Hurricane Florence

Comcast and Charter Communications are providing free and open access to more than 12,000 Wi-Fi hotspots in Georgia and the Carolinas as Hurricane Florence begins impacting the three states.

“In response to Hurricane Florence, we have opened up more than 5,100 Spectrum Wi-Fi hotspots in North and South Carolina. These hotspots are open to all users until further notice in coastal communities like Wilmington, N.C., and Myrtle Beach, S.C., as well as inland to the Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham, Fayetteville and Greensboro areas,” Charter said in a statement.

• Locate Spectrum Wi-Fi hotspots
• Locate Comcast Wi-Fi hotspots

To connect your device, look for the “SpectrumWiFi” network under your device’s WiFi settings in Charter service areas, “xfinitywifi” in Comcast country.

“It’s critical that impacted residents are able to communicate during challenging weather events such as Hurricane Florence,” said Doug Guthrie, regional senior vice president for Comcast.

As a result, Comcast is opening up almost 7,000 hotspots in Augusta and Savannah, Ga., and Charleston, S.C. Both cable companies are welcoming subscribers and non-subscribers alike.

Hurricane Florence, although currently downgraded to a Category 2 hurricane, remains a vast hurricane with a large wind field of hurricane force winds, and will likely pummel the region until Saturday. Combined with intense rainfall and catastrophic storm surges, devastation is likely along coastal regions of all three states. Duke Energy, which serves North and South Carolina, anticipates extended outages for at least three million customers during Hurricane Florence.

As of 5 p.m. ET Thursday, the center of Florence was 100 miles east-southeast of Wilmington, N.C. and 155 miles east of Myrtle Beach, S.C. The hurricane has slowed to just 5 mph.

Other states likely to be impacted by flooding rains, storm surge, and winds are Maryland and Virginia.

Actual landfall of Florence is not expected until at least Friday afternoon, according to Neil Jacobs at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Cable outages are often a result of power outages. If electricity goes out in an area, cable services will go as well, and remain unavailable until power is restored. If cable infrastructure is also damaged, service won’t return when electricity does and outages should be reported to the cable company. Traditional landline service is powered independent of the electric grid. Report any service outages to the telephone company.

If infrastructure is severely damaged, it could take several weeks to restore electric, phone, and cable service after a major hurricane.

Gov. Cuomo speaking at rally in support of striking Charter/Spectrum workers. (Image courtesy: IBEW Local 3)

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio joined thousands of union workers in Brooklyn and Manhattan on Monday to support the workers’ six-month impasse with Charter Communications.

“We do not accept a greedy corporation trying to undercut the most basic rights of working people,” Mayor de Blasio said in Manhattan, referring to Charter and its CEO Thomas Rutledge, the country’s highest paid executive in 2016, earning $98 million.

“We’re going to demand respect for the blood and sweat of the workforce,” Cuomo said in a speech to workers at Brooklyn’s Cadman Plaza Park, on the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge. The rally was attended by Charter strikers and several unions in solidarity with the cable company workers.

Nearly 1,800 Charter employees belonging to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (Local 3), walked out in late March after Charter sought to kill their pension plan and move them to a less generous health care plan. They have been on strike ever since, with no sign of progress towards ending the action.

“Screwing over workers and customers seems to be a hallmark of Charter Communications’ business model,” AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka said in an earlier statement. “Charter has disrespected workers in New York who remain on strike fighting for the freedom to negotiate together to maintain their pensions and health benefits. They also continue to disregard their customers’ needs by hiking rates while providing sub par service. This is not the way to run a company, and we support all the working people standing up to these corporate bullies.”

“Charter is offering Local 3 a generous compensation package that includes an average 22-percent wage increase — some employees up to a 55-percent wage increase — and comprehensive retirement and health benefits, including a 401(k) that provides a dollar-for-dollar match up to 6 percent of eligible pay,” counters Charter spokesman John Bonomo.

Spectrum customers in Manhattan, parts of Brooklyn, and Queens are decidedly caught in the middle, enduring more than 130 outages — some taking out service for hours, as a result of alleged repeated vandalism the company suspects is caused by striking workers. But the union notes Charter’s replacement workers are often unqualified, some taking hours to manage repairs that would “take us 10 minutes.” When Charter doesn’t have enough workers on hand to manage a repair, they call in third-party contractors. Some of them were on hand to deal with fiber optic cable cuts that took out Spectrum service for tens of thousands of customers, often in Queens and Brooklyn.

A June outage lasted almost an entire day after contractors took more than 16 hours trying to splice a cut fiber cable. Police sources blamed the striking workers.

“We would never condone that,” on-strike Spectrum technician Ray Reyes told WCBS. “We would never do that.”

A Charter employee picketing a Spectrum store.

Before the strike, Charter claims there have been only five fiber-related service outages in the last few years. Since the strike began, the company claims it has experienced 137 outages it attributed primarily to vandals. Some customers and small business owners are losing whatever sympathy they had for the striking workers.

Restaurant manager Samantha Phe has to turn away customers using credit cards every time her Spectrum internet service goes down and she is tired of being in the middle of a labor dispute.

“I think that’s a little unfair to the community,” Phe told the TV station. “Say if your company isn’t doing well for you, you’re trying to punish someone else who didn’t do anything to you.”

Many reporters in New York are barely hiding their disdain for the union and strikers, presumably because they have been affected by repeated outages as well. WCBS political reporter Marcia Kramer avoided talking to union workers in a recent report, but shouted questions to the mayor about what he feels about cable outages. She also talked to small business owners upset about the service outages.

Business owner Anthony Velez was emblematic of the level of frustration being experienced by Spectrum customers enduring repeated outages:

Velez owns Bagriculture, which was unable to conduct business when the service went out. He was also unable to access his security system, and he is furious that Cuomo and de Blasio are supporting the workers and ignoring his plight.

“I don’t think that shows the right ethics that we would look for in our mayor, or a governor,” he said.

He said politicians treat business owners as “little invisible people.”

“I don’t think there’s a lot of people who care about small business owners,” Velez said.

But not all reporters are siding with Charter.

In response to a statement from Charter blaming an outage in mid-September on “the latest round of criminal destruction of our network,” Select/All reporter Jake Swearingen asked, “Why do they always attack the aging internet infrastructure that’s been systematically underfunded for years in order to line shareholders’ pockets!”

WCBS-TV political reporter Marcia Kramer took some heat over her alleged pro-Charter positions in this story about the rally. (1:36)

A second fiber cut in two weeks left 30,000 Queens residents with no cable service for hours. (Image: CBS New York)

A second major cable outage in two weeks left 30,000 Queens customers of Charter Communications without phone, TV and internet service Tuesday, after vandals severed the company’s fiber optic cables.

A Long Island man was arrested Wednesday night at his Long Island home for allegedly causing the first outage, which wiped out service in the same area for almost 16 hours on June 26.

The NYPD issued a press release stating Michael Tolve (48) of Wantagh, N.Y. was charged with criminal mischief and is alleged to have cut fiber cables and removed a digital memory card from a nearby surveillance camera to avoid being detected. He was later identified from other surveillance camera footage.

Charter Communications claims Tolve is a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union 3, one of the unions that has been involved in a strike against Charter for several months. He worked as a fiber technician for both Charter Communications and its predecessor Time Warner Cable for 14 years. The cable company puts the damage estimate for the first cable cut in June at $67,000. Charter claims it has experienced 106 malicious cable cuts in its New York-area network since unionized cable technicians went on strike on March 28. The company has filed police reports on all of them.

“It’s disappointing that one of our employees would unlawfully sabotage the infrastructure we all work so hard to maintain and inconvenience our customers in this way,” Charter spokesman John Bonomo said in an email. “We intend to support the prosecution of these crimes to the fullest extent of the law, as they put our customers’ well-being in jeopardy, cause local businesses to suffer, and are a general inconvenience for all.”

Both fiber cuts strategically affected the largest possible number of customers with the least amount of effort. Charter officials said they detected the fiber cuts and dispatched repair crews immediately, but restoring service was “a gradual process” that took several hours.

Update (7/17): The Queens district attorney’s office has declined to press charges against Tolve, and all charges against him have been dropped pending an additional investigation.

The Oscars viewing party in Shreveport nearly never happened late last month when Comcast dropped the ball and left a “Technical Difficulties” message on subscribers’ screens for several hours. An enterprising technician at a local TV station saved the day when he found old-fashioned rabbit ears and a digital tuner in the back of his truck and was able to get the local ABC affiliate’s over-the-air signal on the big screens at the Robinson Film Center.

The technical foul-up was just the latest embarrassment for Comcast, not only because the outage impacted subscribers across a 75-mile radius, but also because Shreveport has a thriving partnership with the film industry. It also may be the breaking point for city officials tired of hearing complaints Comcast refuses to fix themselves.

Comcast blamed the latest widespread outage on a power problem.

“Comcast experienced a commercial power outage Sunday night,” said Frances Smith, a representative from Comcast’s government and regulatory affairs. “We are investigating and indications are that a resulting power surge damaged the switch that transfers the headend operation to a generator. We restored the majority of service within two hours and deeply regret the inconvenience to our customers.”

No refunds or service credits for customers are planned, unless those affected specifically ask for them within 30 days of the outage.

Comcast’s 15-year franchise with the city of Shreveport expired at the end of 2012 and the company is not making any friends on the Shreveport City Council as renewal discussions plod on while complaints from subscribers continue to pour in.

Most of the problems with Comcast service in Louisiana’s third largest city relate to the length of service outages, unresponsive customer service, and the quality of cable TV reception.

Webb

Comcast officials promised upgrades six years ago to address reliability issues, but city councilman Ron Webb says he hasn’t seen them and Comcast never delivered.

“We’re not trying to run them out of town,” Webb told KTRE-TV. “I want them to provide a good service. I have everything that I own bundled with them, and I’m paying dearly for it. But I’m happy to have the service. But I just want to see those improvements. I have the same problems.”

City officials are expecting Comcast officials to appear before the city council this evening to explain themselves and report on what plans they have to fix ongoing service complaints.

As it stands, Comcast continues to operate in Shreveport on a month-to-month basis until either a new franchise agreement is signed or another cable company responds to the city’s invitations to apply for a franchise. To date, no cable company has been willing to challenge Comcast’s presence in the city. In fact, Dale Sibley, the city’s chief administrative officer told the Shreveport Times no company even responded to their requests.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KTBS Shreveport Comcast Contract Expires 9-19-12.flv[/flv]

Comcast’s problems have been ongoing in Shreveport for years. Last September, KTBS hinted that the city was considering replacing Comcast with a different cable operator. But as other cities have already learned, no major cable operator is willing to challenge another. (Sept. 19, 2012) (3 minutes)

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The night of the Academy Awards was a low-key affair in Shreveport after Comcast went out of service across the city for at least two hours, leading to questions from city officials. KTBS in Shreveport rescued at least some viewers attending a downtown reception when a station technician hooked up an antenna and picked up the station’s broadcast signal. (3 minutes)

[flv width=”440″ height=”276″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KMSS Shreveport Comcast issues statement about cable outage 2-25-13.flv[/flv]

At least 24 hours after Comcast’s February outage, some subscribers were still without cable service, despite claims from the cable company the outage only lasted two hours. KMSS in Shreveport reports.  (1 minute)

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KSLA in Shreveport says Comcast’s ongoing service problems are being heard by members of the city council. Now some say the company never followed through on service improvements promised six years earlier.  (2 minutes)

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The Shreveport Times talks about tonight’s city council meeting which is scheduled to discuss Comcast’s service problems, the company’s franchise renewal, and obstacles that prevent another provider from taking over and delivering better service.  (3 minutes)

Two Cablevision customers in Nassau and Suffolk counties are the lead complainants in a $250 million class action lawsuit filed Tuesday in New York State Supreme Court alleging the cable operator is illegitimately charging customers for service knocked out by Hurricane Sandy.

The suit claims that unlike other cable and phone companies in New York and New Jersey extending automatic service outage credits to impacted customers, Cablevision is only giving credits to customers who self-report outages within 30 days.

Cablevision was the hardest hit cable operator in the region, with its coastal service areas on Long Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey receiving the brunt of storm surges and wind-related damage. At least half of the company’s three million customers were without service after the storm hit Oct. 29. Nearly 80,000 customers are still without power and utilities are signaling some may wait until after Christmas before lights are back on. Some of the most devastated areas are not scheduled for restoration at all because those properties will have to be abandoned or rebuilt.

The plaintiffs claim Cablevision, “only agreed to rebate some of its most favored customers on a discretionary basis and in varying amounts, and only after the customers’ contacted Cablevision for the rebate.” The suit also alleges customers threatening to cancel service are getting the most generous rebates.

The suit suggests Cablevision should have known not to bill or accept money from customers that remain without service. Many Cablevision customers are on the company’s electronic billing and autopay programs, which will continue to deduct money from bank accounts for services customers cannot actually receive.

“The lawsuit misstates the facts and is without merit,” Cablevision said in a statement. “But lawsuits aside, we have an extremely broad and customer friendly credit policy following Sandy. Blanket or arbitrary credits for cable outages could shortchange customers because each case is different and our policy covers the entire period of time when Cablevision service was out, including when the service interruption was caused by the loss of electrical power.”

Cablevision says the amount of damage to its facilities is so extensive, it could impact the next quarter’s financial results. Company officials also admit some of their customers will not be coming back because their homes and businesses no longer exist.