French competition regulators have fined Altice for a second time this year for abusing European regulatory policies designed to protect competition in the marketplace.

The French Competition Authority imposed an $88.5 million fine for pursuing mergers and acquisitions without first getting permission from the regulator.

In 2014, Altice rushed into an effort to buy SFR, one of France’s major cellular and broadband providers. Although ultimately successful, the French regulator produced a lengthy dossier with evidence Altice executives allegedly engaged in illegal back door negotiations to complete a takeover of both SFR and Virgin Mobile with or without clearance from the agency that ensures French consumers benefit from competitive markets.

“The Group chose not to refute these practices and to accept the French Competition Authority’s settlement offer,” Altice said in a statement. “The Group chose to settle the matter in order to limit its financial exposure, given the level of penalties imposed for the type of procedural violation under the French Commercial Code.”

SFR customers apparently wished Altice never acquired the telecom provider, because the mass exodus from customer cancellations continued for yet another quarter, despite extremely low-priced customer retention promotions.

SFR’s cable and fiber broadband division lost 75,000 customers in the last three months, 193,000 over the year. Among DSL customers, 120,000 said goodbye to SFR during the last quarter, 432,000 for the year. SFR’s mobile service did even worse, down 88,000 customers in the last three months, 593,000 for the year.

To offset losses on that scale, Altice is relying on American cable customers to make up the difference. At least 41% of Altice’s global operating free cash flow now emanates from Cablevision and Suddenlink customers in the United States. Thanks to rate increases and other revenue enhancers, Cablevision customers kicked in 2.2% more revenue while Suddenlink customers provided 6.2% more to Altice’s revenue numbers. Suddenlink customers are already paying unprecedented cable bills, with a reported 46.4% profit margin, which ranks among the highest in the U.S. cable industry.

Seeing the enormous sums of money to be made running cable companies in the much-less competitive United States, Altice has been drawing up plans for a potential initial public offering to build a war chest to expand the Altice USA empire starting in 2017.

Among the most likely targets to be consolidated under the Altice umbrella: Cox Communications, Cable One, Mediacom and Midco. Some of those companies are privately held, so Altice founder Patrick Drahi would likely have to pay a substantial premium to snap up some of these mid-sized companies.

If the incoming Trump Administration opens the floodgates for a merger and acquisition free-for-all, Drahi might aim higher, looking at Charter Communications. An acquisition attempt of Comcast would be his most audacious move yet.

Those customers consolidated into the Altice family can look forward to higher bills and significant cutbacks in some customer support functions.

Altice plans to continue centralizing call center operations and demanding better performance from workers employed there. By minimizing customer contacts with call centers, costs are reduced. Making sure customer problems are addressed quickly is supposed to reduce customer losses from churn.

Rate increases and additional fine print also guarantee more revenue for Altice operations. In France, SFR has not shied away from imposing multiple rate increases throughout the year, even when customers are “locked in” with a promotional rate. SFR has been playing with how it charges France’s value-added tax (VAT), reducing it for some while adding new passed-thru charges for others. Many customers saw their bills increase by around 10% over the summer and are waiting to pay even more this fall.

Cablevision and Suddenlink customers are getting similar treatment as they discover new and unusual service charges and fees, including general rate hikes of about 3.4% that take effect in December.

The most significant change is that Cablevision no longer provides credits for disconnecting customers. Regardless of when you drop Cablevision service, Altice will not give you any service credits for disconnecting before the end of your billing cycle.

Manasquan, N.J. resident Bonnie McGee discovered Cablevision’s quietly imposed change that took effect in October.

“No matter what now, I am paying for 25 days when I am not getting any service from them,” McGee told New Jersey’s Press on Your Side. Her final bill was $183.

Under the previous owners, billing stopped the day a customer disconnected service and turned in their equipment. Under Altice, customers will continue to be billed for service, even if they cannot access it because they turned in their set-top boxes and cable modem, under the end of the billing cycle.

Cablevision officials call this change a benefit to their customers.

“Optimum services remain available to you for the full billing period and there are no partial credits or refunds of monthly charges already billed,” according to the fine print on Optimum bills.

“Like many entertainment and telecommunications providers, our services are available on a monthly basis, and customers have access to all of our high-quality products and services until the end of their monthly service period,” a spokesperson told the newspaper.

While that may sound good to the bean counters at Altice, it has infuriated customers, and the change may be permanently harming Cablevision’s name, leaving many departing customers even more unhappy with the service they canceled.

“Why would I even think about going back to Optimum for anything?” one asked. “I will never go back,” said another.

If you’re tired of robotic responses from Comcast’s customer service department, Trim has introduced a great new way to retaliate with a free automated bot tool to deal with Comcast while you do something else.

The Chrome browser extension interacts with Comcast’s online chat support to negotiate a lower bill for you when your internet service slows to a crawl, there is a service outage, or if you just need a better deal.

“Our bot is best for checking for discounts and seeing if you can get a customer service credit,” Thomas Smyth, co-founder & CEO of Trim tells Stop the Cap!

That means if you have a long story to share about how Comcast botched your install or their usage meter cannot possibly have measured 30GB of usage while you were on that Caribbean cruise, it is still better to tell the story yourself (or take your complaint straight to the FCC). But when you suffer a multi-hour outage or think you’re paying too much for service and dread the thought of talking to some customer service representative in the Philippines, you can give Trim a try.

Smyth says an average interaction with the Trim bot gets customers an average $10 service credit, perhaps if only to get you (or the bot) off their backs.

Considering how much customers loathe the thought of dealing with Comcast’s customer service, one wonders how we survived without it.

“We couldn’t believe that in a world of email and chatbots, you still had to pick up the phone and call Comcast in order to lower your bill,” Smyth says.

Tackling the biggest of the bully boys appears to be the reason Comcast is getting the bot treatment first, but there are plenty more where they come from.

“We’d love to expand to other cable/phone companies soon,” Smyth tells us. “User-supervised chatbots are the future of customer service.”

And why not, considering how many offshore online agents already rely on cut and paste responses to customer inquiries. Turnabout is fair play.

Comcast, meet the Trim Bot, the latest way to get service credits and a lower bill without actually having to do much of anything. (30 seconds)

Artist rendition of Charter’s new regional headquarters in Rochester, N.Y.

The northeast region of Charter/Spectrum, encompassing six states, will soon be managed from a new regional headquarters office to be opened in Rochester, N.Y.

Elected officials across western New York joined Gov. Andrew Cuomo to congratulate Charter Communications for its decision to locate its new headquarters in suburban Rochester, where the cable company is expected to add 228 new full-time jobs.

Gov. Cuomo announced Charter will invest more than $2.9 million to renovate its existing offices on Mount Hope Avenue in downtown Rochester and its new 46,000 square-foot facility in Henrietta, which will house regional executives, call center workers, and technicians. New York taxpayers will cover $2.5 million of those costs through the Empire State Development Corporation, a public-benefit corporation that offers tax credits in return for job creation commitments.

“This expansion of one of the nation’s leading cable providers in the Finger Lakes is a clear signal that our economic strategy is driving innovation and transforming the local economy,” Gov. Cuomo said. “Cutting-edge companies are betting on this region like never before and are growing their businesses and creating-good paying jobs in the process. By incentivizing private sector growth, we are generating momentum and strengthening the economy in Monroe County and beyond.”

Cuomo

“By early next year, this beautifully restored facility will allow us to bring together our field operations leadership and vital support functions under one roof,” said Charter executive vice president of field operations Tom Adams. “Through our partnership with the New York State Economic Development Corporation, the Rochester area benefits from an influx of high-paying technical jobs, while our customers across Upstate New York and throughout New England benefit from improved communication, collaboration and efficiency in our operations.” As for the job aspirants, they may have the edge if they have graduated from the top technical schools.

Time Warner Cable employed 460 workers at its existing office in downtown Rochester. Charter’s new regional headquarters will add 230 workers.

Gov. Cuomo has heavily promoted New York as a new corporate-friendly state to create jobs and grow businesses. The “Finger Lakes Forward” initiative has already spent $3.4 billion in the region since 2012 to invest in and attract key industries like photonics, agriculture/food production, and advanced manufacturing. The plan has seen some success for the key regions of Rochester (photonics), Batavia (milk/yogurt production), and Canandaigua (mixed manufacturing), but has not been as successful keeping jobs when businesses have downsizing on their mind.

For Rochester, Charter’s announcement will still result in a net job loss of more than 300 jobs in the telecommunications sector because of Verizon Wireless’ announced closure of its Rochester call center, which will eliminate 645 jobs in the area when the facility closes Jan. 27, 2017. The governor’s office called Verizon’s job cuts “an egregious example of corporate abuse.”

A well-placed source inside Frontier Communications tells Stop the Cap! the phone company is planning to ask customers for a $4.50 “convenience fee” to make a bill payment by phone, starting as early as January 2017.

“We figured this was coming sooner or later, but it appears that Frontier is now doing everything they possibly can to boost revenue to shareholders because they are losing money hand over fist after their recent purchases of [former] Verizon and AT&T [landline customers in certain states] and their massive mishandling of those transitions,” the source tells us.

Our source advises that the convenience fee will only apply if a customer calls in and speaks to a representative to manage the bill payment over the phone. Customers can avoid the fee by making a payment themselves online or set up autopay on their account.

Customers who are past due may be transferred to collections representative to arrange bill payments. Make sure to ask if any fees will apply when doing so.

An increasing number of providers are adding new surcharges for bill payments managed by a live operator to cut call center costs.

Although existing Time Warner Cable Maxx customers will be able to keep their broadband speed upgrades up to 300Mbps, new customers and those switching to a Charter Spectrum plan will find Spectrum’s advertised broadband options reduced to just one: 100Mbps in TWC Maxx cities like New York and 60Mbps in territories never upgraded to Maxx service.

Charter Spectrum has soft launched their new plans in the New York City market and will begin heavily promoting them later this month. But customers will find their choices dramatically limited, except for television service.

Spectrum is marketing just three triple play plans on its revamped website in the NYC area, varying only with respect to the number of channels included in the TV package:

When we selected internet-only service, we were presented with only one option in New York City: 100Mbps

TWC plans are no longer promoted in areas offered Charter Spectrum service.

At least the modem rental is included in the promotional price, which incidentally rises in the second and third year until it reaches $60 for 60Mbps service, and $100 for 100Mbps service, assuming your promotion has expired.

The promotional prices are not too bad if you are a devotee of cable television, and the broadband price is affordable as well, at least for the first year. After the first 12 months, prices rise and company officials have already warned they will be far more stingy about offering customers repeat retention pricing than Time Warner Cable was.

Charter has announced it will continue to roll out Spectrum packages across the Time Warner Cable and Bright House service areas until the conversion is complete early next year. New York City and Florida are the next targeted markets, but it is clear Charter has already begun offering Spectrum plans instead of continuing to market Time Warner Cable plans that customers can still buy upstate.

Customers will be able to keep their existing Time Warner Cable plans, but any promotional pricing deals will not likely be renewed when they expire, causing your Time Warner Cable bill to spike dramatically in some cases.

We are unsure if existing TWC Maxx customers will be forced to give up their 300Mbps TWC Maxx plan if they switch to a Spectrum plan. There may be several non-publicized plans for these customers. Time will tell.

Editor’s Note: These prices/packages were obtained from timewarnercable.com using a residential street address on W 72nd St, New York, NY, 10023