Time Warner Cable will increase the broadband speed for its most popular Standard service to 15/1Mbps across the country over the next 60 days.

With increased competition from Verizon’s FiOS fiber to the home network and AT&T U-verse, Time Warner is boosting Internet speeds to stay competitive with aggressive promotions on offer from phone companies throughout its service area.

Rob Marcus, chief operating officer for Time Warner, today told investors U-verse was available in about a quarter of the company’s footprint, with Verizon FiOS offering service in 12% of the areas where the cable company provides service.

“Last quarter, U-verse featured fairly aggressive double play promotions, especially in Texas and the midwest, while FiOS continued to aggressively enter new buildings in New York City,” Marcus said.

Marcus

Time Warner Cable failed to meet investor expectations for broadband growth during the third quarter, and some are questioning the company’s wisdom narrowly-targeting promotions to specific segments of its customer base. Bloomerg Industries analyst Paul Sweeney suggested the company was struggling to market the correct bundles of services to its customers.

Marcus reported Time Warner has seen the largest growth in DOCSIS 3.0 enhanced broadband so far, with 73,000 new customers signing up for the company’s 30/5Mbps Extreme tier or 50/5Mbps Ultimate tier during the last quarter. Combined with Turbo customers, this represents over 22% of all Time Warner’s residential broadband customers.

But while the company celebrated its new revenue from cable modem rental fees, the new charge has alienated a number of customers, some now shopping around for a better deal from competitors.

“In essence, this is a rate increase on [broadband] service, but the key is our customers have a choice,” Marcus said. “If customers prefer to buy their own modem from a qualified list of options, we’re all for it. After all, if the modem is on the customer’s balance sheet, that is less capital expense for us and fewer truck rolls.”

Marcus’ statement conflicts with one made earlier by Joli Plucknette-Farmen, communications manager for Time Warner Cable in western New York. She told WGRZ-TV last month the new fee was not  a “rate hike dressed up as a fee”, as some critics have suggested.

The company made no announcements about increasing the speeds of its higher-speed tiers to maintain their value in light of the forthcoming speed increase for Standard service.

Your electric company is Frontier Communications?

That scenario could come true for customers in New York, Ohio and Indiana. Frontier last week unveiled FTR Energy Services, an energy reseller planning to supply 100% green electricity in selected markets in New York and Ohio and natural gas in Indiana.

FTR Energy Services is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Crius Energy, launching service Nov. 19 with a business plan that claims there is convergence in the broadband and energy sector.

Frontier is likely to combine its marketing efforts with Crius Energy’s products — selling electric and telecommunications services together. Some expect Frontier will even extend bundling discounts to customers who sign up for both.

Third party energy suppliers were supposed to spur lower prices for consumers and businesses by encouraging innovation in the power generation industry. But significant savings, especially for residential customers, have proved elusive. Complicated pricing and contract terms have led to confusion and high customer turnover. Many customers eventually gave up shopping around and returned to the original utilities that have supplied power for generations. For today’s energy competitors, finding a marketing edge can be the key to growth when customers are skeptical and resistant to change.

Crius is hoping its green energy angle will attract environmentally-sensitive customers and Frontier hopes the bundled marketing offers it can blanket across its service area might deliver higher average revenue from customers — a key demand from Wall Street.

Most third party resellers enjoy modest wholesale pricing discounts, so any profits earned from reselling energy to customers are expected to be modest as well. But Frontier hopes the more services it can bundle for customers, the more “sticky” their products become. With bundled discounts and term contracts, it can become an expensive and complicated process to sign up with another provider. So many customers simply don’t.

Comcast has announced it is opening up free Wi-Fi access to everyone in Hurricane Sandy’s impact zone, whether Comcast customers or not.

A Comcast representative tells Broadband Reports the free Wi-Fi access is available in affected communities in Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.

• Non-XFINITY Internet customers should search for the “xfinitywifi” network name and click on the “Not a Comcast subscriber?” link at the bottom of the Sign In page.
• Then select the “Complimentary Trial Session” option from the drop down list.
• Users will be able to renew their complimentary sessions every 2 hours through Wednesday, Nov. 7.

For a map of XFINITY WiFi hotspots, which are located both indoors and outdoors in malls, shopping districts, parks, and train platforms, please visit XFINITY Wi-Fi.

(Complimentary XFINITY Wi-Fi service may not be available in Partner Wi-Fi Hotspot locations).

The Charleston Gazette

While the eastern seaboard begins to assess the damage of several feet of water invading New Jersey and New York, West Virginia continues to contend with several feet of heavy snow left by Hurricane Sandy. More than 8,400 customers and climbing have reported service outages to the state’s largest phone company — Frontier Communications, which has crews contending with storm-damaged infrastructure ranging from widespread power outages to downed trees and utility lines.

Although parts of the state anticipated heavy snows from Sandy, cities further south including Charleston were unprepared for the wallop of wet, heavy snow that was expected to remain further to the north. Sandy’s heaviest precipitation bands were on the west side of the storm — bad news as far west as central Ohio and Kentucky. While temperatures remained in the 50’s further north, the cold core of Sandy resulted in precipitation falling largely as snow in the Appalachians.

As of noon, more than 200,000 homes in the state remain without power, which also impacts Frontier Communications’ operations.

Sandy knocked out power to at least 32 of the company’s 230 central offices in West Virginia, but the company reports all but three are still running with the assistance of backup generators — some acquired after last summer’s derecho, which knocked out power at half of Frontier’s switching offices.

Frontier says it is trying to get the remaining three switches back in operation, but some remote locations remain inaccessible because of poor roads and downed trees. Tucker County is reportedly among the most difficult to reach.

West Virginia’s Panhandle region has an estimated 1,000 customers without Internet service as of yesterday, particularly in hard-hit Jefferson, Berkeley, and Morgan counties.

Although customers may find their landline phone service working, broadband service could be more intermittent because of power outages affecting remote terminals that help extend service into rural locations. Those are vulnerable to electricity interruptions which Frontier’s Dan Page reports are widespread across the state, with the exception of the Wheeling area.

Frontier won’t say how many customers in West Virginia are currently without service, but noted many will have to wait until power restoration efforts are complete. Frontier’s crews have secondary priority and will repair services after electric service crews move on.

The storm impacted Frontier customers all the way west to Indiana, where fewer than 1,000 customers were without service in the Terre Haute area.

Any customer experiencing trouble with their phone or Internet should call Frontier at 1-877-462-8188, option 2 to request repair (or 1-800-921-8101). Repair technicians are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Hurricane Sandy’s destructive forces of wind and water, combined with extensive electrical outages has wreaked havoc with telecommunications services from Maine to Virginia, leaving some customers potentially without service for weeks.

The storm has flooded Verizon‘s central switching offices in New York City, did extensive damage to Sprint’s wireless network and infrastructure, has left large sections of upstate and downstate New York without cable service, and clocks ticking for wireless cell customers using cell sites currently running on battery backup power.

Some of the worst problems are affecting Verizon’s landline and FiOS networks after the company lost two critical switching centers in Manhattan to extensive flooding. That has contributed to significant problems for Verizon customers across Manhattan, Queens, and Long Island. Further afield, Verizon customers without service can blame power outages and fallen trees that took out overhead wiring. Together, Verizon customers are experiencing significant problems with landline, broadband, and FiOS TV and Internet services in some areas.

Many Verizon Wireless cell sites are operating on battery backup units which maintain service for only a limited time. New York, New Jersey and Connecticut customers report increasing difficulty maintaining cell service signals as those battery backup units start to fail. Verizon engineering crews can restore undamaged cell sites with backup generators once permitted into storm-ravaged areas.

One of the hardest hit wireless carriers

Cablevision‘s business largely depends on areas that took a direct hit from Hurricane Sandy. Cablevision repair crews are encountering extensive power outages and damaged overhead wiring brought down during the storm in Connecticut and Long Island. Its service area closer to New York City has been primarily affected by power outages. Comcast said it was still starting an assessment process and was not prepared to report on the current state of its network, which operates in cities north and south of the New York City metro area.

While Time Warner Cable spokesman Alex Dudley reports little damage to Time Warner Cable’s systems, many remain offline from power interruptions, and Time Warner’s Twitter feed for upstate New York reports isolated outages in Portland, Maine and across upstate New York, primarily due to power losses or damage to infrastructure.

Sprint appears to be the hardest hit wireless carrier with widespread service outages, interruptions and call completion issues throughout the states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Washington DC, Maryland, North Virginia and New England. Some customers far away from the worst-hit areas report trouble making and receiving calls on Sprint’s network. Many cell sites are also damaged.

AT&T is assessing damage to its landline operations in Connecticut, where it is the dominant phone company. Many AT&T cell phone sites, like Verizon, are operating on battery backup in power outage areas until AT&T can bring generators online to maintain service.

T-Mobile and MetroPCS report damage and service outages to their cellular networks as well, mostly from power outages.

Lyndhurst, NJ

Even old style communications networks were not spared from Hurricane Sandy. The Northeast Radio Watch reports a large number of broadcasters across the region off the air as of this morning:

• Outside of WOR (710), most New York City area AM stations are off the air. WOR survived the storm with its recently built three tower site located just above the flood waters. Chief engineer Tom Ray told NERW the water is 10 feet deep at WOR’s transmitter site in the Meadowlands. Many AM stations in New York favor transmitter locations in now-ravaged Lyndhurst and the Meadowlands. The result: indefinite absence of all-news WINS (1010) (it’s now back up — thanks to an update from Scott Fybush), which is now being heard on WXRK (92.3). Also missing: WLIB (1190), WSNR (620), WMCA (570), WNYC (820), WPAT (930), WNYM (970), WADO (1280) and WWRV (1330). FM outlets favor much higher transmitter locations, usually atop large skyscrapers, that escaped flood damage.
• WABC continues to air the audio portion of its broadcast on WEPN-AM (1050) and FM (98.7) for the benefit of those without power. WCBS studios are currently powered “by candlelight.”
• The Jersey shore’s FM outlets are mostly silent. Atlantic City was among the hardest hit, and some stations may be off the air for some time while rebuilding.
• Connecticut stations are also off the air. Powerhouse WICC (600) in Bridgeport has transmitters on Long Island Sound — a poor choice to withstand Sandy. It is likely underwater. Also gone: WGCH (1490 Greenwich), WAXB (850 Ridgefield) and WSHU (1260 Westport) and WALK-FM (97.5 Patchogue).

Repair crews for all concerned will likely only start assessing damage later today, but many will have to wait for power crews to complete work — they have first priority. Those lucky enough to see service restoration once power returns will be in far better shape than others who could wait weeks to get their Internet, television and phone service back.

Correction: Original story included reference to studio power knocked out at WOR-TV. That should have said WOR-AM (radio).