TracFone customers signed up for NET10 Wireless prepaid service are getting word in e-mail the 1.5GB monthly data cap on AT&T-based SIM cards introduced in March has been removed and unlimited data has returned.

AT&T resells prepaid access to its 3G GSM network on gradually improving terms as AT&T’s postpaid, on-contract customers continue to abandon 3G in favor of AT&T’s 4G services. As 3G traffic loads diminish, AT&T is seeking to maximize return on its older network. Bringing back unlimited data service is expected to prove an attractive offering in the budget-minded prepaid marketplace.

TracFone acts as a reseller of all four major carriers’ networks under different brands. Geography and the specific phone model chosen usually determines on which network the service will operate. Only customers with AT&T SIM cards in their phones (the first line of the SIM card ID number will end in “SIMC4”) qualify for the unlimited data offer, although tethering is prohibited, according to an e-mail being sent to registered customers.

TracFone enacted a 1.5GB monthly usage cap for NET10 Wireless users back in March. But the cap never applied to TracFone’s Straight Talk customers. Straight Talk still offers unlimited data, but says streaming is not permitted.

Along with the return of unlimited data, TracFone has discontinued its NET10 Wireless usage measurement portal, which informed customers about their monthly data usage.

TracFone operates several prepaid calling plans under the brands TracFone, NET10 Wireless, Safelink Wireless, Straight Talk, Telcel América, and SIMPLE Mobile. TracFone is owned and operated by Mexico-based América Móvil.

Worst

Broadband customers in Lawrence, Kan. have been liberated from Internet Overcharging schemes after years of usage-capped Internet access from Sunflower Broadband and Knology.

WideOpenWest’s (better known as WOW!) acquisition of Knology, which in turn purchased Sunflower Broadband from the local newspaper, means usage limits are a thing of the past.

Consumer Reports has top-rated WOW! for customer friendly service, and banishing usage caps is an example of why the cable company earns such high marks.

The company reminds customers that “all WOW! Internet speeds have no usage caps.”

Sunflower Broadband originally offered four different broadband plans, only one without usage caps. Lawrence customers did get speed upgrades faster than many other cable broadband customers, but most were accompanied with draconian usage limits.

Bad

♦ Bronze: Originally offering 3Mbps/256kbps service, Sunflower’s “lite” usage plan included a 3GB monthly usage limit boosted by Knology in 2012 to $22.95/month offering 3/1Mbps service and a still ridiculously low 5GB usage limit. WOW! has kept the lite plan but removed the usage cap.

♦ Silver: Sunflower’s equivalent of Standard Internet service offered 10/1Mbps broadband with a 50GB usage cap. Knology raised the price to $37.95, left the 50GB cap intact and increased speeds to 18/2Mbps. WOW! dropped the cap.

♦ Gold: Sunflower’s premium 50/1Mbps service offered 250GB of usage for under $60 a month. When Knology took over, speeds were boosted to 50/5Mbps along with the price: $62.95 a month. But the usage cap stayed the same. Today WOW! continues the plan without any caps.

Much Better

♦ Palladium: Sunflower responded to customer complaints about metering Internet usage by offering residents a trade — an unlimited use plan with no speed promises. Palladium could be as slow as 2Mbps during peak usage, 25Mbps when traffic was very low. Knology kept the plan and its 1Mbps upload rate, but raised the price to $47.95 a month. WOW! dumped Palladium altogether, replacing it with a 30/2Mbps unlimited use plan for customers who don’t want to pay $63 a month for the Gold plan.

A number of Lawrence customers annoyed with Sunflower and Knology switched to AT&T U-verse when it was introduced locally. Although U-verse has a 250GB usage cap, Lawrence residents report it remains unenforced.

Stop the Cap! reader Mike, who shared the news WOW! had recently shelved the caps, tells us he switched to AT&T years ago and is happy with their service.

“So far, their cap is not enforced at all here,” Mike writes. “The minute they start enforcing it, I’ll switch to WOW!”

A Samsung femtocell offered by Verizon Wireless.

The wireless industry’s push to offload wireless traffic to microcells and other short-range femtocell base stations has opened the door for hackers to intercept voice calls, SMS text messages and collect enough identifying information to clone your phone.

Researchers from iSec Partners demonstrated femtocell vulnerability last month at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas, successfully recording phone calls, messages, and even certain web traffic using a compromised $250 Samsung “network extender” sold to consumers by Verizon Wireless.

Once anyone gets within 15-20 feet of a femtocell using compatible network technology (CDMA or GSM), their device will automatically attempt to connect and stay connected to a potentially rogue cell signal repeater as long as the person remains within 50 feet of the base station. Many phone owners will never know their phone has been compromised.

“Your phone will associate to a femtocell without your knowledge,” said Doug DePerry from iSEC Partners. “This is not like joining a Wi-Fi network. You don’t have a choice. You might be connected to ours right now.”

During the demonstration, the presenters were able to record both sides of phone conversations and compromise the security of Apple’s iMessage service. All that was required was to trick Apple’s encrypted messaging service to default to exchanging messages by plain text SMS. Phones were also successfully cloned by capturing device ID numbers over Verizon’s cell network. Once cloned, when the cloned phone and the original are connected to a femtocell of any kind, at any location, the cloned unit can run up a customer’s phone, text, and data bill.

“Eavesdropping was cool and everything, but impersonation is even cooler,” DePerry said.

Although the very limited range of femtocells make them less useful to track a particular person’s cell phone over any significant distance, installing a compromised femtocell base station in a high traffic area like a restaurant, mall, or entertainment venue could allow hackers to quietly accumulate a large database of phone ID numbers as people pass in and out of range. Those ID numbers could be used to eventually clone a large number of phones.

iSEC Partners believe femtocells, as designed, are a bad idea and major security risk. Although Verizon has since patched the vulnerability discovered by the security group, DePerry believes other vulnerabilities will eventually be found. He worries future exploits could be used to activate networks of compromised femtocells controlled by unknown third parties used to snoop and steal from a larger user base.

iSEC says network operators should drop femtocells completely and depend on implementing security at the network level, not on individual devices like phones and cell phone extenders.

AT&T’s femtocells support an extra layer of security, so they are now unaffected by hacking. But that could change eventually.

“It’d be easy to think this is all about Verizon,” said Tom Ritter, principal security engineer at iSec Partners. “But this really is about everybody. Remember, there are 30 carriers worldwide who have femtocells, and [that includes] three of the four U.S. carriers.”

iSec Partners is working on “Femtocatch,” a free tool that will allow security-conscious users to automatically switch wireless devices to “airplane mode” if they ever attempt to connect to a femtocell. The app should be available by the end of August.

After repeated extensions, Time Warner Cable yanked several channels from your cable dial today, and before you ask, you are -not- entitled to any refunds. So don’t ask. (Actually, ask anyway.)

The affected channels are:

• CBS Owned-and-Operated TV stations in the following cities:
  Los Angeles:  KCBS and KCAL-Ind.
  New York:  WCBS
  Dallas-Ft. Worth:  KTVT-CBS and KTXA-Ind.
  Boston:  WBZ-CBS and WSBK-Ind. (carried in parts of NH and MA)
  Chicago:  WBBM-CBS (carried in parts of WI)
  Denver:  KCNC-CBS (carried in Gunnison and Telluride)
  Detroit:  WKBD-CW (carried in parts of OH)
  Pittsburgh:  KDKA-CBS and WPCW-CW (carried in parts of OH)
• Showtime
• The Movie Channel (TMC)
• Flix
• Smithsonian Channel

Phillip “FAQ” Dampier

If your local CBS station is not on this list, you will still be able to watch CBS programming because the dispute only affects local stations directly owned/operated by CBS. But cable subscribers nationwide may notice the loss of the cable networks and premium movie channels, if one subscribes.

As a courtesy, Time Warner Cable has elected to throw Showtime subscribers a bone (and avoid having to pay any refunds) by turning on Starz and Encore for affected customers. (If you happen to find anything worthwhile to watch on Starz, please post a comment and let the rest of us know what we are missing.) Encore is a better choice, but customers should feel free to arrange their own “credit” by canceling Showtime until the dispute is resolved. Time Warner Cable was running a promotion offering HBO and Cinemax for $5 a month each for six months to a year. Inquire if that option is still available if you are feeling premium movie channel withdrawal.

“We deeply regret being forced into this position by CBS, but we’re prepared to stand by our customers and do what it takes to fight these unreasonable demands,” writes Time Warner Cable.

In the meantime, we’ve helped massage Time Warner’s FAQ and rubbed in some truth extract:

Q:  Dear Time Warner Cable Assassins of Joy: Now that you’ve stopped carrying the channels I am still paying for, where can I find the darn shows I’m missing?

A:   There are any number of places, including free over-the-air using an antenna, if you remember what that looks like, plus some places online for free.  In addition, in NYC only, CBS is available through Aereo, which is currently offering a one-month-free-trial at www.aereo.com. Just don’t think about dropping your entire cable television package once you discover Aereo works well enough for you and you don’t need us to delete $70 a month from your wallet and recreate it in ours. Pretty please.

Courtesy: Rich Greenfield, BTIG

For national network prime time shows:

• Visit www.CBS.com to see recent airings (mostly repeats except for Stephen King’s ‘Small Town Under Glass’) of their primetime shows. Thank us we are not capping your Internet usage, sticking it to you for watching unauthorized shows (the ones we don’t own) for free.
• In addition, many primetime programs are available via national online services like Amazon.com, Hulu.com, iTunes.com, or Netflix.com, some for free, some as part of a subscription fee that is almost always far less than the pillaging prices we charge.

For daytime soap operas if you still bother to watch those:  www.cbs.com for free

For local news, weather, and sports:  Remember that your other local broadcast stations remain available on the Time Warner Cable lineup, along with NY1/YNN in select markets (because you want to get your local news from a wholly owned Time Warner Cable news network — the one that often shills our own products). And some of the local CBS stations stream their local newscasts for free over the Internet. Again, worship us for not capping your broadband. Check your local station’s website for information.

For syndicated shows like Dr. Oz, Ellen, Katie, and others:  They are probably all repeats anyway and how many times do you need to be told you are living your life all wrong. It’s summer. Go outside. Be happy. If you insist, most of those shows share either full episodes or highlights via their own websites, for free.

For shows that appear on Showtime, or movies:  Showtime makes some episodes and clips available for free at Sho.com and at Hulu.com. Because nothing equals the experience of watching an entire show like a 30 second clip! Other episodes can be found at paid services like Amazon.com, Netflix.com, and on iTunes. So while you are still paying us for those premium movie channels, go and pay someone else too. And remember that, as a courtesy so we don’t actually have to refund your money, we are providing replacement programming from Starz and Encore on a temporary basis.  Showtime and TMC customers should look in your onscreen guide for the Starz and Encore channel numbers.

For shows on Smithsonian:  If you can find the channel on our 1,000 channel lineup, you are better than us. If you actually watched any shows on Smithsonian, you can get by with similar shows on Discovery, National Geographic, TLC, Animal Planet, and many others, as long as you steer well clear of Honey Boo Boo. She’s a national treasure too, we know, but not enough to be on the Smithsonian Channel.

Frequently Asked Questions Not Well-Answered

Q. Why is this happening?

A:  $$$. We collect, count and stack your money for the pleasure of our executives and shareholders and now other programmers dare to want some of it. We’re not going to let that happen unless you give us more than enough to replace what we’re giving them.

Q:  This kind of blackout seems to happen to Time Warner Cable all the time; Screw you, I’m going to switch to another provider.

A:   Screw you right back. Unfortunately, these kinds of blackouts have occurred more often over the past few years—last year, over 80 broadcast TV stations withheld their channels from all kinds of video providers, including cable, satellite, and telephone companies because they smell the cash we currently get to play patty-cake with.  It’s not just Time Warner Cable, silly—every provider is at risk for losing the right to carry these channels that are available for free over the air to an antenna. Because when this kind of money is involved, all sorts of hell breaks loose. Switching to another provider won’t prevent similar blackouts from happening to you in the future, and you could miss some of your favorite programming, like…  NY1 in New York City. (Really.) We’ve been raising your rates and making you pay for hundreds of channels you never watch for years. Remember, sometimes the evil you know is better than the evil you don’t. We’re talking to you AT&T U-verse.

Q:  It seems odd that CBS SportsNet is still available, when the main CBS channel isn’t.  Why is that?

A:  Wait.

Q:  I live in Los Angeles; with KCAL not available, how do I see the Dodgers games?

A:  Get your lazy butt in the car, go to the stadium and buy tickets.

Q:  I’m an NFL fan, and I’m going to miss my team’s pre-season games.  Where else can I see them?

A:   See above.

Time Warner Cable admitted this morning extracting more revenue from existing customers was more important than attracting new ones, and long time subscribers responded by canceling service in above average numbers.

In a conference call largely hosted by incoming CEO Robert Marcus, a number of Wall Street analysts listened to Marcus’ vision for Time Warner under his forthcoming leadership. Marcus offered competing, potentially incompatible visions in his defense of a lackluster quarter: charge existing customers higher prices for service to boost average revenue per subscriber (ARPU) while also improving the customer-company relationship.

For most of 2013, Time Warner has been aggressively moving away from heavily discounted promotional offers to attract customers. Both outgoing CEO Glenn Britt and Marcus have repeatedly stressed heavy discounting of service during the past two years is now over, and the company is looking forward to resetting prices higher when the promotions end later this year.

It is part of the company’s plan to “drive better performance in the residential business.” An unfortunate side effect is that the company continues to lose video and phone customers and its broadband service growth has been so slow, one analyst called it “anemic.” The company’s quarterly results show Time Warner added only 8,000 new broadband customers in the last three months. The company still earned $1.42 billion from broadband sales alone over the last three months, mostly because of rising broadband bills.

Courtesy: Jacobson

Offsetting that growth, TWC lost 191,000 residential video subscribers, leaving it with about 11.9 million video customers. At least 56,000 customers also pulled the plug on Time Warner Cable telephone service.

“As we discussed before, this [new pricing] approach represents a conscious decision to pursue subscribers with higher ARPU, higher profit and lower churn even if that means fewer connects,” said Marcus as he defended the results. “So it’s not a surprise that as in the first quarter of 2013, subscriber net adds were down in the second quarter on a year-over-year basis.”

As customers deal with increasing prices for cable television and broadband service and the irritation of modem rental fees, many are cutting back on their packages to keep their bill stable.

Marcus admitted customer sign ups of triple play — phone, broadband, and cable TV service — were way down in the second quarter and a lot fewer single and double-play customers were convinced to upgrade. The company’s promotional offers have come with a higher price and slower broadband service, often only 3Mbps.

In a number of markets, especially in the midwest, customers are shopping around for other providers. They are finding AT&T U-verse to be a formidable competitor.

“Throughout the quarter, U-verse was pretty aggressive with a beacon price of $79 for their triple play and $49 for their double play,” said Marcus. “I would characterize those as aggressive promotional prices, and they had an impact. I would say that the impact was more pronounced as the quarter wore on. We’ve now responded to that in the market, and I expect that our relative performance should improve there.”

But for much of the rest of the country where competition is less robust, Time Warner intends to continue to hold the line on pricing and resist discounting even if it means subscribers threaten to cancel.

Time Warner Cable has gotten itself ready for an onslaught of unhappy customers, assigning nearly 1,000 employees to staff four national customer retention centers dedicated to trying to persuade customers not to leave. But these specially trained representatives have a dual mission — keep customers with Time Warner Cable, but don’t give away the store doing so.

Stock buybacks and shareholder dividends were a major priority for Time Warner Cable’s cash on hand.

“Not only are our reps saving more customers, they are also preserving more ARPU among the customers they save,” said Marcus. “As promotional roll-offs peak in the second half of 2013, we expect that our new retention capabilities will drive better revenue growth.”

In the broadband market, Time Warner changed little in the second quarter except to raise prices on service and equipment. Marcus could only point to the addition of 3,500 new Wi-Fi hotspots, mostly in New York City, as its signature achievement over the past three months.

On the residential side, broadband revenues were up 12.5%, but most of that growth came from a combination of the modem lease fee, an increase in the number of 30/5 and 50/5Mbps customers and a successful Turbo promotion.

Results for video and voice were considerably worse. Revenues were down about 4%.

But the company managed to report its highest ARPU ever, with customers now paying an average of more than $105 a month for Time Warner service. Most of that increase came from rising broadband prices.

Time Warner Cable has also been preoccupied with spending excess cash on hand to buy back its own stock, which creates shareholder value. Time Warner expects to spend at least $2.5 billion on stock buybacks this year. Shareholders also received $829 million in dividends (113% of Time Warner’s free cash flow).

“We repurchased 6.6 million shares for $638 million, and through July, we have repurchased approximately 83 million shares at an average cost of around $78.50 per share since we began the program in November of 2010,” reported chief financial officer Arthur T. Minson.

Time Warner Cable’s Board of Directors recently approved increasing spending up to $4 billion on stock buybacks.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WRGB Albany TWC Modem Fee 7-31-13.flv[/flv]

WRGB in Albany reports Time Warner Cable customers are angry about another price hike on the company’s modem lease fee effective Aug. 18. WRGB recommends customers buy their own modems to avoid the fee. Time Warner Cable’s Glenn Britt admitted earlier the fee is really just a hidden rate increase. (3 minutes)