not be required to offer provider of last resort service without its express consent, eliminating Universal Service requirements;
• Eliminates a requirement FairPoint offer service in any area where another provider also claims coverage of at least 94% of households;
• Eventually forbids the Public Utilities Commission from requiring contributions to the state Universal Service Fund and forbids the PUC from spending that money to subsidize rural telephone rates.

Such legislation strips consumers of any assumption they can get affordable, high quality landline service and would allow FairPoint to mothball significant segments of its network (and the customers that depend on it), telling the disconnected to use a cell phone provider instead.

FairPoint claims this is necessary to establish a more level playing ground to compete with other telecom service providers that do not have legacy obligations to fulfill. But that attitude represents “race to the bottom” thinking from a company that fully understood the implications of buying Verizon’s landline networks in a region where some customers were already dropping basic service in favor of their cell phones.

FairPoint apparently still saw value spending $2.4 billion on a network it now seems ready to partly abandon or dismantle. We suspect the “value” FairPoint saw was a comfortable duopoly in urban areas, a monopoly in most rural ones. When it botched the conversion from Verizon to itself, customers fled to the competition, dimming its prospects. The company soon declared bankruptcy reorganization, emerged from it, and is now seeking a legislative/regulatory bailout too. Regulators should say no.

Last week, even FairPoint’s CEO Paul Sunu appeared to undercut his company’s own arguments for the need of such legislation, just as the company renewed its efforts in Portland to get a new 2016 version of the deregulation bill through the Maine legislature.

“We’ve operated in and we have experience operating basically in duopolies for a long time,” Sunu told investors in last week’s quarterly results conference call. “Cable is a formidable competitor. Look, they offer a nice package and a bundle and they – in certain areas, they certainly have a speed advantage. So we recognize that and so our marketing team does a really good job of making sure that our packages are competitive and we can counter punch on a both aggregate and deconstructive pricing.”

“Our aim is not to be a low cost, per se,” Sununu added. “What we want to do is to make sure that people stay with us because we can provide a better service and a better experience and that’s really what we aim to do. And as a result, we think that we will be able to change the perception that people have of Fairpoint and our brand and be able to keep our customers with us longer.”

Paul H. Sunu

Of course customers may not have the option to stay if FairPoint gets its deregulation agenda through and are later left unilaterally disconnected. In fact, while Sunu argues FairPoint’s biggest marketing plus is that it can provide better service, its agenda seems to represent the opposite. AARP representatives argued seniors want and need reliable and affordable landline service. FairPoint’s proposal would eliminate assurances that such phone lines will still be there and work even when the power goes out.

At least this year, customers know if they are being targeted. FairPoint is proposing to immediately remove from “provider of last resort service” coverage in Maine from Bangor, Lewiston, Portland, South Portland, Auburn, Biddeford, Sanford, Brunswick, Scarborough, Saco, Augusta, Westbrook, Windham, Gorham, Waterville, Kennebunk, Standish, Kittery, Brewer, Cape Elizabeth, Old Orchard Beach, Yarmouth, Bath, Freeport and Belfast.

At least 10,000 customers could be affected almost immediately if the bill passes. Customers in those areas would not lose service under the plan, but prices would no longer be set by state regulators and the company could deny new connection requests.

FairPoint argues that customers disappointed by the effects of deregulation can simply switch providers.

“The market determines the service quality criteria of importance to customers and the service quality levels they find acceptable,” Sarah Davis, the company’s senior director of government affairs, wrote. “To the extent service quality is deficient from the perspective of consumers, the competitive marketplace imposes its own serious penalties.”

Except FairPoint’s own CEO recognizes that marketplace is usually a duopoly, limiting customer options and the penalties to FairPoint.

Those customers still allowed to stay customers may or may not get good service from FairPoint. Another company proposal would make it hard to measure reliability by limiting the authority of state regulators to track and oversee service complaints.

Company critic and customer Mike Kiernan calls FairPoint’s legislative push “moosepoop.”

“FairPoint has been, from the outset, well aware of the issues here in New England, since they had to demonstrate that they were capable of coping with the conditions – market and otherwise – in their takeover bid from Verizon,” Kiernan writes. “Yet now we see where they are crying poverty (a poverty that they brought on themselves) by taking on the state concession that they are trying desperately to get out from under, and as soon as possible.”

Vermont Public Radio reports FairPoint wants to get rid of service quality obligations it has consistently failed to meet as part of a broad push for deregulation. (2:23)

You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.

Kiernan argues FairPoint should be replaced with a solution New Englanders have been familiar with for over 200 years – a public co-op. He points to Eastern Maine Electrical Co-Op as an example of a publicly owned utility that works for its customers, not as a “corporate cheerleader.”

Despite lobbying efforts that suggest FairPoint is unnecessarily burdened by the requirements it inherited when it bought Verizon’s operations, FairPoint reported a net profit of $90 million dollars in fiscal 2015.