NETGEAR 7550 Wi-Fi Router

Frontier has also introduced a “pay as you go” broadband plan, selling prepaid, up to 6/1Mbps DSL service (speeds not guaranteed) to customers on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis to its customers in Michigan, Ohio, and Washington without a term contract or credit check. The cost to get started is substantial, designed to discourage current broadband customers from considering a switch to a prepaid plan.

If Frontier is not offering a promotion waiving equipment and installation fees, customers must buy Frontier’s Welcome Kit ($39.99) which includes:

• NETGEAR 7550 Wi-Fi Router
• Power Cord
• Ethernet Cable
• Phone Cord
• 3 In-Line Filters
• Installation Guide

Customers who need Frontier to handle the installation or clear up any line problems will need to pay a $99.99 installation fee.

Those capable of managing the installation themselves will have to pay a $19.99 activation fee.

Three different plans are available:

• 1 day = $9.99
• 7 days = $24.99
• 30 days = $39.99

Frontier says the plans are perfect for seasonal residents, but it also penalizes those who take a break during the off-season. Once service is inactive for more than 60 days, a $34.99 reactivation fee applies to switch it back on.

Another corporate tax cut

Wall Street rallied around big telecommunications company stocks this week as news spread that Windstream has found a way to avoid paying federal income tax by converting its copper and fiber networks and other property assets into a tax-exempt trust. For expert advice on managing complex tax strategies and compliance, a good place like taxpros.online/ can offer valuable insights. Their professionals can help you navigate intricate tax issues and ensure your strategies align with current regulations, minimizing risks and optimizing your financial outcomes.

Windstream says it has already won Internal Revenue Service approval to convert all of its network assets into a publicly traded “real estate investment trust.” REIT’s pay no federal income taxes, and if other large telecom companies follow Windstream’s lead, taxpayers will have to make up the estimated $12 billion in lost tax revenue annually.

Investors are excited by the prospect of a major reduction in tax exposure for some of America’s richest telecommunications companies. Windstream was rewarded the most with a 12 percent boost in its share price – a two-year high for the largely rural phone company. But AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Cablevision also saw stock prices rising over the possibility of major increases in dividend payouts to shareholders from the proceeds of the tax savings. To navigate into the intricacies of taxes, one can put their trust on services like the Salt Lake City tax resolution.

REIT conversions are just the latest trick in the book corporations have used to cut, if not eliminate most of their tax liabilities. REITs are exempt from federal taxes as long as they distribute 90 percent of taxable earnings back to shareholders. Democrats in Congress have been busy fighting their Republican colleagues offer efforts to drop the practice of inversion — allowing companies to cut taxes by relocating offshore. Robert Williams, an independent corporate tax consultant, told Bloomberg News the Democrats have their hands full with that this year and are unlikely to be able to also devote resources to closing the REIT tax loophole.

“Management teams will surely look closely at emulating Windstream because the tax savings are potentially so significant,” said Craig Moffett, an analyst at MoffettNathanson LLC, in a note. “For a company like AT&T, where free cash flow has been under pressure and management has been willing to push hard to save on taxes, the appeal must surely be great.”

If a high-profile phone or cable company moves to enact an REIT, that might be enough to provoke Congress to act, warned Moffett.

“The biggest hurdle in this process is getting the private letter ruling from the IRS, and we’ve got that,” David Avery, a spokesman for Windstream, told Bloomberg. The deal doesn’t need the consent of the Federal Communications Commission, Avery added.

Windstream’s tax savings, which could definitely be one of the best Tax Strategies out there, will cut company debt by around $3.2 billion and produce about $115 million annually in free cash flow. Although Windstream chief financial officer Tony Thomas vaguely promised to use some of the money to invest in broadband upgrades, he was more specific about the benefits Windstream’s REIT will have on the company’s growth agenda. It can use the savings to “acquire other network assets to grow,” — business jargon meaning more merger and acquisition deals, this time fueled by Windstream’s slashed tax bill.

Wall Street investment banks paid to advise on Windstream’s REIT conversion are promoting the concept to other telecom companies as easy to replicate and profoundly profitable. But who should share in the new found wealth?

“People are asking the question if these tax benefits should be passed on to the end user — you and I when we pay our phone or cable bill — versus going to the corporation,” said Phil Owens, vice president at Green Street Advisors, a real estate research firm in Newport Beach, California, that has counseled companies like Equinix on REIT conversions.

Don’t count on it.

AT&T couldn’t have gotten a better deal for itself if it tried.

Mississippi state officials that awarded AT&T a 10-year State Master Contract, compelling the majority of state government offices to do business only with AT&T, have just given the phone company an early two-year extension without allowing for any public discussion or competitive bidding.

In 2005, when the contract with AT&T was first signed, it was unlikely most government offices, schools, and libraries would be able to find any bidder other than AT&T. The state contract spells out a series of requirements that critics contend were tailor-written with the full knowledge only AT&T could offer the full menu of required services. Nearly 10 years later, and more than a year before the contract was up for renewal, the state suddenly granted AT&T a two-year contract extension, potentially exposing taxpayers to overpriced, taxpayer-funded broadband services.

Interested members of the public who want to examine the state contract for telecommunications with AT&T have run headlong into a roadblock erected by a Hinds County judge who ruled it was off-limits for public inspection and has since been sealed under court order. To this day, only government customers of Mississippi’s Department of Information Technology Services, the agency in charge of the state government’s broadband, are allowed to see the document.

The state contract comes at a significant cost to taxpayers if Marvin Adams’ figures are correct. Adams, who works for the Columbia School District, suspects a lot of money has been frittered away because of the lack of competitive bidding. Only the state’s schools and libraries have the option of either securing a contract with AT&T or requesting bids from competitors like Ridgeland-based C-Spire, which supplies fiber and wireless connectivity.

Adams says AT&T’s contract with the state costs taxpayers $5 per Mbps. But AT&T also charges a “transport circuit charge” of between $10-45 per Mbps. Adams said his colleagues have seen competitive bids averaging $6 per Mbps and the transport circuit charge is included in that price.

The Mississippi Watchdog delivered the understatement of the year when it called AT&T’s contract with Mississippi “lucrative.” Attempts to modify the contract have met with fierce opposition in Jackson, the state capital. Senate Bill 2741, a modest measure that would have compelled school districts to seek competitive bids before signing a multi-year contract with a provider, died in committee earlier this year.

AT&T has close political ties in several southern states. The company co-authored an article with Gov. Phil Bryant and donated at least $42,500 to his various campaigns for political office. In 2012, Bryant signed a bill into law removing most of Mississippi’s remaining regulatory authority over AT&T.

Next door in Louisiana, Gov. Bobby Jindal also maintains close ties with AT&T. The company has funneled more than $250,000 to his wife’s charitable foundation – the Supriya Jindal Foundation for Louisiana’s Children, which also takes substantial contributions from oil and chemical companies, the insurance industry and defense contractors. The New York Times reported back in 2011 that telecom companies like AT&T were increasingly contributing to politically connected charities they could use in campaigns to influence legislation and regulation. Companies can write off their unlimited charitable giving while politicians take credit for the work done by the non-profit groups while also quietly understanding exactly where the money is coming from.

AT&T’s Fiber Fairy Tale

Holding your breath waiting for AT&T’s GigaPower 1Gbps U-verse upgrade to arrive in a town near you is hazardous to your health.

Despite a blizzard of press releases promoting the forthcoming arrival of gigabit Internet access from AT&T, the fine print reveals as little as one percent of some communities will actually get the upgrades.

In Winston-Salem, N.C., city officials cannot even get a firm commitment from AT&T that it will deliver the faster service to the 63 businesses the city chose as early candidates for the fiber upgrade.

In June, the city and AT&T signed an agreement for gigabit broadband expansion using AT&T’s GigaPower U-verse platform. But AT&T largely gets to decide where, when and even if it will invest in upgraded service. The city did not impose many conditions beyond a requirement that AT&T provide up to 20 free Internet connections to community sites with a one-time installation cost of $300 to $500. Another 20 connections would be provided to small to mid-size businesses, with no obligation to buy services.

In response, AT&T said it would only commit to reviewing the city’s list and “make an effort to serve the proposed locations if they are in the vicinity of where service will be available.”

If those locations fall outside of AT&T’s plans, no gigabit fiber.

A significant indicator of the true extent of AT&T’s expansion plans is whether the company is allocating capital spending commensurate with the costs of running fiber optic cable to individual homes and businesses. So far, AT&T has not. With no obligation to deliver the service AT&T is implying it will offer, the company is free to wire a handful of technology parks, businesses, and new housing developments and claim to have met its commitment, despite the fact 99 percent of area residents have no access to the faster speeds.

For the benefit of low-income residents who lack affordable Internet access, AT&T also promised it would offer some lower-speed Internet connections in a limited number of apartment complexes in low-income areas.
Here are the sites nominated by the city of Winston-Salem for AT&T gigabit broadband. AT&T’s response: ‘Maybe.’

Community sites: Aids Care Service; Boys & Girls Clubs at New Walkertown Road and Reynolds Park; Brown & Douglas Neighborhood Center; Russell Recreation Center; Liberty CDC; Community Care Center; ElBuen Pastor; Forsyth Technical Community College’s Woodruff Center; Gateway YWCA; Knollwood Baptist Church; Little Creek Neighborhood Center; Malloy/Jordan East Winston Heritage Center; MLK Jr. Center; Reynolda Branch library; S.G. Atkins CDC; SciWorks; Sedge Garden Center; Shepherd’s Center; South Fork Center; Southside Library; United Metropolitan Church; Winston Lake YMCA.

Small- to mid-size businesses: Bellomy Research; Campus Partners; Carolina Liquid Chemistries Corp.; Center for Design Innovation; CML Microcircuits (USA); Computer Credit Inc.; Computing Solutions Group Inc.; COR365 Innovation Solutions; Dairy Fresh Inc.; DataChambers LLC; Davenport Transportation Consulting; Debbie’s Staffing Service; Eastridge Technology Inc.; Exhibit Works; Flywheel; IMG College; Interact 911; KeraNetics LLC; Key Services Inc.; Kings Plaza; MissionMode; Ocular Systems; Odigia; OnceLogix LLC; Out of Our Minds Animation Studios Inc.; Page’s Sporting Goods; PhoneTree; Piedmont Propulsion; Segmented Marketing Solutions Inc.; Small Footprint Inc.; SolidSpace LLC; Special Event Services; Sunrise Technologies Inc.; The Clearing House Payment Center; Triad Semiconductor; TrueLook; Voyss Solutions; Washington Perk site at Washington Park; West 3rd Street Media; West End Mill Works.

Source: City of Winston-Salem

Comcast and Time Warner Cable want New York State regulators to believe disclosing the locations of their customer care centers, revealing the prices they are charging, and describing exactly what Comcast will do to Time Warner Cable employees and customers post-merger are all protected trade secrets that cannot be disclosed to the general public.

New York Administrative Law Judge David L. Prestemon found scant evidence to support many of the claims made by the two cable companies to keep even publicly available information confidential, despite an argument that disclosure of the “trade secrets” would cause substantial competitive injury. His ruling came in response to a detailed Freedom of Information Law request from New York’s Utility Project which, like Stop the Cap!, is having major problems attempting to find any public interest benefits for the merger of the two cable companies.

The information Comcast and Time Warner Cable want to keep off-limits is vast, including the prices the companies charge for service, their licensed franchise areas, the locations of their call centers and walk-in customer care locations, and what exactly Time Warner Cable is doing with New York taxpayer money as part of the state’s rural broadband expansion program:

“In general, the redacted trade secret information and the Exhibits identified below include, without limitation, information and details concerning (i) the current operations and future business plans of the Companies, (ii) strategic information concerning their products and services, (iii) strategic investment plans, (iv) customer and service location information, and (v) performance data. This highly sensitive information has not been publicly disclosed and is not expected to be known by others. Moreover, given the highly competitive nature of the industries in which Comcast and Time Warner Cable compete, disclosure of these trade secrets would cause substantial injury to the Companies’ competitive positions– particularly since the Companies do not possess reciprocal information about their competitors.”

That’s laughable, declares the Public Utility Law Project.

Norlander (Photo: Dan Barton)

“The ‘competition’ for TV, broadband, and phone business in New York generally boils down to a duopoly (phone company or cable ) or at best oligopoly (maybe phone and cable companies plus Dish or wireless), in which  providers are probably able to deduce who has the other customers and likely know, due to interconnection and traffic activity, what their ‘rivals’ are doing,” said Gerald Norlander, who is aggressively fighting the merger on behalf of the Public Utility Project.

Stop the Cap! wholeheartedly agrees and told regulators at the Public Service Commission’s informational meeting held last month in Buffalo that Comcast’s promised merger benefits are uniformly vague and lack specifics. Now we understand why. The public does not have a right to know what Comcast’s plans are.

“When it comes to divulging their actual performance and actual intentions regarding matters affecting the public interest, such as Internet service to schools, extension of rural broadband, service quality performance, jobs in the state, universal service, and so forth, well, that is all a ‘trade secret’ justified by nonexistent competition,” said Norlander. “Thus, the situation remains the same, there is insufficient available evidence to conclude that the putative incremental benefits of the merger outweigh its risks.”

Here is a list of what Comcast and Time Warner Cable believe is none of your business. Judge Prestemon’s rulings, announced this morning, follow. He obviously disagrees. But his decisions can be appealed by either company:

• “Details of Time Warner Cable’s current broadband deployment plans in New York. In particular, the information contains the specific details about such plans, including the franchise area, county, total miles of deployment, number of premises passed and the completion or planned completion date. Such information is kept confidential by Time Warner Cable” (ruled against Comcast/Time Warner Cable)
• “information regarding the Companies’ promotional rates for service in various locations within their respective footprints – as well as competitive intelligence concerning competitor offerings. This compilation and competitive analysis are not publicly available.” (ruled for Comcast/Time Warner Cable)
  
• “specific details of Time Warner Cable’s current build-out plans to rural areas of New York, as well as Comcast’s future business plans in this area. The information also contains anticipated financial expenditures for Time Warner Cable’s build-out plans. Such information has not been publicly disclosed.” (ruled against Comcast/Time Warner Cable)
  
• “information concerning the New York schools and libraries served by Time Warner Cable, as well as information concerning Comcast’s future business plans to serve such entities. This information is kept confidential by Time Warner Cable and has not been disclosed to the public.” (ruled against Comcast/Time Warner Cable)
  
• “information concerning the number of Comcast’s “Internet Essentials” customers in New York, as well as Comcast’s future business plans for the “Internet Essentials” program.” (ruled against Comcast/Time Warner Cable)
  
• “the Companies’ detailed customer and service quality data.” (ruled for Comcast/Time Warner Cable)
  
• “information concerning the Companies’ current operations and staffing levels in New York, as well as Comcast’s future business plans concerning post-merger operations and employee levels.” (ruled against Comcast/Time Warner Cable)
  
• “information setting forth the number of subscribers to Time Warner Cable’s “Everyday Low Price” broadband service.” (ruled for Comcast/Time Warner Cable)
  
• “Comcast’s handling of customer requests for an unlisted service, and how Comcast handles customer inquiries related to this subject matter.” (ruled for Comcast/Time Warner Cable)
  
• “Comcast’s future business plans with respect to particular subject matters.” (ruled against Comcast/Time Warner Cable)
  
• “information and performance statistics relating to the Companies’ call centers in New York and the Northeast.” (ruled for Comcast/Time Warner Cable)
  
• “information concerning Time Warner Cable’s operations as they relate to projects funded by federal or state [energy efficiency or distributed energy resource] programs.” (ruled against Comcast/Time Warner Cable)
  
• “information concerning Comcast’s operations and future business plans relating to avoidance of truck rolls and vehicle fleets.” (ruled for Comcast/Time Warner Cable)
  
• “information relating to the number of Wi-Fi hotspots that Time Warner Cable has deployed in New York, as well as Comcast’s future business plans in this area.” (ruled against Comcast/Time Warner Cable)
  
• “information concerning Comcast’s handling of cyber-security issues associated with its Xfinity Home service.” (ruled against Comcast/Time Warner Cable)
  
• “information concerning the Companies’ operations and customers in relation to cellular backhaul service.” (ruled for Comcast/Time Warner Cable)
  
• “information concerning Time Warner Cable’s projects funded by NYSERDA” (ruled against Comcast/Time Warner Cable)
  
• “projects developed in conjunction with New York State” (ruled against Comcast/Time Warner Cable)