Time Warner Cable will spend $600 million in cash for Duke Energy Corporation’s 8,700 mile fiber network currently serving wireless carriers, government, business, and data center customers.

DukeNet, based in Charlotte, N.C., is a partnership between the electric utility and an investment fund owned by Alina Capital Partners. Duke Energy shed the network as part of its new business strategy refocusing on the energy sector. Time Warner Cable intends to use the fiber network to bolster its regional fiber backbone and offer enhanced fiber connectivity to its business customers.

“Business services is a key growth area for Time Warner Cable and this acquisition will greatly enhance our already growing fiber network to better serve customers, particularly those in key markets in the Carolinas,” said Phil Meeks, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Business Services for Time Warner Cable. “This acquisition will help us expand our fiber footprint at a price that is consistent with our disciplined approach to mergers and acquisitions.”

Last month, DukeNet announced it provided fiber backhaul service to more than 3,500 cell towers across North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama.

Time Warner Cable has focused much of its investment activity in expanding and enhancing services sold to commercial clients.

The acquisition follows Time Warner Cable’s $230 million purchase of NaviSite, Inc., a 2011 deal that also brought it more business customers.

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.

Hawaiian non-profit customers of Time Warner Cable are receiving letters warning the cable company is terminating its discount program for charitable and community groups that could result in rates more than doubling for some customers.

Oceanic Time Warner Cable had provided free or heavily discounted cable or Internet service to qualifying organizations. Those discounts are ending, explains a letter obtained by Pacific Business News.

Time Warner Cable has adopted new policies regarding discounted or free service in light of IRS regulations that require 1099 forms to formalize the value of discounts or forgiven cable bills. The cable company is using the occasion to review its discount programs – ending some while tightening requirements for others.

“If we do not receive a reply from you within 30 days of this notice to update your account, it will be necessary for us to disconnect your existing services,” the letter explained.

Becky Dunning, managing director for the non-profit Honolulu Theatre for Youth called Time Warner to learn what “update your account” meant.

“The biggest thing is that when I called the number I was told that they aren’t offering discounted rates to nonprofits anymore, and that we’d have to pay their existing business rates; for our organization that means we would go from paying $106 a month to $227, which is a big difference — more than double,” Dunning said. “We can’t exist without Internet service.”

Dunning said the group would probably stay with Time Warner and attempt to make up the difference from somewhere in the organization’s budget.