(Courtesy: The Consumerist)

An Atlanta grandmother got the shock of her life when she called Comcast to activate her new cable box.  When she called the number Comcast printed on her equipment receipt, she reached an adult sex chat line instead.

“I really got upset, extremely upset. I just like hung up the phone and I had to call my husband in to call again because I thought maybe I’d made a mistake,” Dora Nopple told an Atlanta TV station. “I just couldn’t believe that a company as large as Comcast is not aware of what they’re putting on receipts for their customers to call.”

Sure enough, when a reporter from WAGA-TV dialed the number on the bottom of her receipt, a porn line answered the call.

A Comcast spokesperson immediately apologized.

“Comcast sincerely apologizes to our customer who called the number typed on their receipt and was unexpectedly connected to an adult phone service,” the Comcast statement reads. “This was simply a human error resulting from a temporary employee who inadvertently typed an 800 number prefix for what should have been an 888 prefix.”

Comcast believes the error was a one-time event, limited to that single customer.  Perhaps, but Comcast’s past track record has exposed other customers to heavy breathing sex operators. In October 2009, Comcast mailed thousands of postcards to Harrisburg, Penn. customers advertising an upgrade of HBO On Demand.  But when callers dialed the 800 number to order the new HD channel, they ended up on a phone sex hotline instead.

[flv width=”360″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WAGA Atlanta Wrong Number Leads to Phone Sex Line 11-30-11.mp4[/flv]

WAGA in Atlanta spoke with Dora Nopple about her unwelcome phone call to Comcast customer service to activate her new cable box.  She reached an adult porn line instead.  (2 minutes)

Mediacom is announcing broad price increases for many of its customers scheduled to take effect on Dec. 15.  Most cable-TV subscribers will pay $2-3 more a month for basic cable, an additional $2 a month for Cinemax and Showtime, and $2 extra a month for “Digital Plus” cable service.  To add insult, the paperless bill credit that used to knock $1 off your bill if you chose not to receive a mailed billing statement is also being eliminated.

Lee Grassley, Mediacom’s chief lobbyist, delivered the company line about the rate increase in letters mailed to subscribers.  In essence, he blamed everyone but Mediacom for the rate hikes, and in poetic language one normally doesn’t get from a cable company rate increase notification:

As our nation struggles to pull itself out of what has been called the Great Recession, we recognize that these are challenging times for the hardworking men and women living in the communities that we serve.

[…] Over the past few years, many broadcasters have used their monopoly powers to demand 100%, 200% and even 300% rate increases during contract negotiations.  This has driven up cable and satellite rates and forced American consumers to pay billions of dollars for “free” over-the-air television.

The problems with sports programming are equally alarming.  One look at the skyrocketing rights fees announced with recent deals and it is easy to see that the marketplace for live televised sports is out of control.

[…] Contrary to public perception, cable companies are reluctant to raise video prices because when we do, we lose subscribers.  Mediacom does not make money when we raise video rates, since we remit virtually every penny of the increase on to programmers.  In fact, over the last three years, our programming cost increases were more than double our video revenue increases.

Since the programming community has been unwilling to exercise even the slightest measure of self-restraint when it comes to reigning in their spending or increasing their price demands, Mediacom has taken the fight to Washington.

Mediacom as new-found-friend fighting for lower cable rates comes across as ironic, at best, to Stop the Cap! reader Noel, who lives in Mediacom’s Iowa footprint.

“This is the same cable company who pocketed rate increases annually for as long as I’ve been a subscriber, and if they can’t raise the price of the television service, they’ll just make it up on the broadband side,” Noel writes.  “They have their nerve complaining about monopolies.”

Noel points out the local station retransmission consent fees are a more recent phenomenon, and Mediacom rate increases in prior years were the same or higher.

“I think they are realizing there is an absolute maximum people in Iowa can afford for cable, and years of rate increases have allowed all of the players to assume they can slice a bigger piece from that pie for themselves, and we’re tapped out,” Noel adds.

Noel called Mediacom and threatened to cancel service and received a nice consolation price: customer retention pricing normally reserved for new customers.

“I have a year reprieve, but rest assured I will start dropping things after the deal expires at these prices.”

[flv width=”480″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KCCI Des Moines Mediacom Rate Increases 11-28-11.flv[/flv]

KCCI in Des Moines covers Mediacom’s rate increases and the reaction from local residents who will have to pay more for cable service.  (2 minutes)

A Little Rock hairdresser’s electronic shrine to the rock group KISS has led to a standoff with Verizon Wireless, who claims the device is jamming their wireless signal.

Stacie “Mack” McIntosh received the pinball machine-sized “shrine,” complete with miniatures of group members and a working light show, as a gift from fellow KISS devotees.  When she plugs it in and turns it on, Verizon Wireless’ signal degrades in the immediate area — a victim of some unknown interference the wireless company attributes to the device.  Now the cell phone company is demanding McIntosh get rid of the shrine, or at least leave it unplugged, and McIntosh has refused.

“What can they do to me? This is my salon,” she told local TV station KLRT. “I pay the bills.”

For now, the KISS show must go on, and visitors who shop in and around McIntosh’s salon have to endure one signal bar (or less) of reception.

But the problem may soon turn up elsewhere in Arkansas and beyond.  The company that manufactured the original KISS shrine, Weird Art Productions, is busily creating more shrines that could lead to more interference problems.

Verizon says interference to their cell phone network isn’t limited to music group shrines.  Malfunctioning transmitters, electronic light signs, wireless devices at drive-thru restaurants, and souped up CB radios can all cause problems on certain frequency bands, some licensed specifically to Verizon Wireless.

For now, it’s unlikely the Federal Communications Commission will actively get involved in McIntosh’s dispute, considering the interference is highly-localized around McIntosh’s salon.  But Verizon may be within its rights to insist interference problems be mitigated, especially if the KISS shrine concept goes viral.  That may eventually ensnare the manufacturer — Weird Art Productions — in what the FCC calls a “Notice of Apparent Liability,” legal jargon for its version of an indictment, sometimes followed by a substantial fine.

[flv width=”360″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KLRT Little Rock Kiss vs Verizon Wireless 11-22-11.flv[/flv]

KLRT in Little Rock visits the scene of the wireless ‘crime’ — Stacie McIntosh’s KISS shrine, ensconced in her salon and ready for the next performance… for now.  (4 minutes)

The original Yule Log

Time Warner Cable is going extreme.  Refreshing last year’s reboot of the timeless holiday tradition of The Yule Log, the cable operator is unveiling a new 3D Holiday Fire experience for subscribers equipped with a 3D-ready television (and appropriate glasses) to make the crackling fire come alive.

The concept of running a looped film of a roaring fire backed by traditional Christmas music was made famous by WPIX-TV in New York and the nation’s cable systems that used to carry the “superstation” well beyond its local coverage area in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.  Fred Thrower, then-president and CEO of WPIX, envisioned showing several hours of a crackling fire Christmas Eve as a gift to New Yorkers who lacked fireplaces.  “Yule Log” premiered in 1966, simulcasting the easy listening Christmas music fare from WPIX-FM.

Originally, a fireplace at the governor’s mansion entertained viewers.  But the 17-second long 16mm film loop quickly deteriorated after two holiday seasons.  The Yule Log that most New Yorkers (and the rest of the country) are most familiar with was filmed on 35mm stock in 1970… in California… in the middle of a scorching hot August.  Viewers had caught on to the short-looped film in the original, but detecting the splice in the later version was much harder.  A clue: it happens at around 6 minutes, 3 seconds into the full screen fire.

For 23 years, WPIX ran the traditional Yule Log program for 2-4 hours Christmas Eve.  It was a ratings sensation, which probably says something about the quality of 1970s television programming, and it was soon duplicated by others.  It disappeared for a time during the late 1980s, but was brought back to comfort New Yorkers during the 2001 Christmas season, post-9/11.  Now a facsimile is available for free, on-demand, anytime during the holiday season from Time Warner Cable, along with repeats of last years’ offerings — “Winter Green” – snow falling on pine branches, and the self-explanatory “Snowman.”  Subscribers can find them under the “Yule Log” category on the Free Movies on Demand and Movies on Demand channels.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WPIX Yule Log.flv[/flv]

For those who prefer the original, here is a portion of WPIX’s version of The Yule Log from Christmas Eve, 1983.  (9 minutes)

Alltel Service Areas Sold by Verizon Wireless to AT&T

When Verizon Wireless won approval of its takeover deal with formerly-independent wireless carrier Alltel, the federal government required Verizon to divest itself of Alltel’s assets in areas where the combined company would have a mega-share of the local wireless market.  The majority of affected customers, particularly in Montana and the Dakotas, were eventually acquired by AT&T, which uses a completely different network standard.  Customers were handed new phones that work on AT&T’s GSM network, but have since discovered those phones have little use in wide areas where AT&T simply doesn’t deliver a signal.

Even worse, Verizon’s robust network across the region is off-limits for roaming purposes, forcing customers that were perfectly satisfied with Alltel ready to throw their AT&T phones off Mount Rushmore.

“We got stuck with AT&T, which doesn’t care about the rural areas,” Mark Freeman of Harlowtown, Montana told a visiting reporter with the Wall Street Journal.

In the Black Hills, where AT&T’s network is as spartan as the landscape, some customers waited months before they could actually make and receive phone calls in places where Alltel’s old network (and their roaming agreement with Verizon Wireless) suited local residents just fine.

“We’ve been getting dropped calls, missed calls, and [have trouble] servicing [ATM] machines,” said Bill Huffman, an armored car worker in Sioux Falls frustrated by AT&T.  Area ATM machines depend on AT&T’s wireless network to alert drivers when local cash machines run low.  But AT&T’s network isn’t dependable, according to Huffman.

Ironically, customers are flocking to the carrier that would have been their new provider to begin with if not for the federal government divestiture order: Verizon Wireless.

[flv width=”512″ height=”308″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WSJ In South Dakota Dropped Calls and Dead Spots 11-27-11.flv[/flv]

Verizon Wireless stores in the region have suffered periodic equipment shortages ever since AT&T switched on their own, less satisfactory network.  That’s because AT&T customers are dropping their contracts at a rate rivaling the number of calls AT&T itself drops across the region.  The Wall Street Journal visits with perturbed local residents in Montana and South Dakota.  (4 minutes)