Sarasota County's current fiber networks are depicted on this map produced by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune

In many communities across America, there is more fiber optic cable on telephone poles and buried in underground conduit than you may realize.  But as a consumer, you’ll never get to benefit from it because of a broadband duopoly that works hard to keep municipal fiber networks away from your home and out of your reach.

Take Sarasota County, Florida.  The county is making preparations to build a 96-strand fiber network across the county, capable of delivering 100Gbps service over each strand, and early plans suggest they’ll use it for… controlling traffic signals and viewing traffic cameras.  Taxpayers are ultimately paying the costs to construct the $1,000-per-mile fiber network, but current plans won’t allow any of them to access it.

Why?  Because companies like Comcast and Verizon want it that way.

It’s nothing new and it’s not limited to Sarasota.  In cities across the country, enormous capacity networks are devised and constructed to deliver high speed data connections to local hospitals, schools, and public safety institutions.  Many states’ transportation departments have enormous excess fiber capacity, installed from federal and state grant money to develop intelligent traffic systems.  But almost all of these networks are strictly off-limits to the general public and small business entrepreneurs who are stuck with the far slower broadband service the phone and cable companies deliver at ridiculously high prices.

Sarasota has had ultra-fast connections for years, delivering a dedicated 10Gbps connection to one area hospital and insanely fast connections to police departments and other government buildings.  It’s managed by Comcast and was built for $3 million, paid for directly by Comcast subscribers.  Comcast built the county I-Net network with the understanding that commercial use of the network was strictly prohibited.

The result is blazing fast speeds for institutions that can’t possibly utilize all of the capacity they have, and a broadband cartel delivering less service than local residents and businesses need.

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune considered the county’s fiber future so important, it dedicated a week of coverage to municipal fiber, and the providers and politics that get in the way.

The newspaper reports that the existing broadband duopoly under-delivers access to digital entrepreneurs that need those speeds the most.

The co-called creative class — bandwidth entrepreneurs on a budget — struggle to get by on mediocre connections that are largely repackaged retail offerings.

Over and over, businesses surveyed by the Herald-Tribune pointed to the tell-tale distinction between business-class service and retail.

“Businesses upload stuff, while consumers download,” said Rich Swier Jr., who works from a Central Avenue office where the only service comes from Comcast. Swier, the only entrepreneur on the Sarasota Broadband Task Force, is not happy with what he gets from Comcast. “They are repackaging a consumer grade service as a business service and charging three times more.”

Swier is paying about $200 per month for what is supposed to be 50 megabits per second download and 5 megabits up. But in reality, it operates at half those speeds, he said.

Thaxton

The newspaper’s conclusion: Fiber access is to modern business what train stations and interstate connections used to be.

Sarasota’s fiber project has grown considerably since its original proposition — 24 strands of fiber installed for $11 a foot. Then the county received an estimate that said they could have triple the amount of fiber for just 20 cents more per mile.  Broadband enthusiasts urged the county to upgrade the network to 96 strands and they agreed.

Commissioner Jon Thaxton told the newspaper he views the planned fiber network as an insurance policy as Internet speed becomes more and more important.

“It does, at a minimum, put us in a position of not being wholly dependent on some other service provider,” Thaxton said.

The newspaper notes the economic implications of superior broadband are enormous.

Google sparked the issue when it announced plans earlier this year to hot-wire a city or cities somewhere in the United States, creating what could be a prototype for a community with the broadband speeds to more than command its economic future.

Our political leaders clearly saw the import of this. Heck, City Commissioner Dick Clapp even jumped into a shark tank to show Google the community’s spirit (yeah, they were pretty small sharks, but I wouldn’t do it, fiber or no fiber).

Businesses of the 21st century are hungry for fast speeds, and this region has been fortunate to land some with voracious appetites.

[…]Who would have pegged Lafayette, La., as a place where Hollywood would set up a first-rate special-effects studio? (Can you say the Walt Disney Co. as a customer?) But the fiber was there, and the big dogs came.

South of us, in Naples, it is private enterprise driving high-octane broadband, the work of a technology-savvy entrepreneur and a like-minded group of millionaires who want what many of us raising families in Southwest Florida are after: an economy that would allow our kids to remain here with good jobs.

In the Information Age, connectivity is going to be critical in attracting the kind of companies we want, and the well-heeled folks in Collier County know that. (They also clearly know how to make a lot of money, so don’t read their efforts too much as altruism).

Then you have one of the new 800-pound gorillas of the fiber effort, Allied Fiber, a New York-based company in the midst of creating a trans-continental broadband push akin to what the railroad barons of the 1800s accomplished.

Southwest Florida has a good chance of tapping into their $500 million (or more) play.

Competition from Municipal Providers Drives Prices Down and Speeds Up (New Rules Project)

The county established a Broadband Task Force, but made the same mistake so many other municipalities make when they create these panels: consumers are not represented at all and small business representation is limited to a single participant. Consumers will ultimately be a major source of revenue from municipal broadband projects and their needs and interests must be represented.  Since incumbent commercial providers will seek to impede municipal competition by organizing consumer opposition to such projects, getting trusted consumer advocates and broadband evangelists on your side at the outset can make the difference between enthusiastic support for additional broadband choice or a mind-numbing, incumbent provider-driven sideshow about a “socialist government takeover of the Internet.”

The rest of the panel is made up of public officials from the school district, county and city government and the local hospital.

The newspaper hints these are exactly the wrong people to invite onto a Broadband Task Force.  Virtually all already enjoy the generous bandwidth already provided by Comcast’s I-Net, few are likely to be well informed on broadband technology issues, and apart from the lone businessman on the panel, the group is unlikely to grasp the commercial implications of better broadband for the local digital economy.

Since these individuals all earn a paycheck protecting their own institutional interests, the larger vision of community broadband can easily get lost in turf wars and political disputes, or interference from incumbent providers.

Providers can cut the bottom out of such task forces with rewarding side deals for friends — enhanced services at fire sale prices. For institutional opponents — intransigence and crippling rate increases.

On Florida’s East Coast, Martin County’s public service institutions learned first hand what kind of pricing Comcast is capable of bringing to the table when an existing contract expired.  Comcast demanded a whopper of a rate hike.

“We decided for the kind of money these people are asking us, we would be better off doing this on our own,” Kevin Kryzda, the county’s chief information officer, told the Sarasota paper. “That is different from anybody else. And then we said we would like to do a loose association to provide broadband to the community while we are spending the money to build this network anyway. That was unique, too.”

The last straw for county officials was the loss of a lucrative deal with California-based Digital Domain to build a Florida branch campus.  The company chose St. Lucie County instead.  John Textor, Digital Domain’s co-chairman, told the Herald-Tribune that having a local all-fiber network connection and being able to set up an all-fiber direct connection to remote servers in Miami was a key advantage of the site in Port St. Lucie.

After that, Martin County commissioners voted unanimously to obtain bids for their own network.

Martin County’s fiber network will combine a publicly-constructed institutional network and a tiny rural phone company paying part of the costs to resell excess capacity to commercial users. The downside is that consumers will not be offered service.

In Florida’s Lee and Collier Counties, U.S. Metro network has proved fiber’s ability to transform entire regions economically.

“If you build it, they will come” is a common rallying cry for fiber proponents.  In both counties, they came.  The latest arrival?  Jackson Laboratory of Bar Harbor, Maine, now being showered with more than $200 million in government grants to build a genetic research campus in Collier County.  A large portion of that money will end up staying in Collier County, stimulating the local economy and creating jobs.

Why all the clamor?  Because U.S. Metro runs a network that puts incumbent phone and cable companies to shame.  When a business requests service, owner Frank Mambuca doesn’t tell them what speeds they’ll have to live with.  Instead, he asks, “how many gigabits do you want?”

Unfortunately, U.S. Metro also only sells service to businesses, but they have some wholesale customers that do serve consumers.  Marco Island Cable and a sister company, NuVu are cable overbuilders that offer access to U.S. Metro’s broadband network at speeds and prices Comcast and CenturyLink can’t touch.

Marco Cable, a tiny independent provider, delivers faster speeds at lower prices.

Marco Cable is preparing to deliver fiber-based 75Mbps service for $99 a month, along with several other access plans that save at least $12.95 per month over Comcast’s prices, and undercuts CenturyLink’s DSL plans as well.  The company also does something Comcast won’t — it promises unlimited Internet access and email accounts.

If someone wants even faster speeds, say 100Mbps, they can call Marco Cable and request it.

The highest download speed that Verizon offers [locally] at present is 50 megabits per second for $149.99 a month, according to spokesman Bob Elek.

NuVu is currently installing competing service in condos on the mainland.  For the father and son team that run both Marco Cable and NuVu, their philosophy is radically different from most cable and phone companies — delivering as much broadband speed as customers can use at prices they can afford.

For existing providers, who have “marked up” prices for years, the competition’s lower prices threaten profits from delivering “good enough for you” speeds at the highest possible price.

For some, simply lowering prices and enhancing service to compete isn’t the answer — putting a stop to municipal competition at all costs is.

In 18 states, high priced lobbying campaigns financed by giant phone and cable operators have succeeded in restricting or banning competing providers.  AT&T has been the most aggressive, successfully impeding competition in states like Texas, Wisconsin, Missouri, Arkansas, Michigan, Tennessee, and others.  Comcast helped stop competition in its home state of Pennsylvania.

Click image to view interactive map

Year after year, Time Warner Cable and AT&T continue efforts to try and do the same in North Carolina, a potential hotbed of locally run, community-owned providers.

For some towns and cities who have spent years begging for improved service, the clock has run out.  The Sarasota Herald-Tribune used Wilson, N.C., as an excellent example.  The city of 50,000 east of Raleigh decided it was through asking Time Warner Cable to provide a platform for a digital economic revival.

Brian Bowman, public affairs manager for the city, told the newspaper the city faced economic disaster from twin blows — the loss of the textile industry and America’s waning interest in tobacco products. Giving the keys to the local cable company to drive Wilson’s nascent digital economy into Lake Wilson was simply not an option.  The town would build its own digital highway — a municipal fiber to the home system for consumers and businesses.

For both, Wilson’s Greenlight system provides up to 100 megabits per second in both directions.  Time Warner Cable residential customers, in comparison, max out at 15/2 Mbps service.

“The way we see it, you’re going to have haves and have-nots in the next generation broadband world,” Bowman said. “The fact is we wanted to invest in our own future; that’s why we did this.”

Cable and phone giants always are going to say that current speeds are adequate and that there is no need for cities to build expensive networks themselves, Bowman said.

“I have heard that here from some of the incumbents, that you don’t need to go that fast. I’m sure the folks in Florida were doing OK without I-4,” Bowman said, noting the state never would have gotten Disney World if not for that interstate access.

People in Sarasota County are about to hear all of the usual arguments against municipal service:

• “Taxpayers will pay for it.” — Not with revenue bonds they won’t.  These bonds deliver returns to investors from revenue earned by the municipal provider, not from taxpayer dollars.
• “We want a level playing field.” — This cable industry opposed providing one when satellite and phone company IPTV showed up, as they tried to withhold programming and lobbied against both.
• “The government should stay out of the private sector.” — Christopher Mitchell, writing for the New Rules Project, tore apart that argument:

Governments “compete” with the private sector in many ways on a daily basis. Libraries compete with book stores, schools with private schools, public transit with taxis, police with security firms, even lumber yards, liquor stores, municipal golf courses and swimming pools with privately owned counterparts. Without public competition in the form of the Rural Electrification Authority, much of the country would still not be wired for electricity or phones.

The focus on whether local governments, who have a wholly different motivation than private companies, are “competing” with the private sector is a red herring to distract the public from incumbent providers’ failures to build modern networks. On matters of infrastructure, a community should always have the option to build the network it needs, just as it can build roads, bridges, water systems, and other modern necessities.

Ultimately, Sarasota County residents have two choices:

1. Obtain the best traffic control and monitoring system America has ever seen, capable of delivering crisp, clear 1080p HD feeds of traffic tieups on Route 301.
2. Deliver Sarasota County 21st century broadband that will power the digital economy and bring hundreds of millions in investment dollars, create thousands of new, high-paying jobs, and save local consumers and businesses a lot of money from broadband competition.

For the third time this year, Time Warner Cable is increasing prices on some of its cable products in upstate New York.

Some customers in western New York are receiving notification that effective this October, the price for the cable company’s digital video recorder (DVR) box is increasing by 18 percent from $10.95 to $12.95 per month (remote control included). Time Warner Cable charges different prices for DVR service, depending on what each local market will tolerate and how much competition the company receives.  A representative of Time Warner Cable in Buffalo told us the company was trying to “standardize rates” across Upstate New York.  If true, residents in Buffalo who already experienced one recent rate increase for DVR service will get a big shock if rates are “standardized” in the same direction Rochester and Syracuse are experiencing.  More details below.

After multiple contacts, we’ve managed to sort out what we believe the increases to be.

Buffalo:  Verizon FiOS and the Buffalo economy have conspired to keep prices considerably lower in Buffalo than other upstate cities.  Buffalo residents pay just $9.95 a month for DVR service and will experience no increase in rates… for now.  If the Buffalo representative was correct about rate standardization, residents there will eventually see a $3 a month rate hike for DVR service.

Rochester: Effective October 15th, DVR service will increase $2 a month from $10.95 to $12.95, an 18 percent increase [Update 9/20 — Many areas are being notified on their bill it is $1, not $2 — see update below.]  Each additional DVR box will cost $11.95.  Originally, we were told the increase was a dollar a month.  Not so fast, says our reader Tim who tipped us off to the story.  He lives in a Rochester suburb and his September bill contained a notification the rate was increasing two dollars a month.  The bill was correct and the original representative we spoke with was wrong.

Syracuse: Residents of the Salt City are in the same boat as residents in Rochester.  On October 15th, DVR service there also increases by two dollars a month, from $10.95 to $12.95.  Apparently Verizon FiOS has not made as much of a competitive difference in Syracuse, probably because it is not widely available yet.

Ironically, if you register for TWC's MyServices control panel and shop the cable company's services online, you can grab a DVR box free for 12 months.

In February, Time Warner broadly increased rates on its cable and broadband services.  In September, rates for broadband-only customers also increased.  The latest increase will not affect customers on promotions or bundled packages that include a DVR.

Our reader Tim says he’s not going to stand for it.

“Time to trim another item off of my TWC bill,” he writes. “I already quit HBO, I guess the DVR is next.”

The Time Warner Cable representative we spoke with only learned about the rate increase “an hour ago.”  She told us, “We’re probably going to get some calls on this.”

Ironically, Time Warner Cable is giving away a year of free DVR service to customers in the northeast using its recently introduced “My Services” control panel and online shopping section.

Our advice to those who don’t want to pay the increase:

• Complain to Time Warner and ask for a credit for the difference in price for a year.
• Turn in your DVR box, wait a week and then take advantage of their “online only” offer, if available in your area, for a year’s free service. (Registration for MyServices required.)
• Cancel something else in your package that will make up the difference.  Are you still watching HBO or Showtime?  Many TWC systems charge $13.95 for HBO and $10.95 for Cinemax and other pay channels.  That’s up to $167 a year per premium network!  Many HD subscribers might still be paying for a Digital HD Tier that used to include HDNet and HDNet Movies.  Now you’re paying an extra $4.95 a month for MGM HD, Universal HD, Smithsonian, and the cattle auctions on RFD-TV.  Not watching those?  Drop that tier and save $60 a year.  If you still want commercial free movies, consider Encore’s Movie Pack instead of HBO, et al.  Encore only charges $5 a month for seven theme-based movie channels.

Believe the bill -- for residents in the city of Rochester and adjacent suburbs, the rate increase turns out to be $1 for DVR service, despite repeated assertions from TWC reps back on the 9th).

[Updated 3:30pm ET — We have been on the phone with Time Warner Cable reps in Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse a total of eight times to re-verify some of the information for this story after the first representative we spoke with gave us conflicting information.  Subsequent contacts also gave us a range of responses from “I’ve worked here four years and am telling you there is no price increase” to “Unfortunately we are increasing the price and I don’t know why.”  We’ve updated and corrected the details below.]

[Update #2: 9:15am ET 9/20 — I pulled up a copy of my October statement and discovered a dollar increase in the town of Brighton for DVR service, which triggered another call to TWC this morning to learn why the information I was given on the 9th was different from what the bill showed.

The latest explanation is that different areas are subject to paying different amounts.  Apparently.

For folks in the city of Rochester and adjacent suburbs, “less is more,” so the dollar increase is slightly better than the two dollar increase.  I just wish representatives were better trained to answer simple questions accurately.]

A British financial analyst has issued a new report telling phone companies they should forget about fiber optic upgrades — copper-based DSL service is adequate for consumers and doesn’t bring shareholders fits over capital expenditures.

Analysys Mason’s Rupert Wood believes companies are at risk of overspending on fiber networks that deliver speeds he claims few consumers want.

“The vague promise of future services may appeal to some early FTTH adopters, but will become increasingly ineffective as a selling point unless the rate of innovation in devices and services that are uniquely suitable for FTTH gets some new impetus from vendors and service providers,” writes Wood. “The future cannot be simply plotted against increasing fixed-line bandwidth.”

Wood believes wireless 3G and 4G broadband is where innovation and demand is greatest.  It also just happens to be where the biggest money can be made.  Providers can charge premium prices for wireless services while limiting access.

Wood

For at-home Internet, Wood believes copper-based DSL is fine for most consumers.  Wood points to American providers offering super-high-speed broadband tiers that attracts few buyers as proof there is little interest in ultra-fast connections.  DSL is cheap to provide, he argues.  Fiber is just ‘too risky’ and Wood suggests it’s not as “future-proof” as wireless.

So what should providers do with their fiber networks?  Short of abandoning them altogether, Wood recommends operators pull back on fiber roll-outs and deploy them only for experimental purposes.

“Conditions vary between markets, but in general the business case to move much beyond trials just isn’t there and we are already beginning to see some scale-back,” explains Wood.

“Bandwidth demand for fixed broadband is converging with the bandwidth required to stream TV, and its rate of growth will slow down,” he adds. “DSL [technology] might not be able to meet these demands at some point in the future, but we believe that this point is still a long way off.”

If you want to read more, it will cost you €5500 to purchase a copy of “FTTx roll-out and capex in developed economies: forecasts 2010–2015.”

Our analysis comes for free.

Wood ignores the most important reason why Americans are not signing up for ultra-fast premium speed tiers in droves — the current “early adopter” price tag.  Few consumers are going to justify spending $99 a month or more for the highest speed connections.  When price cuts deliver faster service at incrementally higher pricing, perhaps $10-20 for each step up, there will be greater demand.  If America was not interested in higher speed networks, Google’s proposal to build a 1Gbps fiber to the home system would have passed by without notice.  Instead, more than 1,100 communities applied to be chosen for the project, including just about every American city.

Wood’s report primarily speaks to a European market, where the majority of broadband connections come through telephone company DSL or wireless.  In the United States, the cable industry heavily competes with phone companies for broadband customers.  That is much rarer in Europe.  Wood’s claim that consumers care little about speed is belied by marketing campaigns that put cable broadband’s speed advantage front and center, and they have the market share to justify it.

In North America, although Wood’s report may be music to phone companies’ ears, refusing to upgrade copper phone networks comes at their peril.  Americans and Canadians are disconnecting their landlines at an increasing rate, abandoning those that abandoned innovation long ago. Cable operators report many of their new broadband customers come from those disconnecting slower speed DSL service from copper-loving phone companies.

The future is clear — sticking with standard DSL over copper phone lines in competitive markets is a losing proposition unless phone companies begin slashing prices to become a value leader for those who want more savings than speed.

Verizon determined the best way to “future proof” its network was to deploy fiber straight to the home in many areas.  Verizon’s vision carries a price tag analysts like Wood and those on Wall Street don’t like because it challenges short term profits.  But with Americans increasingly saying goodbye to their landline providers, not upgrading networks to give customers a reason to stay is penny wise and pound foolish.

Frontier's Maggie Wilderotter escapes reality

Frontier Communications CEO Maggie Wilderotter has bought a first class ticket to Fiber Fantasy Island, where phone companies dream of delivering fiber-optic broadband service without actually deploying fiber.  They just tell you they did.

In an interview published today in The Oregonian, Wilderotter tries to convince residents Frontier’s arrival is good news, making promises about broadband and service improvements based on a company track record an independent observer would conclude she simply made up.

If Wilderotter’s command of the facts about her own company are reflective of “a distinct, improved image in its new territories,” Oregon is in big trouble.

Let’s review:

CLAIM: “We deploy fiber to the home all across the country. We don’t call it FiOS. We call it high-speed Internet. For our customers, the technology doesn’t matter. What matters is access, speed and capacity.”

REALITY CHECK: Frontier, as far as we have been able to determine, has not deployed fiber to the home anywhere in the country, with the exception of the FiOS network it acquired from Verizon.  Frontier Communications’ deployment of fiber optics to the home is comparable to the amount of fiber found in a box of Cookie Crisp cereal.  In their largest market, Rochester, N.Y., Frontier relies on the same legacy copper wire phone network it utilizes everywhere else.  It is highly misleading for Wilderotter to represent otherwise.  Fiber to the home means exactly that — fiber optic cable brought right to the home.  This is not a case of “you call it corn, we call it maize.”

This kitten is not an iguana.

Fiber optic cable is not also known as “high-speed Internet,” just as the cute kitten on the left is not called an iguana.  For the significant number of customers who ask Frontier to disconnect their service year-after-year, technology matters very much, and this particular phone company lacks it.  Frontier relies on the same DSL technology other phone companies and customers increasingly consider yesterday’s news.

In many Frontier service areas, there is no access to broadband because line quality will not support the service.  In Brighton, N.Y., a suburb of Rochester less than a minute from the Rochester city line, Frontier could only manage to deliver 3.1Mbps DSL speeds, and until recently Frontier was crying it needed a 5GB usage allowance because of the threat higher amounts of consumption might have on its network capacity.  Access, speed, and capacity does matter, which is why Time Warner Cable is picking up the bulk of its new broadband subscribers at Frontier’s expense.

CLAIM: “For high-speed, it means having speed and capacity in addition to reach. We’ll do add-on services. We have a terrific Yahoo-Frontier portal that will be a gateway on our high-speed Internet service. We are in the throes of putting together Wi-Fi hotspots that will be distributed throughout this market for customers.  If you’re a high-speed Internet customer of ours it’s free. We’re looking to put one at Hillsboro Stadium. Typically, we put them in hotels, convention centers, truck stops, trailer parks, outside parks, campuses for colleges, shopping centers, business campuses.”

REALITY CHECK:  Those “add-on services,” such as Frontier’s Peace of Mind, come with a price tag and are often required components of a bundled service discount offer.  As first impressions go, a company still relying on Yahoo! for a front end is not exactly on the cutting edge, nor are “portals.”  It’s like trying to impress new customers with free web space through GeoCities.  Actually, that is something Frontier could offer because GeoCities is now owned by Yahoo!

Frontier’s Peace of Mind Services

• Hard Drive Backup: $4.99 per month
• Hard Drive Backup + Unlimited Technical Support: $9.99 per month
• Hard Drive Backup + Unlimited Technical Support + Inside Wire Maintenance: $12.99 per month
• $50 early cancellation penalty if you get these services with a term commitment

Rochester’s experience with Frontier Wi-Fi has not been very impressive.  Most residents don’t even know the service exists.  The city and several suburbs offer limited Frontier pay-walled Wi-Fi service and a handful of free access hotspots in cooperation with Monroe County.  Unfortunately, many of the fee-based and free hotspots have fallen into disrepair and no longer function.  Signal strength is not impressive either, and many were not usable indoors.  We tested several of the free hotspots and discovered one only delivered a signal into a suburban parking lot, another only into an empty soccer field, and the third was not functioning at all.  Frontier’s record in Wi-Fi delivered more promises than actual service.

Those Wi-Fi services, by the way, are not free for all Frontier broadband customers.  Evidently Ms. Wilderotter is not acquainted with her own company’s products and services, nor Frontier’s own website:

So much for Wilderotter's claim Frontier's Wi-Fi network was free for all Frontier broadband customers.

CLAIM: “We deliver the highest value for the price you pay. We also have excellent customer service. We also don’t raise our rates every 12 months, no matter what.”

REALITY CHECK:  In Rochester, the out-the-door price Frontier charges its broadband customers is actually higher than that charged by Time Warner Cable, which delivers far faster connections.  In West Virginia, the state’s Consumer Advocate put together a chart depicting Frontier’s broadband prices.  Determine for yourself if it delivers the “highest value for the price you pay.”

Comparing Prices: Frontier's pricing doesn't look as exciting as Wilderotter would have you believe, as the West Virginia Consumer Advocate discovered

CLAIM: “If I look across the board at our basic service pricing, I don’t think we’ve raised prices anywhere in the last four or five years.”

REALITY CHECK: We looked and found Frontier demanding the right to increase basic service rates in New York by $2 a month each year for up to two years.  In fact, last November, the New York State Public Service Commission, at the request of Frontier, sent the company a letter authorizing a rate hike of $2 a month for customers in the state.  Even more enlightening was Frontier’s filing in August 2005 with the PSC demanding near-complete deregulation and rate relief allowing Frontier to raise rates up to $1 per month annually indefinitely for basic service.  Frontier also wanted consumer protection rules “relaxed” and ban the PSC from investigating consumer complaints.  One of the reasons they cited is that basic phone service is not the same critical service it used to be because people can communicate through blogs instead.

In fact, consumers should be asking why Frontier’s rates haven’t decreased.  From that same filing: “Frontier believes that with the decreasing costs and increasing bandwidths of new technologies and the acceleration of intermodal market entry, the market will cause rates for non-basic services in all parts of the State to decline.”

CLAIM: Local regulators tell me they did see a spike in billing complaints after Verizon took over. Any thoughts on why? — “Whenever there’s a change — you change the name on the bill, you change the format — customers tend to look at it more closely. We always expect a spike in billing calls whenever we’ve done acquisitions. It has already (settled out).”

REALITY CHECK: As Stop the Cap! has reported, Frontier’s takeover in West Virginia has hardly “settled out.”  Service interruptions, forgotten service calls, and other problems have plagued the state to the point the PSC needed new hearings to review the situation.  Many of Frontier’s billing complaints come from customers choosing to cancel Frontier service, only to find unjustified early termination fees added to their final bills, even when customers never agreed to a term contract.  That problem was so serious in New York, the state Attorney General fined the company and ordered customer refunds.  Changing a customer’s bill by adding $100 or more to the total amount due will always get a customer to look at the bill more closely.

CLAIM: “One of the big opportunities that we’re working on is the ability to display Internet content and video on the television set.”

REALITY CHECK: That “big opportunity” has been available to broadband users for several years now.

CLAIM: We also have a new site that’s called myfitv.com. We carry over 100,000 titles of free television content on this site. It’s a little bit like Hulu on steroids. It’s provided free of charge to all our customers.

REALITY CHECK: MyFitv is not “a little bit like Hulu on steroids.”  In fact, it is Hulu.  Frontier simply used Hulu’s “embed” feature to take content, slap the Frontier logo on it, and add Google ads in an attempt to rake in a few extra dollars.  You can do exactly the same thing yourself.  Meanwhile, the service is added to customer bills showing an amount of $0.00, a very inexpensive way to try and impress customers with content Frontier never developed, deployed, or created — just like their phantom fiber to the home network.

CLAIM: “We think over time the Internet will also provide different packaging, different prices, different ways to buy content than the traditional viewing platform. We also think that mobility is important. We want to make sure that whatever you do you’ll be able to take it with you.  The Sling technology is interesting, too. It’s something we’re talking about DISH Network with.”

REALITY CHECK: Every time Maggie has talked about “different packaging and prices,” it has been in the context of an Internet Overcharging scheme — limited usage allowances, extremely high rate increases for those deemed to have consumed too much, etc.  And yes, Sling technology is interesting.  A company conceived of the idea, built it, developed a marketing plan, and sold it.  That’s a concept Frontier needs to understand.  You cannot transform a legacy network with words alone.  Here’s an idea.  How about conceiving of a real fiber-to-the-home network, build one, develop a marketing plan, and then sell it.  For those in markets like Rochester, it’s the only way Frontier Communications will avoid becoming the horse and buggy carriage maker of the 21st century.

CLAIM: You’re around Seattle, around Portland, but not in them yet. Is there any possibility that Frontier would build into another company’s market? — “There’s always a possibility. It’s not a priority for us. And the reason why it’s not a priority is we’ve got a lot to do, just in the service areas that we own today. When I’m humming on all cylinders there, and I’ve been able to do everything I possibly can in those areas, then I might look to extend service areas out.”

REALITY CHECK: Translation — “when pigs fly.”  Frontier would be laughed out of the Seattle and Portland markets.

Ms. Wilderotter needs to be a lot more open and forthcoming with the press.  Frontier’s business plan makes it clear the company’s future is serving uncompetitive rural markets that will be forced to tolerate the products and pricing Frontier delivers.  Where competition exists, let’s face facts.  Frontier is not gaining market share — it is losing it, eroded away year after year by uncompetitive, substandard products at high prices.

That’s a reality you are bound to miss if you spend too much time with Mr. Rourke and Tattoo.

Advertisements for Road Runner Extreme, Time Warner Cable’s DOCSIS 3 “wideband” service, began running in Rochester, N.Y., this week despite the fact Time Warner Cable has no intention of providing the service in the area anytime soon.

The ad offers Road Runner subscribers the chance to obtain 30/5 Mbps service “for just $20 more per month” and invites viewers to “call now to order.”

So that’s what we did.

Time Warner Cable representatives in Buffalo confirmed the service is not available in Rochester, but figured if they were advertising it here it must be coming soon.  Even they were surprised with the answer they got ‘from upstairs’ when inquiring further.

“No, it’s not coming to Rochester anytime soon,” we were told.

We asked if there was any timetable to bring DOCSIS 3 upgrades to the area.  The response was both illuminating and candid:

“I wouldn’t hold your breath.  We’ve had some issues in the Rochester area and, for now, we feel comfortable offering the service only in the Buffalo area in western New York.”

When we asked why the company was now heavily advertising a product on Rochester TV screens that isn’t available here, we were told Time Warner Cable was increasingly consolidating its operations in western New York through its Buffalo office, which is where “most customer service” and “local advertising you see on cable channels” is now originating.  Since Road Runner Extreme is available in Buffalo, Rochester viewers are accidental witnesses to a service intended for residents of The City of Good Neighbors.

So what are “the issues” in the Rochester area?

Time Warner Cable bypassed Rochester for promised upgrades after the defeat of their proposed Internet Overcharging plan, which would have tripled broadband prices for an equivalent level of service.  Consumer outrage and political headaches combined to kill the experiment.

Meanwhile, Time Warner Cable isn’t compelled to hurry DOCSIS 3 into an area underserved by Frontier Communication’s slow speed DSL service.  Neighboring communities in Buffalo and Syracuse have access to Verizon’s fiber-to-the-home service FiOS, which has driven Time Warner to enhance services in both communities to avoid losing customers.

Despite the slow pace of upgrades, Time Warner Cable previously stated it intended to upgrade a significant number of its cable systems to DOCSIS 3 technology by the end of the year.  So it will eventually reach the area.  As Time Warner Cable recommends… just don’t hold your breath.

[flv width=”490″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Time Warner Cable at the NYS Fair.flv[/flv]

The closest residents of the Flower City will get to Road Runner Extreme is at the New York State Fair in Syracuse, at the Time Warner Cable booth.  (Their advertised ‘celebrity’ is Mike O’Malley.  Who???)  (1 minute)