Estonian Internet users are enjoying faster broadband speeds with the announcement cable provider AS Starman has upgraded its broadband packages without a corresponding price hike. Now customers in the Baltic state can get 200/20Mbps service for less than $34 a month.

The cable operator tiers its DOCSIS 3 cable broadband speeds like clothing sizes:

• Small (2Mbps/500kbps): $13.37/mo
• Medium (10/2Mbps): $25.40/mo
• Large (60/10Mbps): $30.75/mo
• X-Large (200/20Mbps): $33.43/mo

The Tallinn-based company was founded in 1992 and offers cable television, phone, and broadband service to about 45 percent of Estonia.

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Selling broadband in Estonia isn’t much different from selling service in North America. But broadband prices are far lower than what the average customer in Canada or the U.S. pays for equivalent service. Here is a typical ad for Starman service. (1 minute)

AT&T may soon approach your electricity provider to encourage the introduction of prepaid electrical service, powered by AT&T’s wireless network.

AT&T is looking beyond traditional cell phone service to keep profits flowing into its lucrative wireless business. A growing segment of revenue is anticipated to come from so-called “machine to machine” communications. One application, Meter Data Management (MDM), provides connectivity to wireless-enabled smart utility meters, and is expected to grow 300 percent to $221 million by 2014.

Although now uncommon in the United States, prepaying for electric service is found in many parts of the world where cash-strapped consumers tend to renege on the bill. With late and non-paying customers remaining a consequence of the current American economy, AT&T is encouraging utilities to adopt pay-for-use technology that will cut the 10 percent of late-payers off the grid and save utilities money spent to collect past-due bills.

AT&T argues the next generation of “smart meters” can do a lot more than report meter readings over a wireless network. The technology can be leveraged to offer risk-free utility service, targeting credit compromised customers and those seeking to avoid billing surprises from excessive energy use.

Customers switched to prepaid electric service fill their meter with an allotment of energy usage from prepaid top-up cards sold by area convenience stores, supermarkets and even street vendors. Customers can also use credit cards or authorize checking accounts to be debited on a regular basis. Customers who exceed their allowance quickly find their service shut off automatically, depending on state laws. Making a payment switches the power back on within minutes.

“Nearly 30 percent of people are on a prepay mobile plan in 2013,” said Ed Davalos, lead product marketing manager at AT&T, during a recent Greentech Media webinar. “That cannot be overlooked. The consumer has already changed.”

Getting utilities to adopt the system may require AT&T, in partnership with other vendors, to front some of the costs to switch to smart meter and prepaid billing technology. A study commissioned by AT&T found the biggest hurdle to adopting prepaid electric service is understanding who pays to implement it. One-third of American utility companies would launch prepaid service if it could be done for no or low-cost. Another one-third say they would seriously consider it if someone else put up the money to introduce it.

Since customers can only use energy they already paid to use, there is no payment risk to the utility company. AT&T estimates nearly 10 percent of all utility customers receive disconnect notices every month. The utilities eventually cut service to 3-5 percent of those who still don’t pay, which usually requires a truck to be sent to the customer’s home.

Using prepaid electric service offers utilities the power to switch off service at the office without a costly truck roll and prevent customers from running up an enormous past due balance. If just 10 percent of customers switched to prepaid electric service, AT&T estimates an average utility with 250,000 customers would save $5-15 million per year in costs. Those using prepaid service are so wary of exceeding their power allowance, they use about 11 percent less electricity than non-prepaid customers, reducing demand on electricity generation.

Customers enrolled in prepaid service get to check their energy usage and some utilities offer different rates depending on the time of day. That means cost-conscious customers might hold off doing laundry until rates drop overnight. Others might avoid air conditioning use in the late afternoons, when fluctuating power rates are typically at their highest.

Campbell McCool, chief marketing officer of SmartSynch said the actual costs to the wireless network to manage prepaid was “well under” $0.50 per meter, per month — and SmartSynch executives have offered it can be as little as pennies per meter, per month depending on volume.

Verizon is also involved in the business, announcing a partnership with eMeter to offer cloud-based, scalable MDM for utilities.

Forty-two percent of U.S. electric customers now have digital meters, up from less than 5 percent in 2008. In 2015, more than 50 percent will have them, according to one consultant.

With the introduction of smart meters come risks, warns some consumer advocates.

Last month, the U.S. power market regulator moved towards charging JPMorgan with manipulating higher fluctuating electricity prices with fraudulent trading schemes, impacting customers in California and the Midwest.

Third party electricity marketers have also become a problem in many deregulated power states, with come-ons ranging from rebate checks to introductory rates that expire and leave the customer paying skyrocketing electricity rates well above the cost of buying service direct from the local utility. Many also impose lengthy contracts with steep early termination fees.

Smart meters allow utility providers to conjure up a number of marketing programs, such as a “free power day” offered once per week. Customers signing up for promotions like that typically avoid running the washing machine, dryer, and dishwasher except on days when they won’t pay to use the appliances. Others have to wait until after midnight for savings to kick in from overnight energy discounts.

But many of the programs have been designed to promise more savings than they deliver. Power providers have been criticized for aggressive door-to-door marketing, fraudulent utility switches reminiscent of days when phone customers found their long distance carrier switched without their permission, and tricky promotional checks that, once deposited, commit a customer to several years of service with a provider at whatever rates they choose to charge.

But lack of savings isn’t the only problem. In Texas, utilities can cut power service to customers within 24 hours of warning them they have exhausted their prepaid balance.

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In the Philippines, prepaid electric service was introduced to cope with customer complaints about high electricity rates. ABS-CBN News reports the meters don’t cut the price of electricity, they just help customers better manage bills by suggesting ways to reduce usage. (Oct. 2012) (2 minutes)

Starting today, Time Warner Cable customers can watch live streaming video of the company’s NY1 English and Spanish language channels on a redesigned website.

Customers across the country can view the New York City-based news channels by logging in with their TWC ID.

NY1 also announced their website’s video clips are now compatible with Apple iOS — an important consideration for iPhone and iPad users.

NY1 is one of several regional news channels operated by the cable operator. All of Time Warner’s local news networks are expected to be rebranded as “TWC News” starting later this year.

Updated 8/23: Time Warner Cable sent us a statement:

“Time Warner Cable customers in the New York City area will have access to the continuous live streams of NY1 and NY1 Noticias by signing in with their TWC ID username and password. Also, the news channel sites are now available for live streaming online for all Time Warner Cable video customers.”

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NY1 reports their two news channels are now available for live streaming online for all Time Warner Cable customers.  (1 minute)

The three companies that control 90 percent of Canada’s cell phone marketplace have set what they argue is ‘cut-throat’ competition aside to team up in a multi-million dollar lobbying campaign to discourage Verizon Wireless from entering the country.

Bell, Rogers, and Telus have maintained what critics charge is a “three-headed oligopoly” in the wireless business for years, leading to findings from the OECD that Canada is among the ten most expensive countries in the world for wireless service in almost every category and has among the highest roaming rates in the world.

Americans also pay high cell phone prices, and customers of both countries will find somewhat comparable pricing when comparing prices north or south of Lake Ontario. A shopper in Niagara Falls, N.Y. can find the Samsung Galaxy S4 from a Verizon reseller for $120 with a two-year contract. A shared data service plan runs as little as $80 a month for 500MB of data and unlimited domestic calling and global texting. Travel across the Rainbow Bridge to Niagara Falls, Ontario, walk into a Rogers store and the same phone runs $199 with a two-year contract (most Canadian carriers used to offer three-year contracts until the government banned them earlier this year) and a service plan running $80 a month offering the same 500MB of data and unlimited domestic calling and texting. Rogers charges extra if customers want to text a customer outside of Canada, however.

Verizon is no discount carrier. Verizon management has repeatedly stressed it offers premium service and coverage and can charge commensurately higher prices for access to that network. So the idea that Verizon’s interest in entering Canada is to launch a vicious price war is suspect, according to many telecommunications analysts.

Keep Verizon out of Canada at all costs!

In June, the Globe and Mail reported Verizon had shown serious interest in acquiring Canadian cellular upstart Wind Mobile with an early bid of $700 million. Wind Mobile, one of the three significant new “no-contract” entrants vying for a piece of the country’s cell phone market, has limped along since opening for business in 2009, unable to attract much interest from customers concerned about coverage gaps and the poor choice of mobile devices.

More recently, Wind Mobile’s new owner — the Russian mobile giant Vimpelcom — has expressed an interest in selling off the carrier because it cannot gain traction against the biggest three, which also control 85 percent of mobile wireless spectrum.

News that Verizon had taken an interest in the carrier leveled shock waves across the Canadian financial markets. Shares in the three largest telecom giants fell sharply on the news. Earlier this month, Bell CEO George Cope reported that Bell, Telus and Rogers have taken a $15-billion cumulative hit on the capital markets since Verizon hinted interest in Wind Mobile.

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The CBC reported earlier this summer that Verizon Wireless was interested in acquiring the 600,000 customers of independent wireless provider Wind Mobile, which has an insignificant share of the Canadian wireless market. (2 minutes)

Spending a few million, or even a billion dollars, to keep Verizon south of the Canadian-U.S. border is well worth it to the three big players who have launched an expensive campaign to block the proposed transaction and are willing to pay premium prices to keep struggling carriers from being sold to deep-pocketed American telecom companies.

Telus had already done its part, attempting to scoop up another scrappy upstart carrier that wanted out of the wireless business. But the Canadian government rejected Telus’ proposed acquisition of Mobilicity, claiming it would harm efforts to expand Canadian wireless competition. Not to be deterred, Rogers is now attempting a cleverly structured deal to acquire Wind Mobile out from under Verizon with a proposed buyout worth more than $1 billion.

To avoid the anticipated rejection of the deal by Canadian regulators on competition grounds, Rogers has reportedly joined forces with Toronto-based private equity firm Birch Hill Partners that would make that firm the owners-in-name. Although Rogers wouldn’t get a direct equity stake in Wind, it would finance a good part of the deal and win access and control of Wind’s mobile spectrum for its own network. More importantly, it could keep Verizon out of Canada.

“The government is handing out loopholes to Verizon to beg them into Canada”

Cell phone companies in Canada are particularly angry that the government has set aside certain spectrum and guaranteed access for upstart providers to successfully establish themselves without having to outbid the cash-rich big three for wireless frequencies or have to build a nationwide network from scratch. Bell, Rogers and Telus have consistently opposed spectrum set-asides for small carriers, deeming them “unfair.” They argue Canadians’ voracious needs for more wireless service are unending, and it would be unfair not to sell the spectrum to benefit their larger customer bases. But hearing that Verizon, a company larger than Bell, Rogers, and Telus combined, could get preferential treatment and spectrum to enter the country has them boiling mad.

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Bell’s CEO George Cope appeared on “The Lang and O’Leary Exchange” to debate the fairness of Verizon’s possible entry into Canada’s wireless market. Cope argues Verizon is getting special favors. (9 minutes)

The idea of luring a company to move or begin offering service in a barely competitive marketplace is hardly new. Cities have offered preferential policies to airlines to fly in and out of particular cities, local governments have offered tax abatements to get companies to set up shop, and providing exemptions for zoning and infrastructure have been familiar to telecommunications companies for decades.

In 1880, the National Bell Telephone Company had incorporated, through an Act of Parliament, the Bell Telephone Company of Canada (today also known as BCE), which was given the right to build telephone lines over and along all public property and rights-of-way without compensation to the public or former owners. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, Bell would later become the dominant monopoly provider of telephone service across much of eastern Canada.

When the phone companies were handed wireless spectrum to launch their wireless businesses in the 1980s, they didn’t have anything to complain about either.

None of that history impressed Bell’s current CEO George Cope, who took to the airwaves to complain Verizon was being given preferential treatment:

• Verizon could bid on two blocks of Canadian spectrum set aside for new entrants to the market in auction later this year. Because the big three Canadian firms are not permitted to bid on these blocks, they are likely to be sold at a lower price.
• Verizon would not have to build its own networks to remote or rural communities, but would be able to piggyback on existing networks.
• Verizon can bid to acquire small Canadian companies such as Mobilicity or Wind, but Bell, Telus and Rogers are forbidden from bidding on them.

“A company of this size certainly doesn’t need handouts from Canadians or special regulatory advantages over Canadian companies,” Bell said in a full-page newspaper ad. “But that is exactly what they get in the new federal wireless regulations. We’re ready to compete head to head, but it has to be a level playing field,” Cope said in a TV interview, echoing Rogers CEO who also called for a “level playing field.”

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Bell, Telus, and Rogers have launched a lobbying campaign designed to make life difficult for Verizon Wireless if it chooses to enter Canada. The CBC reports Verizon will be able to bid on more spectrum than Canadian carriers and will have the right to roam on Canada’s incumbent wireless networks. (2 minutes)

Telus went further, claiming Verizon’s entry into Canada would result in a “bloodbath” for Canadian workers, laid off by the three largest Canadian providers to cut costs to better compete with Verizon.

But Cope said at least one Canadian carrier won’t be able to compete at all, because preferential treatment for wireless spectrum will result in at least one of the big three to lose at a forthcoming spectrum auction, guaranteeing degraded wireless broadband speeds and worse service.

The three companies have found little sympathy in Ottawa, particularly from Industry Minister James Moore, now on a road tour across Canada to promote the government’s wireless competition policies. He called the big three’s loud campaign self-serving and announced a new website sponsored by the Conservative Party of Canada to prove it.

“I think that the public instinctively knows that when they have more choices that prices go down and more competition they’re well served by that,” he told CBC News in Vancouver on Monday. “The noise that we’re hearing is about you know companies trying to protect their company’s interest. Our job as a government is larger than that, our job is to serve the public interest and make sure that the public is served in this so that’s one of the reasons why I’m pushing back a little bit.”

Industry Minister James Moore appeared on CBC Radio this morning to contest the wireless industry’s claims that Verizon is getting special treatment and will bring unfair competition to the Canadian wireless market. (7 minutes)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.

Oppose Verizon Wireless. Do it for Canada!

But the wireless companies show no signs of backing down and have turned towards appealing to Canadian nationalism and fairness.

“The U.S. government is not giving Canadian wireless carriers any special access to the U.S. market,” says a website launched by the big three cell providers to drum up support for a “level playing field.” “Then why is it that our own government is giving American companies preferential treatment over our own companies?”

This week, a Reuters report citing unnamed sources suggests Bell, Telus, and Rogers are about to target Verizon directly with a new campaign warning Canadians the American giant has been implicated in allowing the U.S. government open access to network and customer data, which would represent a profound privacy threat to Canadian customers.

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Bell, Telus, and Rogers paid to produce this ad calling on Canadians to protest unfair competition from an American wireless company.  (1 minute)

So far, Canadians’ hatred of their telecommunications providers has trumped the companies’ public relations and scare tactics. The Conservative government in Ottawa is winning support for its wireless competition war, even from unlikely places.

“Someone mark the date,” Tweeted one Halifax woman not inclined to vote Conservative. “Stephen Harper has done something I mostly support.”

“Eat it Telus/Bell/Rogers,” wrote a Calgary man fed up with the lack of competition in Canadian wireless.

John Lawford, executive director of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre in Ottawa, says opposition from the big three telecom companies is obvious because they don’t want to face a fourth, powerful competitor.

“They should be scared because chances are they’re going to have more competition in the Canadian market if Verizon comes in and they are going to have to lower their prices and compete harder,” Lawford told CBC News. “It’s pretty rich of them to be talking about unfairness” when they already control 90 per cent of Canadian spectrum, he added.

Iain Grant of the SeaBoard Group, a telecommunications consultancy, said government policies to open up more competition are designed to shake things up.

“[The new rules weren’t] meant to be a level playing field,” said Grant. “[They were] meant to give a leg up [to new competitors].”

“To talk of loopholes, as some do, is to not understand that the same companies who complain most loudly about loopholes in 2013 were the recipients of even greater public largesse in 1985 when the government gifted their initial spectrum as an incentive to build a wireless business in Canada,” said Grant.

Few companies have taken on the Canadian big three telecom providers because of their enormous market share, at least inside Canada.

Nine out of ten Canadian wireless users are subscribed to Bell, Telus or Rogers. Trying to convince a banker to extend capital loans to effectively confront a wireless oligopoly in a country with an enormous expanse of land but not people and find enough airwaves among the 15% not controlled by the big three is an uphill battle.

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CBC reports Industry Minister Moore believes increasing competition is the best way to cut Canadian cell phone bills. Regardless of whether Verizon enters Canada, the current government will continue to push for more competition. Even the threat of Verizon coming to Canada has already reduced prices. (2 minutes)

Why does Verizon want to enter Canada?

Analysts suspect Verizon’s interest in Canada has little to do with wooing Canadians to Big Red. Many suspect Verizon’s true interest is to make life easier for its traveling American customers who head north for business or pleasure.

Chief among the possible benefits is the elimination of roaming charges for Verizon customers.

“Verizon’s customers come into the country every day through all the bridges and ports of entries and they want to roam where they want to roam, whether that’s fishing in Saskatchewan or hunting in northern Ontario or wherever,” said Grant.

There are other apparent impediments that could limit the usefulness of Wind’s mobile network to Verizon. In addition to only operating in the largest Canadian cities, Wind’s infrastructure is built by Chinese firm Huawei and is not compatible with Verizon’s technology.

Huawei has been the subject of significant controversy because of its reported ties to the Chinese military. Fears that data could be intercepted by the Chinese government have kept many North American firms from doing business with the company.

Verizon also lacks bundling options for Canadian customers. The biggest three Canadian providers can offer telephone, television, and wired broadband service to their customers. Verizon can only offer wireless service.

Verizon has second thoughts

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CBC reports Verizon may be having second thoughts about entering Canada. Verizon may not be interested in entering a political battle to win licenses to provide service and may want to acquire its own spectrum before considering buying either Wind Mobile or another competitor like Mobilicity. (2 minutes)

AT&T and Camden Property Trust have announced an agreement to offer broadband, television, and phone services over fiber to the premises technology beginning this fall, serving new high-end apartment homes owned by the developer in Atlanta, Austin, and Orlando.

AT&T’s suggestion it will build a competing fiber network that would rival Google appears to be, for now, limited to selected, luxury multi-dwelling units participating in a strategic marketing partnership that can guarantee enough customers to make the investment in fiber optics worthwhile.

AT&T’s Connected Communities Initiative is a special program offered to large single-family homebuilders, developers, real estate investment trusts, apartment owners, property management groups and large homeowners’ associations that can deliver AT&T a virtually captive customer base in return for better-than-average service and kickbacks in the form of lucrative commissions.

With AT&T’s latest agreement, the new Camden-managed properties will receive the next generation of U-verse High Speed Internet, U-verse TV and U-verse Voice on an all-fiber network that will deliver a level of enhanced service unavailable to most U-verse customers. Most importantly, the fiber infrastructure will let AT&T to offer faster broadband to residents without limiting their television viewing.

Most AT&T U-verse customers receive service over a hybrid fiber-copper phone wire network using a more advanced form of DSL. Fiber from the nearest AT&T central office extends into each neighborhood, but existing copper phone wiring carries the service the last several blocks into individual customer homes. The presence of copper limits the available bandwidth, which has kept AT&T’s top U-verse speeds at around 24Mbps. The only way to increase speeds is to cut the amount of copper in the network. Eliminating it completely is even better.

AT&T has been reluctant to follow Verizon’s lead deploying an all-fiber network. The cost to wire each home with fiber was too prohibitive for AT&T, but providing fiber connectivity to large apartment buildings, condos, or other multi-dwelling units has met AT&T’s cost concerns, especially when the property owner signs over exclusive rights to the buildings’ existing telecommunications infrastructure.

AT&T’s program encourages the participation of property owners with a variety of paid commissions and other compensation, including:

Exclusive Marketing Agreements: Under an AT&T Exclusive Marketing Agreement, residents may still choose their communications and entertainment services provider, but the builder, developer or property owner agrees to exclusively promote AT&T services. In doing so, AT&T provides financial incentives in the form of commissions for property owners and multiple service options for residents. In most cases, renters may have the mistaken impression they can only get service from AT&T, and are informally discouraged from considering alternative providers.

Bulk Contracts: An AT&T Connected Communities bulk agreement offers greater earning potential. With a single, monthly recurring bulk bill for all contracted units, developers and HOAs get below-retail pricing, increased savings on equipment costs, and other rewarding financial incentives. In most cases, building owners include AT&T services either as part of the monthly rent or billed as a mandatory services surcharge. A resident can still sign up for satellite or cable television, but has zero incentive to do so because they would be effectively paying for service twice.

Exclusive Use of Wire:  Property owners grant AT&T exclusive use of the wiring, including coaxial cable, at the property. In addition, owners agree to promote AT&T products to residents. This deters would-be competitors from providing service at a property signed up with AT&T. A cable or satellite competitor would not have access to existing wiring and have to arrange an agreement with the property owner to provision a second cable inside the building. Neither the competing provider or the property owner would have any incentive to do this, regardless of the wishes of renters.

Large properties can also contract with AT&T to provision a site-wide Wi-Fi network for the benefit of residents both around the property and at amenities like clubhouses or poolside.

While such agreements can benefit residents with bulk pricing discounts beyond what they could have obtained from AT&T themselves, it also strongly deters other providers from delivering competitive services.

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Last fall, AT&T promoted its Connected Communities program with property developers, offering them commissions and other special deals if they sign exclusive marketing agreements with the phone company. In 2013, broadband speeds for certain U-verse Internet customers will be increasing, depending on the infrastructure available. (2 minutes)

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Camden Properties emphasizes the online services available to residents, particularly those that promote social interaction. In some cases, those services will now be powered by AT&T U-verse. (1 minute)