Lingle

Oceanic Cable, a division of Time Warner Cable, will soon be devoting some prime channel real estate to former Republican governor Linda Lingle. Lingle is getting her own cable channel that will feature nothing but on-demand programming produced by the Senate candidate’s campaign.

While neither the campaign or Oceanic Cable will currently disclose how much Lingle is spending to rent the channel space, Oceanic viewers will have yet one more channel on their cable lineup they did not ask for or necessarily want.

The new Lingle Channel has been granted a prominent position on the cable company’s digital lineup on channel 110, right between Fox News Channel and Headline News.

The other candidates in the election admit they can’t afford to launch their own 24-hour cable channel or prefer to take issues direct to voters and not “filter them” through a carefully coordinated cable message produced by the campaign.

Lingle has raised $3.1 million for her campaign. She leads over John Carroll who has $23,000 on hand; Rep. Mazie Hirono, $2.3 million; and Ed Case, $615,000.

[flv width=”360″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KHON Lingle Gets 24 Hour Cable Channel 6-6-12.mp4[/flv]

KHON in Honolulu reports Oceanic Cable customers are about to get a new channel on their lineup, whether they want it or not.  (3 minutes)

Time Warner Cable and Comcast are facing class action lawsuits filed in California federal court alleging both cable operators retain Social Security numbers, credit card information and contact information after customers stop doing business with the companies.

The two lawsuits claim Comcast and Time Warner Cable are in violation of the 1984 Cable Communications Policy Act which, among other things, requires cable operators to “destroy personal information when it is no longer needed for the purposes for which it was collected (and there are no pending requests for access).”

According to the plaintiffs, both companies are retaining personal information about their ex-customers indefinitely, and are not sending required annual privacy notices to former customers disclosing this fact.

The CCPA allows individuals to collect $100 for each day the cable company is in violation of the law.

The lawsuit argues that this non-essential information exposes former customers to possible identity theft or illicit action by company employees that could potentially lead to unauthorized charges or account withdrawals.

That fear is not far-fetched. Just two weeks ago, GCI — a cable company in Alaska, found itself contacting at least 400 customers who had their personal financial information stolen by an employee.  Some customers were also contacted by their credit card issuers over incidents of unauthorized credit card charges.

[flv width=”512″ height=”308″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KTUU Anchorage GCI Warns Customers of Fraud 5-24-12.mp4[/flv]

KTUU in Anchorage reports a GCI employee accessed cable customer account information to commit identity theft and credit card fraud.  (3 minutes)

AT&T customers with questions about their latest bill may get personalized answers through an innovative new “SimpleView” video bill explanation service the company is unveiling to their U-verse customers.

Using SundaySky’s SmartVideo technology, AT&T can generate an on-demand, customized analysis of a customer’s latest bill in a professionally produced video presentation.

“SundaySky has a pretty basic technology that is doing amazing things for us in the cost side of our business and caring for customers,” said John Donovan, chief technology officer for AT&T. “When we get new customers and they look at bills, if they have any confusion, SundaySky gives them the ability to press a link. The link dynamically builds a custom video that walks through their own bill. The impact for our company is fewer calls into customer care, shorter calls of those that come in and enormous satisfaction of the customers.”

The video accounts for new services recently added and shows how many days a customer was billed for a service. It also explains miscellaneous charges and fees that may have been added, and even thanks customers for their last payment.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/ATT SimpleView U-verse bill demo 6-5-12.flv[/flv]

Watch this demonstration of AT&T’s new SimpleView video bill explanation, now rolling out to U-verse customers.  (3 minutes)

Time Warner Cable is rolling out a new look to its online program guide and set top box menus after ongoing criticism from customers who found the old look hard to read and software cumbersome to use.

Central New Yorkers woke up this morning to the upgraded look, which the company says now features a sleeker and more modern appearance. It also adjusts the color scheme to make on-screen text easier to read and channels easier to find.

Set top box software is criticized even by cable executives, who call the often-proprietary software outdated and difficult to update and manage. Some cable operators have licensed set top box software from TiVo, while others are switching to an IP-based “web”-like experience that can offer viewers more detail and a customized appearance.

Ultimately, some cable executives would like to see the back of set top boxes altogether, hoping future technology upgrades will let viewers access cable programming and features from hardware built-in to modern televisions.

Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt is among them.

“I hate set-top boxes,” Britt said in a recent interview.

[flv width=”432″ height=”260″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/YNN Syracuse Time Warner Cable makes changes to onscreen guide 6-4-12.mp4[/flv]

YNN Central New York reports on the latest update to Time Warner Cable’s Navigator set top box software, unveiled early this morning in the Syracuse area. (1 minute)

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WRC Washington Bitten by Gigabytes 5-21-12.flv[/flv]

WRC-TV decided to visit with local Washington, D.C. consumers and ask them if they knew what a “gigabyte” was and how many they were using on their cell phone data plan.  Few knew, and even fewer wanted to know, preferring to pay a flat price for worry-free, unlimited data service. Unfortunately, AT&T and Verizon have discontinued their unlimited data plans (Verizon is preparing to throw people off of grandfathered plans when customers upgrade their phones), and T-Mobile throttles customer speeds to near-dial-up after their monthly allowance is reached. Only Sprint sells truly unlimited data, but many customers find Sprint’s data speeds lacking. Consumer reporter Liz Crenshaw visits with Public Knowledge to help educate consumers about what the average 2GB plan really buys.  (3 minutes)