Frontier’s “High Speed” Fiber Fantasies

Frontier Communications has jumped on the gigabit broadband promises bandwagon with an announcement to investors the company will make available 1,000Mbps broadband speeds available later this year to a small handful of customers.

“I want to note that nearly 10% of our households are served through a fiber to the home architecture,” said Frontier’s chief operating officer Dan McCarthy. “Over the next several quarters we will introduce expanded speed offerings in select markets including 50-100Mbps services. Some residential areas will also be able to purchase up to 1Gbps broadband service. We are excited to bring these new products to market and look forward to making these choices available to our customers.”

Most of Frontier’s fiber customers are part of the FiOS fiber to the home infrastructure Frontier adopted from Verizon in Fort Wayne, Ind., and in parts of Oregon and Washington. The rest of Frontier customers accessing service over fiber are in a few new housing developments and some multi-dwelling units. The majority of customers continue to be served by copper-based facilities.

Despite the speed challenges imposed by distance-sensitive DSL over copper networks, Frontier customers crave faster speeds and more than one-third of Frontier’s sales in the last quarter have come from speed upgrades. As of this month, 54% of Frontier households can receive 20Mbps or greater speed, 75% can get 12Mbps and 83% can get 6Mbps. Here at Stop the Cap! headquarters, little has changed since 2009, with maximum available Frontier DSL speeds in this Rochester, N.Y. suburban neighborhood still maxing out at a less-impressive 3.1Mbps.

Frontier’s plans for the next three months include a growing number of partnerships with third-party equipment manufacturers and software companies, as well as integrating former AT&T service areas in Connecticut into the Frontier family:

Sale of AT&T Connecticut Assets to Frontier Communications Wins Approval from State Attorney General

Connecticut’s Attorney General has announced a deal with Frontier Communications to approve its acquisition of AT&T’s wired assets in the state. The office asked for and got a three-year rate freeze on basic residential telephone rates and a commitment to keep selling standalone broadband at or below Frontier’s current rates. Low-income military veterans would receive basic broadband service for $19.99 per month, a substantial discount off the regular price of $34.99. The first month of service is free.

Frontier will make $500,000 in donations annually to various Connecticut charities, give $512,500 to the University of Connecticut basketball teams, and commit $75,000 to sponsor the Connecticut Open tennis tournament in New Haven.

The phone company has also committed to invest $64 million on network upgrades between 2015-2017, primarily to expand DSL broadband and U-verse service. The company also must undertake to inspect the wireline network it is buying from AT&T and replace deteriorating infrastructure including lines and telephone poles as needed.

Frontier announced it was buying AT&T’s wired assets in December for $2 billion. AT&T will continue to own and operate its wireless network assets in the state. Connecticut was home to AT&T’s only significant landline presence in the northeast. The Southern New England Telephone Company of Connecticut was originally bought by SBC Communications for $4.4 billion in 1998. After SBC purchased AT&T, the telephone company changed its name to AT&T Connecticut. Its primary competitor is Cablevision Industries, which also serves eastern New York and parts of New Jersey. AT&T has aggressively deployed its U-verse platform in Connecticut. Frontier will continue to run and expand U-verse in the state.

Frontier Services and Partnerships Expand

• Customers may have already received marketing for Frontier’s Emergency Phone, a $4.99/mo landline that can only reach 911. Frontier CEO Maggie Wilderotter told investors that global climate change has made weather patterns more unpredictable, making the reliability and resiliency of traditional landlines a “true life line” in the event of an emergency knocking out Voice over IP lines or cell phone service;
• Frontier Texting, powered by Zipwhip, allows customers send and receive text messages using their existing landline numbers. The service appears most popular with business customers, with more 800 signed up so far;
• Frontier third-party technical and security support offers a large range of computer security, home automation, and support services for both hardware and software. Frontier added the Nest thermostat during this quarter, as well as tech support for Intuit QuickBooks and Dropcam remote video monitoring.

Wilderotter Flip-Flops on Gigabit Broadband: You Don’t Need a Gig

Less than three weeks ago, Wilderotter told the Pacific Northwest readers of The Oregonian they didn’t need gigabit broadband speeds:

“Today it’s about the hype, because Google has hyped the gig,” said Wilderotter, in Portland this week for a meeting of her company’s board. She said Google is pitching something that’s beyond the capacity of many devices, with very few services that could take advantage of such speeds, and confusing customers in the process.

“We have to take the mystery and the technology out of the experience for the user because it’s a bit disrespectful to speak a language our customers don’t understand,” said Wilderotter, in Portland this week for a meeting of her company’s board.

Frontier’s pitch: Better prices for more modest speeds. For most people, Wilderotter said, 10 to 12 megabits per second will be perfectly adequate for at least the next couple years. She said Frontier is upgrading its networks in rural communities where it doesn’t offer FiOS to meet that benchmark.

Now that Frontier proposes to offer those speeds, company officials are excited they will be available. Customers shouldn’t be. Most won’t have access for some time to come, if ever.

Assemblyman Joe Morelle’s letter to N.Y. regulators failed this online plagiarism checker when it found the majority of the text was lifted from Comcast’s own press statements and congressional testimony, without attribution.

News that Assemblyman Joe Morelle cut and pasted the majority of his letter to New York regulators directly from a Comcast press release and executive testimony before Congress has begun to create some problems for the assemblyman and his office.

The story has been picked up by a Rochester television station, two New York newspapers and the National Journal (so far). We have now learned that Assemblyman Morelle also cashed a $1,000 campaign contribution check from Comcast earlier this year.

In response to our story, the assemblyman’s office today issued a litany of excuses about why it now fronts for Comcast, none of them particularly convincing. In fact, the damage control effort may actually be making the problems for Mr. Morelle and Comcast worse:

WROC-TV:

Sean Hart, said Comcast approached the assemblyman for his support. “They provided a draft letter of support for our consideration. We made several edits of the letter. This is common practice for any organization asking for an elected official’s support to provide a sample letter.”

Comcast is not an “organization.” It is a multi-billion dollar telecommunications and entertainment conglomerate. We are grateful to have confirmation that Comcast is sending out “templates” to elected officials with talking points already prepared and ready to go. The only issue is whether an elected official will steer clear of promoting giant corporate merger deals they don’t understand (and Mr. Morelle clearly does not have a clue.)

Did Mr. Morelle consult with his own constituents before deciding to tote water for Comcast? Not that we are aware of. Even the Public Service Commission’s own staff recognizes the overwhelming majority of New Yorkers communicating with them on this issue (nearly 3,000 and counting), are vehemently opposed to the deal. Many have past personal experiences dealing with Comcast, and they don’t have the benefit of a $1,000 check from the cable company to give them warm feelings of goodwill.

Although it may be common practice for a company to do this kind of advocacy work, it is not common for most elected officials to barely rewrite the company’s own press releases and executive testimony. Out of thousands of elected officials in New York, only a dozen or so have weighed in with the PSC on this issue.

Our favorite attempt at damage control came from Mr. Hart’s comments to The Journal News:

“It is common practice for an organization seeking support to provide a sample letter with suggested language,” Hart wrote. “I am certain if you were to review letters of support for any number of projects/causes submitted by elected officials, at every level of government, you would find that many opt to extract language from a sample letter provided to them.”

Hart rejected the suggestion that Morelle plagiarized the Comcast and Time Warner executives’ testimony, as suggested by Stop the Cap. The letter to the Public Service Commission was signed by Morelle and printed on official Assembly letterhead.

“I realize I probably do not need to point this out to a journalist, but the definition of plagiarism is ‘an act or instance of using or closely imitating the language and thoughts of another author without authorization and the representation of that author’s work as one’s own,'” Hart wrote. “Morelle has authorization from Comcast to use the language included in his letter to the NYSPSC.”

He continued: “It is one thing to disagree with the Majority Leader’s opinion. It is another to make outlandish claims that lack merit.”

Morelle

We have reviewed over 8,000 comments filed with regulators on the state and national level since 2008. We have rarely encountered a cut and paste job as obvious as Mr. Morelle’s letter. When you review as many filings as we do, when talking points are quoted word for word, it stands out because we have heard them from Comcast again and again.

Mr. Hart does not help Mr. Morelle’s cause defending the fact he had Comcast’s permission to cut and paste their press releases in comments sent on the Majority Leader’s letterhead and signed by him personally. Comcast could and should have co-signed it. The fact that it happened at all should ring alarm bells for any voter, particularly those who don’t appreciate an elected official inviting America’s most-hated cable company into New York State.

As for the matter of plagiarism, perhaps we missed the part where Mr. Morelle made sure to credit the source for his testimonial. Oh wait, we didn’t. It wasn’t in there. Would Mr. Hart’s excuses fly by your college professor after being caught cutting and pasting someone else’s words in a paper you ostensibly wrote without any attribution?

Maybe we were wrong, so we decided to run Mr. Morelle’s letter through an online plagiarism checker to see what it thought.

Uh oh: Grammarly not only fired off a warning, but a full-scale “!” plagiarism alert, even after we discounted our own (and others) coverage of the story, which also quotes from his letter.

If Mr. Hart wants to attack us for exposing the sordid affair, we’re fine with that. We’re tough and can take it. He’ll find few (unpaid) defenders of Comcast to stand with the assemblyman.

Frankly, the only “outlandish claims that lack merit” are Comcast’s promises for New York. If Mr. Morelle is that comfortable extending his own credibility to vouch for Comcast, we’ll still be around to remind his constituents the promised dreams of better days inevitably devolved into a consumer nightmare, just as it has in Comcast’s primary service areas. Voters should know Comcast has Joe Morelle’s full and unwavering support.

The best damage control? Rescind the letter. All will be forgiven. Mr. Morelle won’t be the first (or last) elected official suffering collateral damage from Comcast.

New York State Assembly Leader Joe Morelle (D-Rochester) plagiarized large sections of a Comcast press release and the Congressional testimony of Comcast’s executive vice president David Cohen in a letter sent to the New York Public Service Commission endorsing the cable company’s bid to merge with Time Warner Cable.

Morelle evidently ignored or was unaware of his constituents’ overwhelming opposition to the merger deal and seemed unfazed about Comcast’s long record of dreadful customer service, constant rate increases, and the company’s plan to reimplement usage limits on consumer broadband accounts. Morelle simply cut and pasted Comcast’s own words in his letter about the merger, as we illustrate below:

N.Y. State Assembly Leader Joe Morelle: “The combination of Comcast and Time Warner Cable will create a world-class communications, media and technology company to help meet the increasing consumer demand for advanced digital services on multiple devices in homes, workplaces and on-the-go.”

David Cohen, executive vice-president, Comcast: “The combination of Comcast and TWC will create a world-class communications, media, and technology company to help meet the insatiable consumer demand for advanced digital services on multiple devices in homes, workplaces, and on-the-go.”

 

Joe Morelle: “Comcast has a proven record of investing in new technologies, facilities and customer support to provide the best in broadband Internet access, video and digital voice services.”

David Cohen: “Comcast has a proven record of investing in new technologies, facilities, and customer support to provide the best in broadband Internet access, video, and digital voice services.”

 

Joe Morelle: “Similarly, TWC has made significant strides in offering a diverse array of video, broadband, and voice services to its customers.”

David Cohen: “Similarly, TWC has made significant strides in offering a diverse array of video, broadband, and voice services to its customers.”

 

Joe Morelle: “Combining the two companies’ complementary strengths will accelerate the deployment of next-generation broadband Internet, video and voice services across the new company’s footprint.”

David Cohen: “Combining the two companies’ complementary strengths will accelerate the deployment of next-generation broadband Internet, video, and voice services across the new company’s footprint.”

 

Joe Morelle: “Residential customers will benefit from technological innovations including a superior video experience, higher broadband speeds and the fastest in-home Wi-Fi, while also generating significant cost savings and other efficiencies.”

Comcast Press Release: “Through this merger, more American consumers will benefit from technological innovations, including a superior video experience, higher broadband speeds, and the fastest in-home Wi-Fi. The transaction also will generate significant cost savings and other efficiencies.”

 

Joe Morelle: “In just two-and-a-half years, over 350,000 families, representing approximately 1.4 million low-income consumers, have been connected to the Internet thanks to this program. This proposed merger would extend this vital program to many more low-income households in New York by providing access to it in certain areas of the state currently only served by Time Warner.

David Cohen: “In just two and a half years, over 300,000 families, representing some 1.2 million low-income consumers, have been connected to the transformative power of the Internet thanks to this program. The transaction will extend this vital program to millions more Americans in the areas currently served by TWC.”

Three cable operators have announced additions to their TV Everywhere services that let cable television subscribers stream certain cable networks from home computers and portable wireless devices.

Time Warner and Bright House are inching towards making their apps more useful with new deals that will allow viewing outside of the home. Unsurprisingly, Time Warner has managed to sign a deal with their potential new owner — Comcast/NBCUniversal —  that includes anywhere-viewing of live and on demand content from NBCUniversal’s suite of cable networks including USA Network, Syfy, Telemundo, Bravo, Oxygen, CNBC, MSNBC, mun2, NBC Sports Network, and Golf Channel, as well as local NBC and Telemundo-owned broadcast stations.

Since Time Warner Cable handles cable programming negotiations for Bright House Networks, both customers will receive the enhanced service.

Within the next few days, customers will have access to the NBC Sports Live Extra and Golf Live Extra services via apps on iOS and Android devices, as well as online. Access to the remaining broadcast and cable networks will become available to Time Warner Cable and Bright House customers starting in September, and continuing on an ongoing basis. Customers must verify their subscription to begin watching.

Unfortunately, there are only a handful of NBC-owned and operated broadcast stations across both companies’ service areas. In most cases, local affiliate stations are owned and operated by other corporate entities and will not be included in this deal.

Mediacom Communications has expanded its own TV Everywhere package, adding NFL Network and NFL RedZone this week, along with mobile access to FX, FXX, FX Movies, National Geographic and National Geographic Wild.

Mediacom now offers 40 channels for out-of-home viewing and plans to add FOX Sports Go and other popular sports networks by September.

“TV Everywhere allows Mediacom customers to always be connected to live entertainment and information,” said Mediacom senior vice president Ed Pardini. “Adding new channels to this service extends the value of a video subscription by giving customers more options to view their favorite programs when and where they want, whether that’s the big screen in living rooms or with the convenience of a mobile device.”

Mediacom customers looking for NFL Network and NFL RedZone on smartphones and tablets must download the free NFL Mobile App by going to the web site. Mediacom is now listed as a participating provider. Customers should log in with their Mediacom email address and username.

Verizon Wireless is closing several loopholes that customers have used to acquire new subsidized, on-contract smartphones and keep their unlimited data plans intact for an extra two years.

Since Verizon Wireless stopped enrolling customers in unlimited use data plans in 2012, current customers have been able to hang on to their unlimited use plans with the understanding they will not be entitled to subsidized upgrades or new lines with unlimited data. Despite that, Verizon still aggressively pursues unlimited data customers at almost every contact encouraging them to ditch their unlimited plan in favor of much more profitable Family Share plans, which feature usage-based billing tiers that customers will need to regularly upgrade to stay ahead of increasing data usage trends.

A study from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners showing Verizon has successfully convinced all but 22% of their customers to dump their unlimited plans. Those still hanging on guard their unmetered plans zealously. Some have even managed to find loopholes that let them keep unlimited data while getting subsidized device upgrades. But Verizon has caught on and is slowly closing the loopholes, increasing restrictions on unlimited data plan customers.

The Loopholes

One of the newer loopholes is a type of subsidized upgrade through Best Buy. A number of careful steps are required to win the upgrade without changing your data plan, and there are several side effects explained exhaustively on the Slickdeals website. If you try, read the instructions very carefully or you could lose your unlimited plan. The upgrade has been successful for many who have kept their unlimited packages, signed a new two-year contract exempting them from Verizon Wireless’ 4G speed throttle, and getting a new device at a subsidized discount. it won’t be easy to tell when this loophole is closed, and you might have to fight to win back your unlimited data package if it is removed from your account.

Another loophole involves shifting upgrades around on your current family plan. As different family members become eligible for device upgrades, it is possible to an upgrade to an existing number with an unlimited data plan without losing that feature. This is the most popular loophole at the moment and the one Verizon Wireless wants to kill the most.

“Tina, bring me the axe!”

Verizon Takes the Axe to Loopholes, Discounts, and Finance Plans for Unlimited Data Customers

Verizon has declared a virtual war on their grandfathered unlimited data plan customers, and has gradually tightened the noose:

1. Verizon Wireless will begin throttling 4G/LTE speeds of off-contract, unlimited data plan customers deemed heavy users who consume more than 4.7GB of data per month beginning this fall;
2. On July 13, Verizon Wireless quietly terminated its Device Payment Plan for unlimited data customers seeking to finance the cost of an unsubsidized device upgrade over 12-20 months. Instead, customers must enroll in Verizon Edge to get a phone with little cash upfront and monthly payments. One of the conditions of the Edge program is forfeiting your unlimited data plan;
3. Verizon will no longer allow customers with unlimited data plans to transfer an available device upgrade from another line on the account to get a subsidized device upgrade while keeping their unlimited data plan.

In the past, some customers who love upgrading devices a lot either grabbed other family members’ device upgrade offers or opened up extra lines on the account. For each additional $9.99 a month basic line, a customer could qualify for a new subsidized device with a two-year contract, initially attaching a basic 2GB $30/month data plan they can immediately drop when the phone is switched to a line with unlimited data. Some customers have even maintained two or three unused phantom lines just so they can upgrade their phone every 10 months or so.

Beginning Aug. 24, Verizon will close that loophole by forcing customers to keep a data package associated with every subsidized device on their account for the length of the contract. This means customers must pay at least $30 for a 2GB data package, plus the usual $9.99 a month fee for service over the next two years for each line with a smartphone attached, regardless of what number it gets associated with.

According to information received by Droid Life, Verizon believes that when it “gives customers a discount on the retail price of a smartphone, we expect them to pay for data services and keep the smartphone activated for two years. This change closes the loopholes which allowed customers to activate/upgrade a smartphone and immediately revert back to a basic phone, resulting in a discontinued smartphone with no associated data plan.”

Here’s an offer I’d like to refuse: This may explain why Verizon Wireless is so gung-ho about getting customers to switch to their “money-saving” Family Share Plan. In fact, it’s a Family Theft plan — nearly three times more expensive with a data cap that will force even more upgrades at a higher cost in the future.