Don't bother.

Cox’s ambitious plans to get into the cell phone business were already tempered by the cable company’s decision last spring to simply resell Sprint service under the Cox name.  Now it’s “game over” as the company today quietly stopped signing up new customers and will pull the plug on existing ones March 30, 2012.

Those customers already signed up for Cox’s “unbelievably fair” cell service will officially become Sprint customers next April.

In a confidential memo obtained by Engadget, Cox executives ultimately decided it didn’t make sense for the company to invest in a limited range 3G cellular network.

Cox’s plans to utilize the 700MHz wireless spectrum it acquired in 2008 for 3G-powered wireless service began to go wrong almost from inception.  The wireless business is increasingly in the hands of two super-sized companies, thanks to ongoing mergers and acquisitions.  That leaves smaller, regional companies at a competitive disadvantage unless they heavily discount service.  While Cox was contemplating its first 3G network, AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint were well on the way to launching next generation 4G service that would have left Cox behind.

Cox itself is a regularly-rumored takeover target, likely by Time Warner Cable.  No cable industry buyer has much interest in a cell phone service.  Shedding it could make the company more attractive for would-be suitors.

Engadget reader Sal Petrarca observed:

“I always thought it ironic when I [heard Cox’s radio ad asking customers] ‘You wouldn’t order cable from the phone company, would you?’ I guess no one is going to be ordering [cell] phones from the cable company now, eh?”

Days after the citizens of Longmont, Col. turned their backs on an expensive lobbying and astroturf campaigned fueled (not by choice) by Comcast ratepayers, the so-called “community activists” opposed to the community using its own fiber network as it sees fit evaporated into dust, but not before one celebrating citizen took out a giant ad in the local Times-Call newspaper:

As Christopher Mitchell from Community Broadband Networks discovered, “citizen activism” has an expiration date when the industry money stops flowing:

If there had been a shred of local legitimacy among the “Look Before We Leap” group that was run by Denver-based strategists, it probably would have kept its website up for longer than a few days after the election. If I were them, I would want to keep a record for the future.

But they don’t. Because they were just a bunch of paid public relations people working a job. They didn’t oppose Longmont’s initiative, they didn’t know anything about it. They were collecting a paycheck.

And when the money ran out, the days of their website were numbered in the single digits.  The only thing left of lookbeforeweleap.org is a cached copy courtesy of Google.  (And by the way, Squarespace, the hosting company, wants the site owner to contact them.)

Americans for Prosperty's Phil Kerpen on Glenn Beck's show opposing Net Neutrality

Comcast’s propaganda campaign fooled no one.  Borrowing from the cable industry’s bag of old tricks, Look Before We Leap conflated Longmont’s fiber optic network with a few failed Wi-Fi projects run years earlier in concert with Earthlink in other states.

The editors at Times-Call had to respect Comcast and its merry band of dollar-a-holler followers for at least being bold.  After all, they tried to convince voters “that the city having control over its own property was somehow ‘risky.‘”  But of course the cable company would prefer Longmont stay out of the comfortable duopoly it has with phone company CenturyLink.

The newspaper had little time and patience for the antics of “Americans for Prosperity” either.  The hilariously misnamed group funded by large corporations to convince people to vote against their own best interests considers Net Neutrality and community broadband self-empowerment evidence of Marxism — at least that is what policy director Phil Kerpen said on Glenn Beck’s now defunct paranoia festival on Fox News Channel.

Longmont doesn’t put out the welcome mat for corporate influence peddlers.  Voters believe local government can be an effective steward of community resources, something Comcast subscribers don’t believe applies to a cable company that shovels hundreds of channels most people never watch and expects annual rate increases to help pay for them.

Times-Call’s Tony Kindelspire:

Ask a local businessperson how Longmont having its own electric utility is working out for them. We have some of the cheapest rates in the country.

It takes leadership to stand up against big business lobbyists to act on behalf of what you think is right, not what’s going to raise you the most amount of campaign cash the next time around. How very, very refreshing it was to see, and I hope it’s a lesson that spreads far and wide.

So do we.

Cable and satellite companies are the worst offenders when it comes to forcing customers to wait around for scheduled service calls, wasting time and money.

Who hasn’t taken time off from work for the cable installer or a repair crew, who inevitably arrive just minutes before the end of the six hour “window” the company provided.

Making people sit at home for service calls wastes money — a lot of it.  A new study from TOA Technologies found Americans hang out at home an average of 4.3 hours waiting for the cable guy to arrive, much longer than most people think they should have to wait.  TOA added up the cost of lost wages and reduced productivity that results when employees are absent — $37.7 billion annually.  That works out to an average of two eight-hour working days off a year per person, costing $250 a year.

More infuriating: you find yourself indisposed when the cable crew finally shows up and you can’t reach the door in time before they leave, or the promised visit never materializes.  That results in the dreaded “sorry we missed you” sticker attached to your front door and a rescheduled service call, often a week later.

When your cable company is also your Internet Service Provider, it can be double trouble.  ISP service calls were the second worst, phone companies fourth.

The cable industry’s lousy reputation among consumers is not lost on them. More than a decade ago, the industry voluntarily offered $20 service credits for late or missed service calls to improve their image. But TOA found the longer companies keep customers waiting, the more likely it is they will consider taking their business elsewhere.

With the advent of telephone company competition, customers infuriated by Comcast or Time Warner Cable may decide to switch to Verizon FiOS or AT&T U-verse, or vice-versa.  Now the cable industry is back with new ways to placate customers and save everyone time and money.  Shortened service call windows and self-install kits are increasingly common ways customers can avoid a day home from work.

Time Warner Cable is one of the cable industry’s most-improved players, reducing waiting windows, calling customers to give them a heads-up when they are on the way, and offering weekend and evening service calls. In upstate New York, Time Warner customers can, in certain circumstances, be given an estimated time of arrival accurate to within 10 minutes.

The 10-minute “Tech on the 10s” program only works on the first scheduled service call of the day.  If the cable repairman starts his shift at 9am, the only guaranteed time slot will be from 9-9:10am.  Because different technicians start their shifts throughout the day, the company promises that several hundred slots are available each week.  If the technician blows it and still arrives late, the customer gets $20 for their troubles.

The company hopes shortening wait windows will give customers fewer reasons to use that time to shop around for a different service provider.

[flv width=”480″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WSYR Syracuse How much does it cost you to wait 11-13-11.mp4[/flv]

WSYR in Syracuse takes a look at the impact of waiting for the cable repair man to show up and what Time Warner Cable is doing about it.  (2 minutes)

Genachowski

The cable industry is expanding so-called “lifeline Internet service” to more households in an effort to combat what a government agency calls “a persistent digital divide.”

Next spring, Time Warner Cable, Cox, and Charter Communications will launch low-speed Internet service for $9.95 a month for two years.  The offers will echo Comcast’s Internet Essentials, which launched earlier this year as part of a deal with the government to win approval of the cable company’s merger with NBC-Universal.

The Federal Communications Commission calls the effort “Connect to Compete,” and suggests the public-private initiative will help rural Americans and low-income minorities get affordable Internet access. A study by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration found just 55% of black households and 57% of Hispanics currently subscribe to broadband.  More than 72% of Caucasian households and more than 81% of Asian homes use broadband by comparison.  The rural southern states of Mississippi (52%), Arkansas (52%) and Alabama (56%) have the lowest broadband penetration rates in the country.  In contrast, more than 80% of Utah residents have broadband in their homes.

“In this difficult economy, we need everyone to be working together on solutions,” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said. “Broadband is a key to economic and educational opportunity and these kinds of commitments to close the digital divide are powerful.”

But not every poverty-stricken American will qualify for the discount programs.

Cable operators are following Comcast’s lead, restricting access to families with at least one school age child enrolled in the free school lunch program.  Customers must not have existing broadband service during the last 90 days and customers with past due balances cannot sign up.  Don’t have children or fell behind on your cable bill?  No discount Internet for you.

Pilot programs will be launched by each operator in around a dozen cities total starting next spring, with plans to roll programs out nationally by the start of the 2012 school year.  Broadband speeds, usage limits, and other fees were not disclosed.  Comcast’s Internet Essentials operates at 1.5Mbps with upload speeds up to 384kbps.

Comcast’s program sells a netbook computer loaded with Windows 7 Starter Edition for around $150.  The $250 computers expected to be provided by Microsoft will include Windows 7 Home Premium operating system and Microsoft Office.  An additional vendor will sell refurbished computers to interested program participants for around $150.

The program will primarily reach urban residents who cannot afford current Internet service plans that are sold for $40-45 a month.  Rural residents are unlikely to benefit much because most cable operators do not deliver service in rural areas.

CenturyLink announced its own version of discounted DSL Internet in October to sell for $9.95 a month, but with numerous “gotcha” fees and surcharges.

One group unlikely to take advantage of the program: older householders, particularly those ages 65 and older, where just 45% have broadband at home.  The biggest reason the rest don’t?  They don’t believe they need the Internet at any cost.

This dollar-a-holler astroturf effort failed to impress Longmont voters, who turned back a Comcast-funded opposition campaign to open up the city's fiber network.

Longmont, Col. residents turned their backs on a Comcast-funded campaign to block the opening of the city’s 17-mile fiber loop to competing broadband providers in a strong vote of approval.

As of early this morning, 60.8% of voters approved Ballot Question 2A.  Just 39.2% opposed the measure.

Longmont’s fiber network, built in 1997 and paid for by the Platte River Power Authority, has heretofore been off-limits to the public.  Colorado’s 2005 corporate welfare laws guarantee that taxpayer or ratepayer-funded broadband networks are kept away from the public that paid for them, for the protection of companies like Comcast and CenturyLink.

This results in the construction of showcase institutional fiber optic networks open to government, public safety, hospitals, and libraries… and practically nobody else.  Once built, institutional networks often go underutilized.  In Longmont, at least two-thirds of the city’s fiber optic network still goes unused 15 years after it was built.

The city government hoped to open the fiber network in time to bolster their application to Google to construct a gigabit network for residential and business customers, but after Google selected Kansas City for its fiber project, Longmont wants to keep its options open.  Passing the ballot question does exactly that.

“I’m glad to see 2A won,” Mayor Bryan Baum told the Times-Call. “I think it shows that money isn’t the determinator.”

Longmont voters were subjected to one of the most expensive pushback campaigns they’ve ever seen, thanks to Comcast, who spent $300,000 and counting to get the public to turn against the fiber network ballot question.

George Merritt, a spokesman for the cable-funded group Look Before We Leap, claims the vote results show “the measure’s narrow margin of victory.”  Merritt’s group relied heavily on a highly-suspect 2006 case study by University of Denver professor Ron Rizzuto that claimed 80 percent of community-owned Wi-Fi broadband networks failed to make money.  But the group didn’t make any distinction between Wi-Fi and fiber optics, and more importantly they left out the fact Rizzuto was inducted into the Cable TV Pioneers in 2004 for service to the cable industry.  Rizutto’s “study” was a classic case of dollar-a-holler research on behalf of the New Millennium Research Council, a creature of the telecommunications industry.

New Millennium Research Council -> Issue Dynamics -> Comcast

In fact, the Council is a “project” of Issue Dynamics, Inc., a for-profit, high powered Washington lobbying firm. Issue Dynamics’ client list includes Verizon, Comcast, AT&T and the United States Telecom Association – the trade association for the telecom industry.  The direct relationship between Rizzuto’s findings, and cable companies like Comcast who paid for the research, never made it into the report (or onto the group’s website).

This is the second time Longmont voters have cast ballots on the issue of the city’s fiber optic network.

In 2009, voters faced another cable industry-funded astroturf effort, with $245,000 spent to successfully defeat a similar measure.  This time, thanks in part to public exposure of the companies pulling the strings behind the astroturf campaign, voters rejected the propaganda onslaught and passed the measure.  Cable bills have also increased several times since the 2009 measure, a reminder to the public why competition can make a real difference.

With the passage of 2A, the city can choose to leave the network exactly as it is today or partner with another provider to offer services to the public.  It’s now their choice, not Comcast’s.