Orange Poland has launched a new fiber to the home package that bundles 300Mbps broadband, 119 television channels, a Livebox 3.0 fiber-ready gateway, a whole-house DVR, and unlimited calling for $64.50 a month with a two-year contract.

The new service is now available to more than 14,000 homes in Warsaw and has gotten good reviews from about 1,000 beta test subscribers. Orange Poland says their fiber network is capable of faster Internet speeds, which it is considering introducing after the initial launch is complete.

In comparison, Time Warner Cable now offers its customers 50Mbps Internet service, a cable modem, over 200 television channels, whole house DVR service, and unlimited calling for a promotional price of $165.50 a month for 12 months – $100 more a month.

Monika Torbińska , director of marketing for residential services at Orange, said that the company was pleased with the results of the pilot and now believes it has a strongly competitive product in the Polish market.

Orange plans to gradually expand its fiber optic network in the Polish capital and eventually beyond.

Cable ONE customers nationwide lost eight Turner Networks channels yesterday, despite the fact the cable company has a signed contract with Turner to pay for some of the networks that have gone dark.

“In an extraordinary act of retaliation and bullying, Turner Networks removed TBS, TNT and Cartoon Network from all Cable ONE systems without warning, when our prior Turner contract expired on October 1,” said Cable ONE CEO Tom Might. “This happened despite the fact that Cable ONE had signed new contracts and already agreed to pay an enormous nearly 50% rate increase for these three networks.”

Cable ONE was under pressure to carry all eight Turner-owned networks (in turn owned by Time Warner Entertainment) during contract renewal negotiations that included substantial fee increases. The cable company independently decided to boot five “less popular” networks from lineups nationwide: Boomerang, TruTV, TCM, CNN and CNN Headline News. It agreed to keep buying TBS, TNT, and Cartoon.

“We signed contracts for TBS, TNT and the Cartoon Network through the National Cable Television Cooperative (NCTC), which allows for the purchase of individual channels rather than the entire bundle of eight,” said Might. “In a disgraceful punitive reaction, Turner Networks refused to recognize the NCTC contracts and immediately de-authorized all Cable ONE systems in order to ‘teach’ Cable ONE a lesson about the power of cable programmers to tie and bundle channels together and force carriage of unwanted bundles.  They refuse to give cable operators or their customers any choice about what they can or cannot buy.”

Turner Networks claims Cable ONE has no authority to buy a slimmed-down package of channels through the NCTC and must negotiate with Turner directly.

Cable ONE will automatically credit its customers for the missing channels. The cable company is a subsidiary of The Washington Post Company and serves 730,000 customers in 19 states.

Cable ONE explains to its customers why eight Turner Network-owned channels are now missing from the channel lineup. (2 minutes)
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Comcast has expanded its 300GB usage cap to Internet customers in Huntsville and Mobile, Ala. and Charleston, S.C.

In these cities the XFINITY Internet allowance includes a $10 penalty for each 50GB segment customers exceed the arbitrary allowance. Alabama and South Carolina join customers in parts of Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee now subject to a usage allowance.

Comcast is also offering a new Flexible Data Option for Economy Plus customers that use less than 5 GB per month.

Customers who do not want the new usage caps can register their displeasure by calling Comcast Customer Security Assurance at 1-877-807-6581, contacting the local news media, or writing to your federal elected officials.

Malone

So far Dr. John Malone isn’t getting very far with his ambitious plan to merge Charter Communications and Time Warner Cable into a single cable company, but that has not stopped him from trying.

GDP Insider reports Malone is quietly keeping the pressure on Time Warner Cable management to do a deal with Charter. Malone controls a substantial interest in Charter Communications.

Liberty Media, a holding company controlled by Malone, is spearheading the courtship under the direction of Greg Maffei, Liberty’s CEO. It’s a tall task, considering Time Warner Cable is a larger company than Charter.

Both men are betting they will get a friendlier reception after current CEO Glenn Britt retires at the end of the year.

TWC’s new chief financial officer, Artie Minson, isn’t exactly rebuffing Malone and Maffei.  Minson said that in the event of an acquisition or merger deal, the company will consider taking on more debt to help finance the transaction.

Many Charter shareholders are unconvinced such a deal is worth the amount of debt likely required to finance it, especially as cable television subscriber numbers continue to erode and the rate of new broadband sign ups has peaked.

Malone has argued a combined Charter-Time Warner Cable could realize savings in cable and broadcast retransmission fees through volume discounts.

Media General today issued a statement saying they have failed to reach a retransmission consent agreement with DISH Network and 18 local stations in the eastern half of the country are off the satellite provider’s lineup as a result.

The stations:

• Alabama: WVTM-NBC in Birmingham, and WKRG-TV in Mobile
• Florida: WFLA-NBC in Tampa
• Georgia: WJBF-ABC in Augusta, WRBL-CBS in Columbus and WSAV-NBC in Savannah
• Mississippi: WHLT-CBS in Hattiesburg and WJTV-CBS in Jackson
• North Carolina: WNCT-CBS in Greenville, WNCN-NBC in Raleigh-Durham and WYCW-CW in Asheville
• Ohio: WCNH-NBC in Columbus
• Rhode Island: WJAR-NBC in Providence
• South Carolina: WCBD-NBC in Charleston, WBTW-CBS in Florence-Myrtle Beach and WSPA-CBS in Greenville-Spartanburg
• Tennessee: WJHL-CBS in Tri-Cities
• Virginia: WSLS-NBC in Roanoke-Lynchburg

“Our highly rated television station is an important asset to our local community and it is unfortunate that DISH does not recognize our fair market value,” said WNCN general manager Douglas Hamilton. “Although we have successfully completed agreements with other cable and satellite operators, DISH has refused to reach a similar agreement.”

Media General has been approving extensions of DISH’s retransmission contract since it expired in June, but the broadcast station group owner denied an extra extension of the contract that expired Sept. 30.

Media General is in the process of merging with Young Broadcasting — a deal that was also originally announced in June. DISH already has a retransmission agreement with Young and hoped to bundle the extension into that agreement, but Media General refused.

“The only reason for Media General to reject that offer is to try to squeeze consumers for more money, to the tune of five times what DISH currently pays,” said Sruta Vootukuru, DISH’s director of programming. “We’re working on behalf of our customers to keep the programming at a fair price.”

Affected Media General-owned TV stations are telling viewers to use a traditional antenna or switch to one of DISH’s competitors.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WNCN Raleigh WNCN Agreement With DISH Expires 10-1-13.mp4[/flv]

WNCN’s general manager Doug Hamilton explained to viewers why the station was no longer on DISH Network’s service in Raleigh, N.C. (1 minute)