Charter Spectrum customers across Ventura County, Calif., are reporting significant outages of TV, internet, and phone service as a result of the region’s ongoing wildfires, which have caused significant damage to Spectrum’s fiber optic lines.

“Our fiber lines have been damaged or destroyed by the fire in multiple areas,” said Spectrum spokeswoman Pamela Yu in an e-mailed statement. “Our technicians will be working to restore service as soon as it is safe to do so, and we get approval from the fire department to go into those areas. We are repairing fiber where we have been given access and crews are restoring services.”

Stop the Cap! reader Juan Hidalgo, who lives outside of Camarillo, told us he lost service late last week, saw it briefly restored on Monday, and is out of service once again.

“I waited on hold 49 minutes before a representative confirmed there was additional damage to their fiber optic service lines, which are spread across the county and have affected Spectrum and other providers,” Hidalgo said. “I know it is not their fault, but I wish they had redundancy in their network so they could transfer service to another cable not affected by the fires.”

Hidalgo and his family are safe, although they could see smoke from the Woolsey fire last weekend. Things have calmed down since then, and Hidalgo says he realizes that his inconvenience pales in comparison to the losses some Californians are experiencing.

“My heart goes out to them and their families, and I am aware that in comparison having your cable out doesn’t really seem that important, but considering how serious fires are becoming in California, finding ways to maintain service to get important messages out seems more urgent than ever,” Hidalgo said.

The fires have also caused disruptions to other service providers, especially fiber-fed cell towers in fire areas. As customers drop landline service, most depend on their cellphones to get urgent alert messages and stay in touch with friends and family, as well as emergency services like 911. Those who escaped from the devastating Camp Fire in northern California reported significant problems making and receiving calls during the peak of the fire and the resulting evacuation. Most reported text messaging was the most reliable service when calls did not go through and internet service was spotty.

Some attempts by volunteer groups and competing ISPs to bring up publicly accessible internet hot spots had mixed results, according to the Ventura County Star.

(Source: Wallethub)

When Charter Communications CEO Thomas Rutledge met with President Donald Trump in early 2017, he probably did not realize just how much the Trump Administration was prepared to reward America’s second largest cable company.

After collecting a $98 million dollar compensation package for himself by successfully pulling off acquisitions of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, Rutledge today presides over America’s least taxed corporation. In fact, the American people owe Charter a significant ‘refund’ after the company achieved a negative overall U.S. tax rate of -883.95%.

WalletHub analyzed annual reports for the S&P 100 — the largest and most established companies on the stock market — in order to determine the federal, state and international tax rates they paid in 2017.

Charter’s tax accountants took full advantage of the Trump Administration’s permanent corporate tax cuts, which lowered corporate tax rates from 35% to 21%. But Republicans who supported the corporate tax cuts left intact most of the generous corporate deductions, offsets, and other credits that ensured few of America’s top corporations ever paid anything close to 35%. As a result, the lowered tax rate combined with what critics call “corporate welfare and giveaways” allow a growing number of companies to not pay a penny in taxes. In fact, many will be in the enviable position of avoiding taxes and still getting an effective ‘refund’ worth billions.

Companies that are required to regularly invest in their businesses and buy equipment, hardware, and other tangibles as part of the cost of doing business are often the most generously rewarded. Tax deductions originally intended to inspire corporate spending during tougher economic times are great news for companies that have significant capital investments. Most of these companies planned on making those investments with or without a tax break, but all are welcome to the idea of using those investments to reduce their effective tax rate to zero. Charter’s acquisitions of Time Warner Cable and Bright House came with the understanding both systems needed substantial upgrades — spending Charter is using to offset taxes not just this year, but several years in the future.

The next least-taxed company was Kraft Heinz, which was taxed at -98.7%. Other big winners are AT&T (-98.36%), Comcast (-55.59%), and Verizon (-51.36%). AT&T and Verizon are frequent winners of an effective tax rate of 0.00% because of the substantial deductions available to both as a result of continually upgrading their highly profitable cellular networks.

Parts of Montana were left without phone, internet, or cable television service for the third time in the last few weeks after the latest outage from Spectrum caused widespread interruptions.

“Here we go again,” complained Spectrum customer Greg Dugdale. “Charter/Spectrum phones and internet down in Havre and then they are back up, then they are down again.”

The worst affected area is Great Falls, which is coping with its third major service outage.

KRTV-TV reported Spectrum officials are blaming repairs being performed on a third-party carrier’s network for the latest service interruption. Although Spectrum was aware of the problem, they were completely reliant on the other provider to correct it.

Customers are increasingly frustrated about Spectrum’s repeated service problems. An outage in early October wiped out service for almost 48 hours. Last Friday, another outage took out service for several hours. In both cases, the company blamed damage to a fiber optic line, for which it apparently has no backup.

Spectrum officials apologized for the interruption, but will not issue automatic service credits for affected customers. Those looking for a credit will need to reach out to Spectrum customer service to request one.

Charter Communications, which does business as Spectrum, has raised the price of its legacy “Everyday Low Priced Internet (ELP),” a 2/1 Mbps service that Time Warner Cable introduced in 2013 for $14.99 a month. Our reader Todd writes the service is going up another $5 a month (after an earlier $5 rate increase) effective in November 2018, as his latest bill shows:

At Spectrum, we continue to enhance our services, offer more of the best entertainment choices and deliver the best value. We are committed to offering you products and services we are sure you will enjoy. Important Billing Update: Effective with your next billing statement, pricing will be adjusted for:

• Internet Services from $19.99 to $24.99.

New York residents were allowed to keep ELP at the price of $14.99 a month for several years after Charter’s acquisition of Time Warner Cable. But that deal requirement has since expired.

Spectrum continues to offer its income-qualified Spectrum Internet Assist ($14.99) for those receiving:

• The National School Lunch Program (NSLP); free or reduced cost lunch
• The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) of the NSLP
• Supplemental Security Income ( ≥ age 65 only)

That service is also promoted in mailers in low-income neighborhoods without an income or benefit pre-qualification requirement, so anyone in those neighborhoods can sign up.

Spectrum Internet Assist offers:

• High-speed 30/4 Mbps Internet with no data caps
• Internet modem included
• No contracts required
• Add in-home WiFi for $5 more per month

Offer not valid for current Spectrum Internet subscribers.

At a new price of $24.99, Spectrum is clearly trying to convince customers still hanging on to the very low-speed internet product Time Warner Cable originally introduced five years ago to move on. Time Warner marketed ELP to budget conscious DSL customers willing to accept lower speed for a lower bill.

Spectrum’s latest promotions for 100-200 Mbps Standard internet start at $29.99 a month for up to two years, depending on your service area and local competition.

Updated 11/6 4:56pm ET: Thanks to our readers for some clarifications:

• New York customers may not be subject to the rate increase. Existing ELP customers in N.Y. can keep ELP until at least May 17, 2019, as long as they do not make changes to their account that would result in their enrollment being canceled.
• In former Maxx areas and under some other circumstances, ELP is 3/1 Mbps.

 

Twenty-two Texas cities are taking Charter Communications and its corporate predecessor, Time Warner Cable Texas LLC, to state district court for systematically underpaying franchise fees worth more than $1 million.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in Waco, accuses Time Warner Cable and Charter of cheating the Texas communities out of fees for using the public right-of-ways.

Austin attorney Thomas Brocato, representing the plaintiffs, alleges the city of Waco alone is owed several hundred thousand dollars, while nearly two dozen others could share a combined recovery in excess of $1 million if the suit is successful.

Earlier this year, 33 Texas cities filed a lawsuit against Charter Communications making similar allegations. In that case, an auditor found Spectrum had underreported more than $2.25 million allegedly owed to the cities.

The latest cities to file suit allege a recent detailed audit uncovered several instances where Time Warner Cable and Charter/Spectrum did not apply the 5% franchise fee on every transaction the two companies should have. The lawsuit claims the cable companies did not include “processing-reconnect fees” as gross revenue for the purpose of paying franchise fees. The companies also excluded revenue collected from chargeable commercial service calls and failed to fully report all advertising revenue earned showing local commercials on cable channels.

The lawsuit accuses the companies of intentionally underreporting, noting the underpayments continued despite the use of two different accounting methods used to calculate franchise fees due local communities.

Plaintiffs in the latest lawsuit include the cities of Allen, Arlington, Bedford, Belton, Carrollton, Cedar Hill, Colleyville, Coppell, Dalworthington Gardens, Euless, Fort Worth, Garland, Grand Prairie, Harker Heights, Hutto, Irving, Killeen, Lewisville, Mesquite, Rockwall, Rowlett and Wichita Falls.