In areas where limited competition between broadband providers has broken out, consumers are discovering their local providers advertising faster, higher priced tiers of Internet service.  But do you really get the speeds you are paying for?

There are a number of factors that can impact your speed — the quality of the lines to your home, whether you are accessing the Internet through a wireless connection, and how much congestion your provider copes with during peak usage times.  Here are some tips to consider:

If your speeds are simply awful — nearing dial-up at times —  especially when the weather is poor outside, you should first suspect a problem with your connection.  Call your provider and request a line test to determine if there is an obvious fault with the lines running to your home or business.  The usual culprits are cracked cable fittings, worn out insulation, water getting into the wiring, or squirrels that have used your phone or cable line as a toothpick.  If the line test is not definitive, request a service call to check your lines.  Phone cables are especially prone to water damage, often inside terminal boxes located well off your property.  Cable TV lines suffer from corrosion, insulation that has fallen away or cracked, or fittings that need replacement.  If critters have chewed through the outer cable, you will often also see the results on your television with a downright lousy picture.  The biggest problems always seem to appear in the spring and fall during major climate transitions.

If you notice speeds are much slower during the early evening and weekends and you are on a cable connection, your cable company has probably oversold service in your neighborhood and too many users are trying to share the line at the same time.  Cable companies can divide up the traffic by splitting the neighborhood’s connection back to the cable company in half.  The upgrade is usually done at a box or facility somewhere in the neighborhood, not at your home.  If this prime time slowdown occurs on a DSL or fiber connection, chances are the provider doesn’t have a wide enough pipeline to the Internet to accommodate customer demand in that town or city.

Also remember that DSL connections from the phone company are sensitive to the distance between your home and the phone company’s central office.  Don’t pay for higher speed tiers of service if your phone line simply refuses to support those speeds.  Downgrade your service to a speed level you can realistically expect to receive in your home.

If you access the Internet over a wireless connection from a router, a major speed logjam can occur if your Wi-Fi signal faces interference from neighbors sharing the same wireless channel.  Sometimes just running a microwave oven can obliterate certain wireless connections or significantly slow them down.  If your signal strength meter shows poor or fair reception, try reorienting your wireless router.  The higher you can place the router and keep it free of obstructions the better.  Walls, floors, and even metal filing cabinets can degrade wireless signals.  Many wireless routers have two antennas.  Try orienting one antenna vertically and the other horizontally and see if it makes a difference.  Sometimes moving a router across the room can make a significant difference.  You can also try changing wireless channels if you routinely see a large number of neighbors’ Wi-Fi connections all piling on the same channel you use.

The best way to gauge what kind of Internet speeds you are getting is to perform a free speed test at different times of the day.  Your service provider may have its own test website to visit (try Googling the name of your provider, your nearest city and “speed test” in a one sentence search).  Broadband Reports has several different speed tests to try as well.

If you are not getting what you are paying for, be sure to complain and get some money back.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KNXV Phoenix Qwest and Cox may charge your for faster Internet speed, but is your broadband really that fast 8-24-10.flv[/flv]

KNXV-TV in Phoenix explains how to make sure you are getting the Internet speeds you are paying for with some free speed test websites.  (2 minutes)

Residents of McBee, S.C., have been without cable and Internet service since last November, when rural cable provider Pine Tree Cablevision closed its doors and turned the services off in scores of small communities in New Hampshire and South Carolina.  For residents of Lamar, another South Carolina community served by Pine Tree, it wasn’t much of a service to lose.  Pine Tree’s “broadband” in Lamar was limited to 50kbps, with the entire community’s Internet delivered on a single AT&T-provided T-1 line.

But even the loss of a company like Pine Tree was immediately felt by area residents and businesses, now without cable TV and Internet service.  In Lamar, December 10, 2009 will remain a day of infamy:

“I was in the middle of submitting reports to SLED (the State Law Enforcement Division) when [Pine Tree pulled the plug and the cable and broadband system] went down,” Police Chief Charles Woodle told SC Now. Woodle now goes home twice a day to check his work e-mails.

The town’s water office closed December 21st because the town clerk could not upgrade the software needed to process water bills.

In Elloree, residents and local officials found out about Pine Tree’s financial problems when channels started dropping off the cable system, followed by the complete loss of service.  In December, customers mailing payments to Pine Tree had them returned by the post office undelivered.

Elloree Town Clerk Chasity Canaday told The Times and Democrat Pine Tree’s ultimate demise was a travesty.

“It shows a remarkable lack of professionalism to cut services from customers without any prior notice,” Canaday said. “For the majority of our residents, their notice that the cable service was terminated came when their televisions quit working.”

Despite claims from Pine Tree officials that new owners would take over the business they left behind, Canaday says that just isn’t true.

“It has been very, very difficult to get somebody else,” she said. “There is not a large enough customer base to entice a new company to come in. Most people have already switched to satellite.”

The newspaper noted after contacting 20 other municipalities, Canaday said most rural towns have no local cable provider and instead rely on satellite service.

Throughout rural South Carolina, tiny cable companies serving just a few hundred subscribers have come and many more have gone.

The town of Cameron lost Almega Cable about three years ago.  Other communities have said goodbye to operators like Brookridge Cable, SRW Inc., South Carolina Cable Television, Pine State Management Co., and Mid Carolina Cable.

In most cases, satellite television’s ability to deliver hundreds of digital signals it an easy choice over cable systems delivering only 2-3 dozen channels.  Because of a lack of investment to expand rural cable lineups, customer erosion has left many systems financially untenable.  One Texas cable system had just a dozen paying customers left when they called it quits.

That’s why the community of McBee is creating a lot of buzz in rural South Carolina.  They reportedly have Time Warner Cable, the nation’s second largest cable operator, in discussions to take over where Pine Tree left off, restoring cable and broadband service for a community of just 700 people.

But that service may come with a significant price — an indefinite franchise agreement that could eventually threaten the area’s local, customer-owned telephone cooperative.

Town Attorney Tony Floyd says Time Warner Cable in eager to expand into rural areas.  But the question is, will McBee concede too much just to attract a cable company?

“This is a long term contract,” he told SC Now. “If you grant a franchise, Time Warner will be able to keep competition out.”

Newly re-elected councilman Shilon Green is the biggest proponent for the deal.  He will propose an ordinance granting a franchise to the cable company at a town hall meeting to be held tomorrow.  He says Time Warner will bring better cable and broadband service to the area and introduce competition for phone service with their “digital phone” product.

But some other council members are concerned about Time Warner Cable’s impact on the area’s local, customer-owned phone company, Sandhill Telephone Cooperative.

Councilmen A.C. “Kemp” McLeod said he’s afraid the cable company could bully the co-op out of business.

“I know Sandhill is expanding their service into the TV business, and they’ve been very good serving rural communities,” McLeod told the newspaper. “I’d like to check with them first.”

“If [Time Warner] wants to come in [and] lowball this area, they can do it, then run our small business out of business,” McLeod said. “A big company can make it look good, make it look appealing, then once they have the market and run the small guy out, then they can raise the rates. At Sandhill, we have representation.”

Rural communities are often bypassed by cable providers because they lack enough closely spaced customers to make the infrastructure costs worthwhile.  Where smaller communities do cluster most of their population inside the town limits, cable systems have been built.  Many are independently owned and operated by small providers because larger companies have shown no interest in serving areas with just a few hundred potential customers.

That has left town leaders with the prospect of offering generous incentives to attract cable operators.  In addition to franchise agreements that never expire, some communities offer significant tax breaks and other concessions to encourage cable operators to bring service to area residents.  Despite complaints from big city residents that Time Warner is hardly benevolent, its brand and reputation do mean a lot in rural areas burned by Pine Tree’s sudden demise last year.

Green hopes the cable giant will bring a level of cable service not seen before in towns like McBee.

“A little competition is good,” Green said.

Marilyn Castro decided she did not need her landline phone any longer.  The Virginia Beach resident learned her provider would be happy to oblige her request to disconnect service, but she is still required to pay her phone bill, even without the service, for at least the next 25 years.

Woodland Park, Virginia resident Allan Pineda got a similar story when he wanted out of Cox Cable’s landline service.  Yes, Cox will schedule a visit to disconnect service at his convenience, but he’ll still have to pay his cable bill, including landline charges, every month.

Frederic Martin, who lives at a Mid-America Apartment Communities-owned complex in Dallas, learned he was on the hook for cable-TV service, even though he has not owned a television set for more than a decade.

In Weston, Florida, some 15,000 homeowners pay for cable television whether they want it or not and if they don’t pay, their homes are at risk from foreclosure.

It’s all thanks to the concept of “bulk billing,” a practice growing in popularity that delivers mandatory cable, phone, and broadband service to renters and homeowners whether they want the services or not.  It’s a multi-million dollar racket, and thanks to the Federal Communications Commission, it may be coming to your community or apartment complex soon.

For almost five years, mandating cable service has become a growing problem in many parts of the country, especially in Florida and Virginia.  Most of the controversy comes when large housing management and homeowner associations, builders, and corporately-owned apartment complexes cut “discount deals” with a cable company to wire a community or complex for service.  Their mission is not always altruistic.  Many builders receive generous signing bonuses and ongoing kickbacks earned from condemning residents to mandatory cable service contracts that may not expire in their lifetime.

Some apartment complexes have added charges for cable-TV service to the rent. Many earn ongoing compensation from grateful cable companies who pay 3-5 percent of revenue back to the complex.  Even homeowner associations have gotten into the act, adding cable-TV costs to required association dues for upkeep and maintenance.  For those who can’t or won’t pay, liens and even foreclosure can soon follow.

LM Sandler of Virginia Beach, a Virginia builder, is a typical player.

Sandler has built entire neighborhoods of new homes across Virginia, most of which are covered by a “bulk billing” contract with Cox.  When residents buy or rent a Sandler-built property, a triple-play package of phone, cable, and Internet service comes along with the deal.  It’s not cheap, running $146 a month.  Even worse, your grandchildren could still be paying Cox Cable if they stayed in the family home, because Sandler’s contract with Cox runs up to 75 years.

Although residents are not required to take service from Cox, they are required to pay for it, in full, every month.

It gets worse for residents in Florida.  Most contracts with cable operators include provisions that can terminate service for entire communities if even a single homeowner is 60 days past due.  To keep that from happening, homeowner associations aggressively pursue slow-paying residents.  JMB Partners, who built much the residential housing in Weston, and the governing bodies in Weston committed residents to an agreement that has enormous implications if they miss a payment:

Between Jan. 1 and Dec. 17, 2004, the Town Foundation, Weston’s homeowner association, filed liens against more than 200 homes in the city. Most of these, according to Broward County court records, are for unpaid cable TV bills, which until 2003 were collected by the foundation. The city utilities department now handles that task.

One of the upset residents is Vincent Andreano, whose mother, Lita Andreano, was faced with the predicament of losing her Weston Country Club Home for a $109 cable bill that he said had been left outstanding by the previous owner.  The Andreanos said that when closing on the home about a year and a half ago, they came upon the outstanding debt and sent a check.

”No one ever contacted me or my mother afterwards to tell us they had not gotten the check or that the debt was still outstanding,” said Andreano, an attorney. “Then a year and a half later, they slap my mother with a foreclosure lawsuit. It’s legal brutality.”

Andreano said he tried to reason with Town Foundation attorney Douglas Gonzales, whose signature appears in the lawsuit paperwork, to no avail. He said he was told to pay the debt, plus legal fees billed at a little more than $200 per hour, in addition to court filing fees and other miscellaneous charges. The final tab: more than $1,500.

In the Tampa area, mandatory cable service bills for some neighborhoods and planned communities have increased by an eye-popping 44 percent because of the foreclosure crisis.  That’s because of mandatory payment clauses many have with providers like Bright House that demand full payment even when homes are unoccupied.  When a resident’s home is in foreclosure or a resident refuses to pay, all of the remaining area residents pick up the tab for unpaid cable bills.  This wreaks havoc with homeowner association budgets, who must find the money to pay the cable company, in full, every month.  Many have slashed security, road maintenance, refuse collection, landscaping, and other quality-of-life expenses just to keep the cable company happy.

Back in 2008, when Florida first began a downward housing spiral, the impact was already being felt:

The Chapel Pines subdivision in Wesley Chapel found itself stuck in a cable contract that requires $15,000 a month payment to Bright House, and is seeing the strain of foreclosed homes no longer paying their fees. That payment represents nearly half their total association budget.

The South Fork 1 development in Riverview has a 15-year contract with Bright House that requires a $9,700 a month payment, roughly one-third of the neighborhood’s total budget.

“We still have to foot the bill whether people live in those homes or not,” said Fred Perez, the former president of the South Fork association. “You end up with a big, bad debt line item on the budget.”

With the problem worsening, that homeowner’s association even contemplated bankrupting itself just to free it from obligations to Bright House.

Other communities are levying “special assessments” on homeowners to cover cable bills in high foreclosure areas:

To cement a good deal, the community, South Bay Lakes in Gibsonton, years ago signed a bulk contract with Bright House Networks to provide cable TV in the neighborhood, in exchange for a regular fixed payment.

That arrangement worked out fine when the neighborhoods filled up and residents paid their association fees – and the association turned over the cable TV payments to Bright House. The problem occurs when neighbors go into foreclosure and stop paying their fees.

The South Bay Lakes homeowners association still must pay about $140,000 a year to Bright House, even though there’s less money coming in from homeowners.

Because about numerous homes in the 300-home development are in foreclosure, South Bay Lakes had to issue “special assessments” on residents.

Fees rose from $150 a quarter to $216, and that probably won’t cover the shortfall, according to association officials. The Bright House bill represents almost half of the association’s annual budget of $261,000.

To make matters tougher, the community is locked into that deal with Bright House until 2019, with cable rates that rise “from time to time” according to the contract.

Earlier this year, Stop the Cap! covered the story of residents in Tennessee and Texas who discovered the corporate owners of their apartment complexes were making cable-TV mandatory and adding the resulting charges to lease agreements.

Defenders of these bulk billing arrangements claim they deliver savings residential customers could not obtain on their own and ensure that complexes and planned living communities are fully wired for service.  Besides, they claim, there is no obligation to use the services provided and customers can obtain service from another provider.

But they still face paying for service they don’t use.  In some communities, it is service many don’t want to use.

John Carter, who lives in Weston, told the FCC as a senior on a fixed income he cannot afford to pay a second cable bill, even though his existing service is terrible.

“I am stuck with poor programming options, outages during stormy weather, slow Internet speeds of 15kbps and poor customer service,” he wrote the agency.

In other instances, sweetheart deals fuel incentives for builders to sign lucrative contracts with providers even before a homeowner’s association is formed.  In some cases, the provider turns out to be a family member or associate of the developer.  In many others, perpetual kickbacks through “royalties” and fees are paid to the builder or complex owner as long as the agreement remains in place, even long after the builder is no longer on scene.

For impacted residents like Castro stuck with landline service she didn’t want, it was time to fight back.  She launched Ban Bulk Billing, an online forum for those who oppose mandated cable-TV service. Castro asked consumers to join her in protesting the fees with the FCC.  But it’s hard to keep a movement going when giant corporate providers and other special interests have the resources to shout down consumers.

In March, the FCC collected its thoughts and submissions from property owners, apartment complex management companies, cable and phone companies, and consumers and rendered its decision — which threw consumers under the bus:

We conclude that the benefits of bulk billing outweigh its harms. A key consideration for us is that bulk billing, unlike building exclusivity, does not hinder significantly the entry into an MDU by a second MVPD and does not prevent consumers from choosing the new entrant. Indeed, many commenters indicate that second MVPD providers wire MDUs for video service even in the presence of bulk billing arrangements and that many consumers choose to subscribe to those second video services. We find it especially significant that Verizon, which more than any other commenter in the earlier proceedings argued that building exclusivity clauses deterred competition and other proconsumer effects, makes no claim in its filings herein that bulk billing hinders significantly or, as a practical matter, prevents it from introducing its service into MDUs. Bulk billing, accordingly, does not have nearly the harmful entry-barring or -hindering effect on consumers that exists in the case of building exclusivity.

In other words, because Verizon didn’t have a problem with these bulk billing arrangements, they’re fine by the FCC.  Verizon wants into this arrangement themselves, so it’s hardly a surprise they are not objecting.  The significance of Verizon’s change in position is hardly a mystery — the earlier barriers the FCC wrote about were designed to keep Verizon out of apartment complexes and condos.

The incentives for providers earned from these bulk billing contracts are enormous:

• The cost of collections and billing are passed on to local government, homeowner associations, rental companies, or other agents.  The risk of non-payment by a homeowner’s association or city government is nearly non-existent;
• Marketing expenses and customer promotions can be slashed because customers already have the service when they move in;
• Competition is diminished, especially from capital-intensive wired competitors.  Would you contemplate wiring a community for competitive service knowing existing residents are held captive by mandatory cable contracts?;
• Innovation expenses can be curtailed because the customer is already captive to the existing level of service;
• Rate increases are built-in, allowing companies to raise rates and still keep all of their existing customers.

Residents of Staples Mills Townhomes in Richmond, Virginia understand this only too well.  When the new corporate owner, PRG Real Estate moved in a few years ago, they brought Comcast with them, mandating every resident pay for basic cable service as part of their rent.

PRG’s website highlights Staples Mills as an example of “an institutional equity partnership:” (underlining ours)

The PRG model for improvement is two-pronged — pay close attention to the details of management with a well thought out capital improvement plan. Imbedding [sic] PRG’s professional management structure would mean the implementation of aggressive PRG policies and procedures, taking virtually all contract services in-house to save the profit margin being captured by contractors. The upgrade to PRG-trained site personnel would particularly enhance the marketing effort. Although the property was 97% occupied we anticipated that, after the capital improvements, the same occupancy rate would be maintained with significantly higher rents.

[…]It was crucial that we succeed, not only in terms of return to our investor, but in terms of building our relationships and profile with other institutional investors. We needed to hit this one out of the ballpark.

Residents called a foul ball, one writing, “Residents were slapped in the face with the news that they will be forced to pay for mandatory cable (an extra $34 per month on the rent) from Comcast regardless if they don’t want it, already have satellite, or don’t even have a TV under the guise of ‘lowering cable rates.’ It’s called subsidizing the people who want it by juicing those who don’t.”

PRG may have succeeded in making their investors happy, but they alienated a number of tenants in the process, most of whom assumed Comcast was their only choice and wouldn’t contemplate paying another cable bill from a competitor.

The FCC’s decision recognized that competitors could enter a bulk-billed service area, but ignored the reality most won’t.

Indeed, the FCC itself recognized the impact of these bulk-billing arrangements on the competitive landscape in their own decision, quoting from a submission:

One bulk billing cable operator states that fewer than 5% of an MDU’s residents subscribe to another video provider. It estimates that if it lost its bulk billing contract, it would raise its prices substantially for the remaining 95% because of higher programming and labor costs per customer. The combined savings for 5% of the MDU’s residents would be dwarfed by the increased expenses for the 95%, making the MDU’s residents significantly worse off than they were before as a whole.

This proves two points:

1. The FCC still cowers in fear from threats issued by providers that any attempt to rein them in will do everything from raising prices to killing jobs and innovation, despite the fact only five percent of customers in the cited case took service from a competitor.  A five percent loss of customers would create conditions for a “substantial” rate hike only in their minds.  AT&T U-verse has captured far more than 5 percent of cable customers in markets where it competes with cable, yet somehow cable manages to keep the lights on and their doors open;
2. The FCC pretends that these agreements don’t impact the marketplace when the 95 percent “take rate” for service plainly indicates otherwise.  Do 95 percent of residents in non-bulk-billed neighborhoods also take cable service?  Of course not.

Despite the FCC’s industry-friendly ruling, many impacted consumers are not giving up.

Martin, the Dallas renter paying for cable-TV even though he doesn’t own a television, is taking the fight to state Attorneys General, hoping a group effort on the state level will dislodge at least some consumers from being forced to pay for something they don’t want or need.

Martin believes it’s manifestly unfair to deliver mandated “discounted service” to some on the backs of others who don’t want a cable bill at all.

“No one should have the right to force you to buy what you don’t want from someone you don’t like,” Martin says.

He points out under Mid-America’s terms, even blind and deaf residents are forced for pay for cable service.

The only thing cheaper than a discounted cable bill is no cable bill at all.  Now that represents real savings.

Martin’s vociferous objections and intervention from his Texas state representative eventually managed to get him off the hook with Mid-America’s mandatory cable bill.  His rent was lowered by an amount equal to the monthly cable fee, but the cable company is still getting paid on his behalf.

For Martin, that’s just plain wrong.

“I am still subsidizing an industry of which I do not wholeheartedly approve,” he writes.

Martin is now coordinator for Tenants United for Fairness and has launched an online petition demanding an end to mandatory cable-TV charges.

He has gathered more than 100 signatures from 13 states so far, and the petition is open for everyone to sign, even if they are not currently impacted.

Martin says getting signatures has proved challenging in some cases.

“It has been very hard to get tenants to sign my petition because they’re in fear of the landlords,” Martin says. “Very few of those who have signed have gone further and contacted their elected officials or the FCC to complain.”

The impact of the March decision by the FCC has given providers a green light to expand mandatory service even further.  Some communities are now finding mandatory broadband service fees being added to cable-TV charges.

The FCC’s response?  “Consumers complaining about these latest new fees are sent an unsigned form letter from the FCC advising them to “talk to your landlord,'” says Martin.

[flv width=”432″ height=”260″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WVEC Virginia Beach Residents fight mandatory bundle agreement 3-16-10.mp4[/flv]

WVEC-TV in Virginia Beach covered the plight of residents struggling to understand why they should be forced to pay $146 a month to Cox for cable, broadband, and landline phone service.  (3/10/2010 — 4 minutes)

New York City officials are sick and tired of taking complaints about missed cable appointments and other service problems on its 311 city help line.  Nearly 1,200 calls about cable have been made so far this year alone, with fed up New Yorkers annoyed they took a day off work to wait for a cable technician that never arrived, or one who never solved the problem they were called to fix.

Now city officials are forcing the area’s two incumbent cable operators — Time Warner Cable and Cablevision, to pay for their mistakes.

As part of franchise renewal negotiations, both cable companies have agreed to credit subscribers the full amount of that month’s cable bill if the cable guy arrives late, or not at all.

The penalty decreases to $25 after 2012, when Verizon FiOS service is expected to blanket most of the city.

But consumer reforms extend beyond financial penalties for missed appointments.

Customers will soon be able to request notification by e-mail, phone or text message when a technician is heading to their home.  And calls to either cable company should be answered by a real person no more than 30 seconds after dialing.

Many of these reforms are already a part of the franchise agreement New York City’s Office of Information Technology & Telecommunications worked out with Verizon, allowing the phone company to provide cable television in the city.

Time Warner Cable spokesman Alex Dudley didn’t miss the opportunity to turn the challenging new requirements into an opportunity.  He told area reporters Time Warner welcomes the new customer service standards and appreciates the opportunity to compete for customers in the metropolitan New York area.

As Robert Porto, 38, a Time Warner Cable customer in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, told the New York Times, the new contract will be “the ultimate revenge for the little guy.”

Importantly, none of these consumer-focused reforms would have been possible had New York adopted the kind of “reform” companies like AT&T and Verizon have advocated in other states — statewide video franchising.

New York’s legislature has rejected previous attempts to eliminate local cable and video franchise agreements, citing the loss of control by local municipalities to deal with provider issues that would sail over the heads of a statewide committee in Albany.  New York has been generally hostile to Big Telecom’s deregulation agenda.  One state assemblyman, Richard Brodsky (D-Westchester), even introduced a bill requiring phone companies like Verizon to split the proceeds of asset sales with ratepayers.

Other provisions of the franchise agreements include:

• The right to terminate franchise agreements with Time Warner Cable and Cablevision Systems if broadband-delivered video significantly erodes cable TV revenue over the next 10 years;
• Time Warner Cable and Cablevision are required to invest about $10 million to install Wi-Fi access in 32 public parks in all five boroughs, to be operated and maintained by the companies until 2020;
• At least five new Public, Educational and Government (PEG) community access channels will be added, up from the four that currently exist, by 2012.  At least one must be in HD.  The operators also agree to pay a combined total of more than $9 million, payable in annual installments, plus an additional $2 million of “in-kind” services to pay for equipment and operation expenses;
• More than $20 million to help finance the upgrade of CityNet, the city government-dedicated network;
• Time Warner Cable will establish four community broadband access centers per year (40 total), in collaboration with nonprofits, over life of franchise;
• Time Warner Cable will install 20 miles of fiber per year in underserved commercial/industrial areas over franchise term; and will build-out Brooklyn Navy Yard. Cablevision already serves the commercial blocks in its service areas. Companies will commit to expend $1.8 million per year to bring fiber to commercial buildings of city’s choice.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WABC New York New Yorkers could get money if cable guy stands them up 9-15-10.mp4[/flv]

WABC-TV covers the introduction of pro-consumer cable service reforms for metropolitan New York residents.  (2 minutes)

Comcast wants you to know your bill for cable television is going to keep going up and up and up, even as the company spends more of your money on political lobbying and rebranding efforts.  As a result, more of you are pulling the plug on Comcast cable television subscriptions.

Speaking Sept. 15 at the Bank America Merrill Lynch media conference in Newport Beach, Calif., Comcast CFO Michael Angelakis warned that programming costs are continuing to increase, and the cable company is going to pass those increases on to its customers through rate hikes.

Angelakis admitted these costs represent one of Comcast’s toughest challenges, because the cable programming industry has become increasingly consolidated.  If Comcast won’t play ball over fees charged by a single network, a dozen or more other channels owned by that programmer could be withheld from the cable company.

The cable programming industry increasingly relies on “Three Musketeer”-package deals that renew carriage agreements for popular cable networks only if other co-owned channels come along for the ride.  Want USA, SyFy, and Bravo from NBC-Universal?  Then you better make room for the rest of their extended family like Sleuth, Chiller, and qubo.

Most years, these cable networks increase their wholesale prices, which shows up eventually on your Comcast bill in the form of a rate hike.

Subscribers have clamored for a-la-carte opportunities to pick and choose only channels actually watched, but that’s a scary proposition to companies like Comcast, who could see revenues plunge from a “pick your own channels” plan.  Instead, Angelakis told investors he’d rather pay less for networks that simply don’t attract many viewers.

“If programmers aren’t performing, we’d like to see rates go down,” he said.

The impact of those price increases is now more apparent than ever for the nation’s largest cable operator as subscribers reach a virtual ceiling in the price they’re willing to pay for cable television.

Comcast management reported adding 165,000 new customers after the digital television transition in the first half of 2009.  Many of those customers signed up for service with one year promotional deals that are now expiring, exposing customers to Comcast’s usual retail prices.  As a result, so far this year, 169,000 customers looking for basic cable service have canceled.

The cable industry is trying to reduce the revenue impact of subscriber losses by increasing prices for the customers that remain.  Comcast is no different, and Angelakis told investors the company’s financial performance can still be strong with increased average revenue per subscriber and cost-cutting.

One expense Comcast is not cutting: political lobbying.

In the second quarter of 2010 alone, Comcast spent $3.82 million dollars on lobbying activities — a 16 percent increase from the amount it spent at the same time last year, according to the U.S. House of Representatives clerk’s office.  Comcast made campaign contributions to elected officials, paid an army of lobbyists to promote its proposed Comcast-NBC merger, and made payments to fund front groups, astroturf projects, and say “thanks” to non-profit groups engaging in “dollar-a-holler” advocacy for the company’s political agenda.

Comcast also lobbied to stop broadband reforms like Net Neutrality, advocated roadblocks for potential competitors, added its two cents on how the government promotes broadband expansion, and sought to inhibit shareholder rights to influence executive pay.

Comcast’s biggest innovation this year is — changing its name.  The march towards rebranding the company’s cable TV, broadband, and phone products continues, with 63 percent of its cable systems now flying the Xfinity flag.  Comcast hopes customers will take a second look at Comcast’s product lineup once they see the new name.  Kevin Upton, a senior lecturer in marketing at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management says companies can use rebranding to suggest the introduction of new products and services.

Starting Monday, Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., customers will find the Xfinity name plastered all over the place, and Upton noted Comcast’s rebranding effort worked on him.

When Upton got a flyer about Xfinity recently, he thought it would offer faster Internet service than Comcast.

“It called attention to itself, and it got me to pay attention to the stuff I’m already overpaying for anyway.”

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CNBC Inside Comcasts Quarter 7-28-10.flv[/flv]

CNBC covered Comcast’s second quarter financial results back on July 28th in this report.  (3 minutes)