A fiber upgrade offering 17 million homes in the United Kingdom broadband speeds up to 200Mbps is proving controversial in parts of York because a local councillor is concerned the project will wreak havoc with the area’s daffodils.

“Having seen the disruptive and shoddy way these works have been carried out in the rest of York, I will not let that situation arise in this ward unchallenged,” said Osbaldwick and Derwent councillor Mark Warters (Ind.). “Given that Osbaldwick is currently covered in daffodils, most of which I planted with the local scouts over the years, as well as many other parts of the ward, I most certainly want to know which areas of verge are to be destroyed and what reinstatement/compensation plans are in place for local communities.”

Warters also questioned the need for Virgin Media’s $4.4 billion national cable broadband upgrade, especially since BT has already improved its DSL service in England.

“Assuming this is a competing system, what then is to stop ‘XYZ super, super fast broadband’ coming along and digging up the streets in a few years time for yet another competing system?” he asked. “The whole issue seems to be getting out of control with utility companies.”

Warters has long objected to telecommunications competition.

Warters (Ind.)

“I can well remember the disruption caused across the city in the 1990s when the cable TV systems were installed, which very few people needed due to [satellite provider] Sky TV,” Warters told The Press.

Some constituents were unimpressed with Warters’ Luddite views.

“That’s right Mr. Warters, keep your peasants in the dark ages,” responded one local. “After all there are plenty carrier pigeons around aren’t there.”

Some portrayed the issue as generational, noting York’s industrial base is rapidly being replaced with an information age economy that requires high quality broadband to compete.

“This is so typical of the attitudes that drag York down,” wrote Dillan York. “The days when northern blokes who were thick of arm and thicker of head could scrape a living from hitting lumps of metal with big hammers have gone. Shame there is an aging population who lives in hope that such ‘good times’ will return.”

But some residents acknowledge the project, which requires considerable underground digging, has made a mess of roads and sidewalks in other areas and utility company restoration efforts are lacking.

“It makes absolutely no difference which utility company digs up the road or pavement,” wrote another York resident. “They all leave them in a mess.”

Oman has declared an all-out war on the digital divide, with the country’s broadband provider pledging every citizen will have broadband access within four years, using any means necessary.

With around 50% of the population living in Muscat, the capital of the Arabian Gulf nation, Oman has a pervasive rural broadband problem. The country is hurrying to rid itself of aging copper wire phone infrastructure, replacing it largely with fiber optics, which will reach 80% of the population by 2020. The absolute monarchy that rules Oman has made it clear it considers broadband service an essential utility, as important as electricity and clean water.

Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said, who has led the nation since 1970, decreed Oman must gradually create a knowledge-based economy, particularly as dependence on fossil fuel revenue is expected to diminish during the 21st century. Sultan Qaboos has presided over the Vision 2020 plan, which seeks to cultivate Oman’s information and communication technology economy.

To accomplish this, every inch of the sultinate must have access to fast broadband speeds.

Talib Al Rashadi, business relations manager at Oman Broadband, made it clear he intends to bring Internet access through fiber optics, wireless service, and even satellite to the remotest sections of the country.

“The speed that we used to have one year ago was not more than 20 or 25Mbps,” said Al Rashidi. “Today, we have speeds of 100 to 150Mbps and even gigabit speeds. This is a very high speed, which enables some other applications, such as smart cities, smart governance and others.”

But that is just the beginning. By 2018, all major population centers of other governorates outside of Muscat will be covered with fiber to the home service. Oman is widely expected to pass the United States and Canada in broadband performance and coverage within the next four years. But it will need to do something about the cost of service to be recognized as a true world leader. An unlimited 60Mbps broadband line costs the equivalent of $156 a month. Although many Omanis’ enjoy a high standard of living, broadband at that price remains expensive.

Frontier Communications customers lucky enough to live in an upgraded or recently acquired service area may soon be getting Frontier Vantage, a new suite of enhanced products including a multichannel TV package, faster broadband, and phone service.

Frontier Vantage started life in Frontier’s fiber to the home market trial in Durham, N.C., and is set to accompany, not replace, the Frontier FiOS and U-verse brands, starting in a wide rollout in Connecticut. Much like the XFINITY brand today co-exists with Comcast, Frontier intends its new Vantage brand to signify a premium experience. It is part of Frontier’s larger plan to introduce IPTV service in more than 40 of its larger markets across the country over the next four years, with an even larger presence in former Verizon service areas in Texas, Florida, and California.

In all, Frontier expects to offer the enhanced service to more than eight million of its customers after upgrades are finished.

Frontier’s biggest challenge will be getting Vantage service to customers in its legacy service areas, where its reliance on ADSL and its slow broadband speeds are often inadequate for a shared broadband and IPTV platform. In upgraded service areas, other challenges are appearing, including firm rejections of Vantage in multi-dwelling units where complex owners have signed multi-year exclusivity contracts with cable operators.

“As far as Durham goes, some of the initial learnings are that we were locked out in many cases of securing long-term contracts with some of the apartments and condominium owners in the market because we didn’t have a video product other than a mini head-end that was using satellite, which was not the preferred solution,” said Frontier CEO Dan McCarthy in February. “In the first several weeks of introducing the product, we’ve already secured new contracts that would be substantial units right out of the gate. Our door-to-door sales process has been very successful so far, but we’re in the early days — it’s only been really about a month or so.”

McKenney

Much of the door knocking is taking place in Connecticut, where Vantage started replacing the older Frontier TV/U-verse platform on set-top boxes starting last Monday. Former AT&T customers have transitioned through three brand changes. Originally served by AT&T U-verse, Frontier’s acquisition of AT&T’s wireline facilities in the state introduced customers to Frontier U-verse/FrontierTV. As of this week, it is now VantageTV.

The new firmware introduces a Netflix “on-demand channel” (Ch. 800 in Connecticut) where subscribers can access Netflix content without having to use separate hardware like Chromecast or Roku. This is the first of several “apps” that Frontier will offer, allowing customers to reach Facebook, Twitter, home shopping, weather, and games over their set-top box.

Frontier also plans a ‘start-over’ feature that allows viewers to start at the beginning of a show already in progress, an enhanced on-screen program guide and easier access to a list of upcoming shows. A video-on-demand library will also be on offer, and Frontier claims it will include over 100,000 movies and TV shows.

Customers will also get a whole-home DVR that can record four shows at once on a 1TB hard drive. A limited number of markets will also be offered 4k video service.

Accompanying the TV package will be phone service and Internet access at speeds starting as 12Mbps up to 1,000Mbps, depending on the market and available infrastructure.

“This is the perfect time for Frontier to launch our premier products,” said Cecilia K. McKenney, executive vice president and chief customer officer and head of corporate marketing at Frontier. “‘Vantage’ conveys the ultimate customer experience and represents products and services that deliver value, solutions, and choice.”

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Frontier What is Vantage TV 3-24-16.mp4[/flv]

Frontier introduces Vantage TV to customers in Connecticut formerly served by AT&T U-verse. This introductory video shows Frontier’s new set-top box firmware includes direct support for Netflix. (2:16)

Mediacom, perennially rated America’s dead-last cable company by Consumer Reports’ annual subscriber surveys, will invest $1 billion over the next three years to combat increasing competition from AT&T and other telephone companies by improving its broadband service.

The chief goal of the upgrades is to introduce gigabit broadband speeds for nearly all of Mediacom’s three million customers across 22 states. The initiative, dubbed Project Gigabit, will require Mediacom to push fiber closer to customers and businesses and will depend largely on DOCSIS 3.1 technology.

Mediacom is already providing gigabit service in several communities in Missouri, including Jefferson City, where it sells 1,000/50Mbps service for $149.99 per month, with discounts available to customers bundling it with other services. Mediacom has placed a data cap on its gigabit tier of 6TB a month, with an overlimit fee of $10 per 50GB. The Missouri systems bond 32 downstream channels using DOCSIS 3.0 technology, and customers report speed test results averaging 980/60Mbps. In other areas, many Mediacom systems will be upgraded to DOCSIS 3.1 service as part of the gigabit rollout.

“From the time we acquired our first cable system in March 1996, Mediacom’s focus has always been to offer the smaller communities we serve the same communications and video services that are available in America’s largest cities,” said Mediacom’s founder and CEO, Rocco B. Commisso. “Project Gigabit will allow us to go even further by giving our customers access to one of the fastest broadband networks in the world.”

In addition to speed upgrades, Mediacom also plans:

• Expansion of Mediacom Business’s high-capacity network inside downtown areas and commercial districts to create more “lit buildings” within the company’s footprint and bring tens of thousands of new business customers on-net with immediate access to fiber-based communications services;
• Extension of Mediacom’s deep-fiber residential video, Internet and phone network to pass at least an additional 50,000 homes;
• Deployment of community Wi-Fi access points throughout high-traffic commercial and public areas across Mediacom’s national footprint.

Consumer Reports subscriber survey results for Mediacom

Customers hope the service improvements might finally lift Mediacom out of last place in consumer satisfaction scores, a rating it has maintained for several years.

Mediacom caps its Internet service and penalizes customers with a $10 per 50GB overlimit fee.

Syracuse residents will be the first in upstate New York to benefit from Time Warner Cable’s Maxx upgrade program, which has been gradually moving across the cable company’s footprint.

This month customers will receive communications from TWC outlining its transition to a 100%-digital network. Moving to an all-digital lineup frees up bandwidth to make faster Internet speeds possible. Each analog channel takes the space of three to four HD channels and up to 12 digital networks.

The upgrade means customers using older analog-only televisions will need set-top boxes (or similar equipment) after Time Warner drops analog television service starting in April. The company plans to introduce Maxx service this year to all TWC customers in Syracuse and its suburbs, along with the following central and northern New York service areas: Auburn, Boonville, Burlington, Champlain, Clayton, Cortland, Dixon, Fulton, Gouverneur, Hamilton, Herkimer, Ilion, Indian River, Ithaca, Lake Placid, Lowville, Madison, Malone, Massena, Meridian, Ogdensburg, Old Forge, Oneida, Oswego, Potsdam, Rome, Saranac Lake, Utica, Watertown and West Carthage.

Broadband speeds will increase starting later this spring, with customers experiencing increases up to six times faster, depending on their current level of Internet service. For example, customers who subscribe to Standard, formerly up to 15Mbps, will receive up to 50Mbps; customers who subscribe to Extreme, formerly up to 30Mbps, will receive up to 200Mbps; and customers who subscribe to Ultimate, formerly up to 50Mbps, will receive up to 300Mbps, with no change in their monthly plan price.

Some customers will need to switch out their modems to receive the faster speeds and they will be communicated with via mail, email and phone messages with information on how to get a new modem.

Further south, in Wilmington, N.C., some customers are already finding they have faster Internet speeds, if they happen to live in a neighborhood that is a part of the now completed first phase of the Maxx rollout. Customers throughout the rest of the Wilmington and surrounding areas will see their speeds increase by the end of summer 2016.

“Our customers have asked for faster Internet speeds and we’re now able to provide these faster speeds at no additional cost to all of our customers in the Wilmington area,” said Darrel Hegar, regional vice president of operations for Time Warner Cable. “This is just the beginning of the benefits customers will see from our TWC Maxx initiative that will enhance our Internet, video and reliability.”

In the Wilmington area, Time Warner Cable has rolled out more than 1,500 TWC Wi-Fi Hotspots located both in popular outdoor areas and in indoor small business locations throughout the area, like restaurants, cafes, salons and shopping malls, with more hotspots to be added through 2016. In upstate New York, Time Warner primarily offers Wi-Fi access through Business Class Internet customers that volunteer to host hotspots. In New York, Time Warner has focused most of its owned and operated hotspot buildout downstate, particularly in Manhattan.