Time Warner Cable Arena – Charlotte, N.C.

Taxpayers and tourists in North Carolina will be on the hook for $33.5 million in improvements for the “outdated” 10-year old Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte.

The Charlotte Hornets will spend the public’s money over the next ten years renovating restaurants and bathrooms and make several other improvements inside the stadium. Such renovations may call upon professionals like those Cladding Painters.

Additionally, if you’re a property owner and your fire alarm system or water-based fire protection system is not functional, then you are required to implement a fire watch. You may seek expert help from a professional Fire Watch Company in Kendall.

Time Warner Cable won the naming rights for the stadium by cutting a deal with the Hornets (then known as the Bobcats) to allow games to air on satellite and regional cable sports networks, especially Fox Sports Net South. The stadium is largely the financial responsibility of Charlotte-area taxpayers, but a wealthy basketball team and the area’s largest cable operator take most of the credit.

The city is contractually obligated to spend taxpayer dollars on renovations and city officials took credit for reducing the original request for $50 million down to $33.5 million. Deal critics contend taxpayers are footing the bill while the NBA team enjoys a free ride.

The city signed an agreement in 2005 that includes language compelling the city to be concerned with the image of the team and its sponsors. Specifically, the city agreed to maintain the arena as among the NBA’s “most modern” stadiums. Just a decade after opening, the Hornets contend the stadium no longer meets that obligation. Now taxpayers and tourists will pony up millions from a hotel/motel occupancy tax and a car rental tax to cover renovations, including those for tony, corporate-reserved hospitality suites.

Some city council members claimed to feel trapped into voting for the deal, which was approved in a 9-2 vote. The council’s two Republicans voted no.

“If we break a contract, who will believe our word?” at-large council member Claire Fallon, a Democrat, told the Charlotte Observer. “Who will believe us? I have to vote for it.”

But Republican councilman Ed Driggs believes the city has signed a sucker’s deal.

“Many don’t believe public money should be used to subsidize a for-profit business,” Driggs said. “How do we rationalize the terms of this? We pay all capital costs … and receive no proceeds. What kind of partnership is this?”

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Eyebrows were raised when several council members, including the mayor pro tem, voted in favor of the Time Warner Cable Arena deal but against a public works project potentially financed by the federal government to expand the city’s Gold Line streetcar public transit system. WBTV in Charlotte reports. (2:31)

du’s call center is 91% female and 100% staffed by citizens of the UAE. (Photo: The National)

Broadband users across the United Arab Emirates will soon find their Internet connections upgraded to 1Gbps as the country transforms its broadband services to deliver world-class speeds without steep price increases.

ISP du announced this month it had successfully completed tests to upgrade its network to deliver 1,000Mbps service to its customers, delivering a faster data experience over a substantially improved bandwidth backbone.

“Offering 1Gbps speeds is yet another incredible triumph of our team’s efforts and a significant milestone in our progression towards offering unmatched user experience,” said Saleem AlBalooshi, executive vice president of network development and operations at du. “As always, this is designed around our customers and they stand to benefit from this initiative.”

Customers in the United Arab Emirates already enjoy substantially better telecommunication service at a lower cost compared to North America.

UAE mobile users already receive VoLTE 4G service, which allows customers to talk and browse the Internet simultaneously on a substantially upgraded LTE network. The ISP has offered wireless customers HD Voice — a better quality voice calling experience — at no extra charge since 2012. The company has also extended the technology to its older 3G mobile networks and supports HD quality landlines as well. This year, the company will deploy its LTE-A Carrier Aggregation technology to combine bandwidth available at different frequency bands to improve wireless speeds and reliability.

In April, the country introduced new regulatory policies requiring providers to sell access to their networks at reasonable wholesale prices, spurring competition and letting residents choose between different providers for the first time. Despite the open access rules, investment continues to pour into the UAE’s telecom networks for expansion and upgrades, even as customers see their bills decline.

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UAE Weekly features du’s CEO Osman Sultan who explains how du is very different from ISPs in other countries, especially in the USA and Canada. Sultan explains du doesn’t use offshore call centers, doesn’t frustrate customers with constant rate increases and usage restrictions, offers nationwide Wi-Fi, and believes in using competition to please customers, not alienate them with tricks and traps. From Dubai CITY TV-7. (April 21, 2014) (21:39)

Canadians pay between $495-734 million a year in extra charges just to receive a mailed copy of their monthly bill for cell phone, cable and broadband service. Now the Public Interest Advocacy Centre wants the government to ban charges for mailed invoices.

Jonathan Bishop, PIAC’s Research Analyst, said, “a majority of consumers have indicated their disapproval of being charged extra for a paper bill. Most Canadians believe supplying a paper bill in the mail without having to pay an extra fee is part of the company’s cost of doing business.”

If you ask most cable, phone and satellite companies about their paper billing policies, they will claim the fees are designed to encourage people to adopt more ecofriendly online billing. But the poor and elderly, who often lack Internet access, are forced to pay extra monthly fees just to find out how much they owe their providers.

Some providers have also been quietly increasing those paper bill fees, which now reach as high as $5.95 a month.

Trying to avoid a more formal regulatory proceeding, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission asked 11 major telecommunications companies to attend an informal meeting last week to negotiate curtailing the fees. The meeting fell apart with providers only willing to exempt certain customers from the billing fees, which have become a lucrative new source of revenue for many.

As of last November, 36 companies said they do not charge for paper bills, while 27 others charged between 99 cents – $5.95 a month. Among those with customer-friendly free paper bills: Shaw Communications, Manitoba Telecom, SaskTel and Bell Aliant. Those charging $2 a month for a paper bill include Rogers Communications, Telus, and Bell/BCE.  Rogers and Bell charge the fee for home phone, wireless, Internet and television services while Telus only charges for wireless and Internet bills.

Quebecor Inc.-owned Vidéotron Ltée wants $3 a month for wireless customers seeking a detailed paper bill listing all calls, texts and data used, but a less comprehensive standard bill can be obtained free of charge.

Wind Mobile, one of Canada’s new wireless competitors, charges $4 a month for a paper bill and one of their affiliated companies OneConnect, serving businesses with VoIP service, charges $5.95 a month.

The 11 largely intransigent companies: Bell Aliant, Bell Canada, Cogeco Cable, Eastlink, Globalive, MTS Allstream, Québecor, Rogers, SaskTel, Shaw, Telus only came to unanimous agreement that customers with “no personal or home broadband connection, persons with disabilities who need a paper bill, seniors aged 65 and over and veterans of the Canadian Armed Forces” will be able to avoid a paper bill fee, if charged. The exemptions take effect Jan. 1, 2015.

“While the companies agreed to adopt consistent exemptions to such fees, they were unable to reach a consensus to eliminate them entirely,” said CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais. “Many Canadians who will not benefit from the exemptions will be disappointed with the outcome so far.”

The CRTC is going to further survey Canadians before deciding what actions to take next.

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CTV reports consumers are frustrated about rising paper bill fees. The CRTC’s efforts to end the fees ran into profit motives — Canadian companies earn up to $700 million annually from bill printing. (1:48)

Emanuel

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has been prominently cited by Comcast as an example of a U.S. mayor that has the insight to support the company’s $45 billion buyout of Time Warner Cable.

But Comcast also had the insight to avoid mentioning it had paid Emanuel and a political slush fund controlled by him more than $100,000 before Emanuel took pen to paper in support of the merger.

The International Business Times notes the mayor of the Windy City has deposited giant campaign contributions from Comcast and its top executives for years, including two signed by the author of Comcast’s press release thanking Emanuel for his support himself — executive vice president David Cohen. In addition to a $5,000 personal donation to Emanuel, Cohen also signed a check for $10,000 payable to the notorious Chicago Committee, a political slush fund Emanuel controls and uses to keep other local politicians in line with his agenda.

Since Emanuel first ran for mayor in 2010, Comcast and its executives have spent $50,000 on his campaign. When Emanuel was a congressman, Comcast was one of his top donors — spending $46,000 total from 2003 until 2o08. Other executives gave another $25,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee that Emanuel chaired at the time.

With that kind of generosity, Emanuel had no trouble signing one of Comcast’s “template” letters in support of the merger, telling the FCC it was great for Chicago and would enhance Comcast’s “generous presence” in the area. While generous to Emanuel and other politicians, Comcast has pounded Chicago residents with relentless rate increases and perennially receives dismal customer approval ratings from locals.

Although Emanuel’s letter told the FCC the merger would not reduce choice, elevate prices, or otherwise harm consumers, piles of Comcast’s cash may have obscured Emanuel’s vision of what ordinary Comcast customers endure. WLS-TV in Chicago reports Comcast’s customer service borders on “abusive.” (1:38)

Connecticut’s tough Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) has rejected a settlement between state officials and Frontier Communications to acquire AT&T Connecticut, saying the deal offers very little to Connecticut ratepayers.

The settlement between Frontier, Connecticut’s Consumer Counsel and the Connecticut Attorney General’s office included commitments from Frontier governing contributions to state non-profit groups, phone rates and broadband expansion.

The Authority was told it could either approve or reject the settlement, but not suggest or require changes. It decided late last week to reject the settlement deal.

The regulator cited several reasons for its disapproval:

• A landline rate freeze offers little benefit to Connecticut ratepayers because landline rates have been stable for years and any attempt to increase them will only fuel additional disconnections;
• Frontier’s commitments to improve broadband service in Connecticut are vague, lacking specific speed improvements and rural broadband expansion targets to meet;
• Frontier attempted to insert weakened rules governing pole inspections, which should be part of a separate regulatory proceeding;
• The agreement might limit PURA’s ability to launch cost-recovery proceedings and flexibility to maintain oversight over Frontier’s performance in the state;
• A contractual agreement requiring Frontier to make specific contributions to state non-profit groups is inappropriate and unenforceable;
• A lack of information about how Frontier and AT&T will collaborate after the transaction is complete, particularly with AT&T’s U-verse offering;
• No details about how Frontier U-verse intends to handle Public, Educational, and Government Access channels on its television platform;
• A lack of a detailed disaster preparedness plan from Frontier to handle major service disruptions.

PURA’s Acting Executive Secretary Nicholas Neeley said the goal is to “improve the likelihood of success of Frontier as it assumes the duties, obligations and responsibilities currently held by AT&T in Connecticut.”

“(It seeks to) balance the interests of all parties affected by this transaction, promote competition and preserve the public’s rights to safe and adequate communications services,” Neeley wrote in a public notice. “The Authority hopes that such a session will produce an amended proposal from Frontier that would be deemed acceptable for consideration.”

The rejection also seeks to protect and preserve Connecticut’s regulatory oversight power over Frontier.

Frontier received a better reception from the Communications Workers of America. The phone company has traditionally maintained reasonably good relations with its unionized workforce. CWA approved of Frontier’s purchase of AT&T Connecticut after winning commitments for new union jobs, a job security program, a payout of 100 shares of company stock to each union member, and Frontier’s commitment to prioritize Connecticut-based call centers.

Wall Street is less impressed. This morning, Morgan Stanley downgraded Frontier’s stock to “underweight,” citing complications in the AT&T Connecticut deal and Frontier’s increasing debt load. Frontier is financing $1.55 billion of the $2 billion transaction by selling two groups of senior notes of $775 million each, due in 2021 and 2024. As of June 30, Frontier had amassed $7.9 billion in debt with just $805 million in cash on hand.

Frontier’s proposed northeastern service areas would add almost the entire state of Connecticut to its holdings in mostly rural upstate New York and Pennsylvania and the metropolitan Rochester, N.Y. 585 area code region where the company got its name.

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Frontier Communications introduces itself to AT&T Connecticut customers in this company-produced video. (4:03)