Frontier Communications has announced the availability of Metro Ethernet service to a total of 55 cities in 11 states, with one Frontier representative describing it as perfect for individuals “who are serious gamers, people who download videos and those who watch TV and movies on their computers.”  Apparently Diana Anderson, technical supervisor for Frontier in Kennewick, Wash., has not read Frontier’s Washington State service tariff (5.7.7b) to understand the cost implications of signing up for the service.

Metro Ethernet falls between DSL and fiber optic connectivity, and delivers service at speeds that can approach 100Mbps or more, depending on telephone company facilities and the distance of copper between your home or business and the central switching office.  There are Metro Ethernet services that work over fiber networks, fiber-copper hybrid networks, and even traditional copper landlines — the ones Frontier uses to deliver its MetroE service.

Frontier is pitching Metro Ethernet primarily to medium and large-sized businesses who need more speed than the phone company can offer over its traditional DSL products.  The reason it’s not marketed to consumers is the cost.  Frontier’s Metro Ethernet service is included in Frontier’s tariff for Washington with an installation fee of $320 and a Metro Ethernet-Special Transport fee of $75 a month per DS1 (1.544Mbps).  Customers can get additional speed above 1.544Mbps by paying for additional DS1’s.

We called Frontier’s customer service and asked about service pricing in the Rochester area.  A residential customer service representative had to transfer us to the business products office — they do not sell “residential” Metro Ethernet.  A representative there said the service was available in several parts of Rochester, but was “completely unfeasible” for residential customers because of its cost.  Frontier DSL is the recommended solution for all residential customers in western New York, despite the fact the service does not exceed 3Mbps in our neighborhood (although it is marketed at speeds up to 10Mbps locally).

The following communities now have access to Frontier MetroE service:

• Coeur d’Alene, Idaho
• Bloomington, Carbondale, DeKalb, Freeport, Jacksonville, Lincoln, Marion and Olney, Illinois
• Elkhart, Fort Wayne, Lafayette, Richmond, Terra Haute and Valparaiso, Indiana
• Adrian, Coldwater, Mount Pleasant, Muskegon and Sturgis, Michigan
• Bryson City, Burnsville, Cherokee, Creedmoor, Durham , Hayesville, Marion and Murphy, North Carolina
• Gardnerville, Nevada
• Athens, Bowling Green, Delaware, Jackson, Marion, Medina, Troy and Wilmington, Ohio
• Beaverton, Coos Bay, Gresham and Hillsboro, Oregon
• Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
• Everett and Kennewick, Washington
• Merrill, Sun Prairie and Wausau, Wisconsin

Let us know what kind of pricing and promotions you can get from Frontier for Metro Ethernet in your area in our comments section.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings posted his version of a mea culpa on the company’s blog early this morning pulling the plug on dividing up online video streaming and DVD-by-mail rentals:

It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs.

This means no change: one website, one account, one password… in other words, no Qwikster.

While the July price change was necessary, we are now done with price changes.

We’re constantly improving our streaming selection. We’ve recently added hundreds of movies from Paramount, Sony, Universal, Fox, Warner Bros., Lionsgate, MGM and Miramax. Plus, in the last couple of weeks alone, we’ve added over 3,500 TV episodes from ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, USA, E!, Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, ABC Family, Discovery Channel, TLC, SyFy, A&E, History, and PBS.

We value our members, and we are committed to making Netflix the best place to get movies & TV shows.

Hastings doesn’t come out and directly say his decision to split streaming and DVD rentals was a mistake, but the intended audience for his short blog post is clear — the tens of thousands of customers upset about the company’s recent price and plan changes.  Many have complained Netflix lacks current movie titles available for streaming, and news reports indicate the company is on the verge of losing a key supplier of the current content Netflix does have — Starz.

But Hastings has not pulled back completely from the idea of dividing the streaming and movie rental services Netflix offers.  In a news release read by investors, Hastings said the problem wasn’t that Netflix sought to separate the services, it was that they tried too fast.

“Consumers value the simplicity Netflix has always offered and we respect that,” said Hastings. “There is a difference between moving quickly – which Netflix has done very well for years – and moving too fast, which is what we did in this case.”

Customers of Time Warner Cable in Maine preparing for the cable company’s all-digital conversion that will eventually impact every customer nationwide are reporting more problems with the equipment the cable company is supplying to those without set top cable boxes.

Frank Dobbelaere from Augusta is disgusted with the digital box conversion, and is calling the cable company “anti-consumer.”

“They can cut service costs, forgo capacity upgrades and charge indefinitely per device, leaving consumers with inconveniences, obstacles and surcharges,” Dobbelaere says.  “Time Warner Cable staff said the digital cable adapters (DCA) are mandatory, for everything, unless you have a digital cable box per device. HDTVs with digital tuner do not get a pass. I quote: ‘No adapter = no TV. Cable TV is going to be password protected.'”

Indeed, Stop the Cap! has heard from several customers in Maine who report Time Warner Cable’s new digital conversion program even impacts customers with digital tuner-equipped sets, forcing them to either watch a downgraded analog signal or upgrade to a digital set top box.

“They have encrypted the basic cable lineup so QAM reception is not going to work, assuming you can even figure out how to program it in the first place,” writes Stop the Cap! reader Bill Adair.  “We tried their digital adapter for about five minutes, and that is all it took for us to take it back.  It’s absolute garbage.”

Adair reports the DTA Time Warner supplies significantly degrades picture quality.

“It’s absolutely awful with wavy lines in the background, grainy picture quality, and a picture that resembles a VCR tape,” he reports to us.

Adair said he wouldn’t even bother with the device on his 13 inch kitchen television.

“It’s unwatchable, in my opinion, on any television.”

Dobbelaere considers the resulting picture from his DTA sub-standard definition.

“I lost every local HD station. Most analog channels were blank. The DCA quality is worse in side by side analog comparison. It is prone to interference and signal degradation,” he reports to the Kennebec Journal. “Toss out the $100 all-in-one remote, put the TV on channel 3 (or 4) and use the chintzy DCA remote, without closed-captioning support. Two or more devices in a room? Thanks to DCAs, you can no longer control the channel independently, because each remote changes the channel on any DCA.”

Antenna retailers are using Time Warner's digital conversion as a sales opportunity.

The list of devices rendered effectively inoperable with the new digital system continues to grow unless you go through the painful, and pricey set top box route:

• VCRs
• DVRs like TiVo
• DVD Recorders
• PC TV Tuner Cards and Add-Ons
• Slingbox
• “Cable-ready” HD television sets

“What happened to free HD, cable without a box, buy a new HDTV and get cable to avoid a converter — so eagerly touted during the DTV transition and other commercials,” asks Dobbelaere. “We were perfectly happy viewing and recording the analog-digital mix; but now will pay more for less, while losing any recording and networking capability.  Of course, Time Warner would happily rent me a dozen digital cable boxes and DVRs.”

Dobbelaere has a better idea.  He’s planning to cut the cable and “go old school” with rabbit ears.

In fact, antenna retailers see an opportunity and are buying ads to remind Maine residents they can still watch HDTV programming over the air, without a digital box, a DTA, or monthly cable bill.

A Comcast customer in San Carlos, Calif., wanted to change her Comcast account so she need not be reminded of the recent passing of her husband, under whose name the account was listed.  A simple call to Comcast to request a change met with resistance from a representative, who told her to get in her car, drive to Redwood City, and go stand in line with an original copy of his death certificate.

Judy did as she was told, and Comcast didn’t.  The following month, another bill in his name arrived.  Judy ended up telling the whole story to the San Jose Mercury News:

I again called customer service and was told, “Don’t worry, the change is in the system and will show on your next bill.”

Well, I received the bill dated Aug. 28, and it is still in his name.

On Sept. 1, I mailed a letter to the customer service manager at the Redwood City service center and to this date have had no response.

On Sept. 6, I emailed to the “We Want to Hear from You” address telling them about this, and I received an automatic response: “Thank you for your comments,” but nothing since.

In my letter I told them I will not pay that bill until I receive the bill in my name accompanied by a written apology for this gross insensitivity and complete lack of “customer service.”

A Comcast representative eventually called her back and told her the company doesn’t do written apologies, but did apologize over the phone.

After the newspaper intervened, attitudes changed dramatically.

“On Monday morning Debbie called me and after much apologizing on her part, we agreed on a month of our service deducted from my current bill,” Judy reports.

Cable companies who have earned the scorn of their customers could go a long way towards correcting their dismal record of customer service by using some common sense and sensitivity.  A family tragedy should never force someone to hike down to the local cable office with an original death certificate just to change a name on an account.  It also should not take media intervention to get someone to do the right thing.  Stop the Cap! has covered at least a dozen cases of customers running into brick walls with front line service representatives who are not authorized to do what needs to be done.  When that changes, consumers will be grateful.

A Time Warner Cable customer in the East Village experiencing a cable, phone, and Internet outage Tuesday got an original excuse from a call center employee at the cable company:

The box that controls the cable, Internet, pretty much everything else for Time Warner Cable in my area of the East Village is located in the basement of a building. In order to service this box, Time Warner Cable needs to contact the super of the building and be let in.

The super of the building, according to the service rep, REFUSES TO LET TIME WARNER INSIDE.

“Why is he refusing?” I asked.

“He wants free cable,” the rep responded.

Apparently, Time Warner has tried to reason with the man, but he refuses to budge. Today, he’s refused to answer the door or his phone. He’s cut off all communication.

“It’s a very unusual situation,” the rep said.

The entire story of the hostage crisis is up on Adam Hunter’s blog, along with plenty of comments from fellow New Yorkers upset with the building superintendent, the cable operator, or both.

What made an unusual situation even stranger is the Time Warner employee actually gave out the address of the building where the standoff was occurring, with the not-much-of-a-stretch-notion that perhaps outraged customers might walk down the street and pay the hostage-taker a visit.

“How close are you to 2nd Avenue,” the representative asked.

“I live between 1st and 2nd, closer to 2nd. I’d love to go over there and try to speak with the super to help resolve this,” Hunter replied.

“Well,” the rep said, “I can’t see any reason I can’t give you the address.”

The drama attracted the attention of the Village Voice, who tracked down the alleged offender, only to be promptly hung up on, and a Time Warner representative who actually confirmed the whole story:

“It does appear that we had an issue with accessing the building where one of our nodes is located,” the representative told the newspaper.  “We did have to remind the landlord of city ordinance that requires us to have 24/7 access to our infrastructure.”

Regardless of who wanted what, Time Warner Cable customers experiencing the effects of several outages in lower Manhattan this week are entitled to service credits.  Just visit Time Warner’s New York City website, complete the e-mail form listing the day(s) you experienced service outages, and request credit accordingly.  Make sure you remind them of the services you have so you are properly credited.