Britt

Former Time Warner Cable CEO just picked up another $4,125,900 selling another 30,000 shares of the Time Warner Cable stock he accumulated before his retirement.

Britt’s lucrative compensation and retirement package regularly provided Britt with extra shares of company stock he is now selling off as the company contemplates its future as part of Comcast.

Despite the sale on Feb. 26, Britt still owns shares of the company valued at about $24,417,351. Britt sold 30,000 shares of company stock just two weeks ago for $4.3 million.

At the same time Britt is selling his shares, Time Warner Cable has announced rate increases amounting to an average of 6.4 percent on television and broadband service.

A new $2.25 monthly Broadcast TV Fee will also begin appearing on television customer bills this month. Time Warner Cable blamed the rate hike on increased costs.

The largest drops in Netflix streaming speeds are coming from ISPs that may be stalling necessary upgrades at the cost of their paying customers’ online experience.

Netflix performance for Verizon customers is deteriorating because Verizon may be delaying bandwidth upgrades until it receives compensation for handling the growing amount of traffic coming from the online video provider.

Verizon customers have increasingly complained about Netflix slowdowns during prime-time, especially in the northeast, and Netflix’s latest statistics confirm FiOS customers have seen average performance drop by as much as 14% in the last month alone.

Verizon told Stop the Cap! a few weeks ago the company was not interfering with Netflix traffic or degrading its performance, but there is growing evidence that may not be the whole story. The Wall Street Journal reports Netflix and at least one bandwidth provider suspect phone and cable companies are purposely stalling on upgrading connections to handle traffic growth from Netflix until they are compensated for carrying its video traffic.

The dispute involves the plumbing behind parts of the Internet that are invisible to consumers. As more people stream movies and television, that infrastructure is getting strained, intensifying the debate over who should pay for upgrades needed to satisfy America’s online-video habit.

Netflix wants broadband companies to hook up to its new video-distribution network without paying them fees for carrying its traffic. But the biggest U.S. providers—Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and AT&T Inc. —have resisted, insisting on compensation.

The bottleneck has made Netflix unwatchable for Jen Zellinger, an information-technology manager from Carney, Md., who signed up for the service last month. She couldn’t play an episode of “Breaking Bad” without it stopping, she said, even after her family upgraded their FiOS Internet service to a faster, more expensive package. “We tried a couple other shows, and it didn’t seem to make any difference,” she said. Mrs. Zellinger said she plans to drop her Netflix service soon if the picture doesn’t improve, though she will likely hold on to her upgraded FiOS subscription.

She and her husband thought about watching “House of Cards,” but she said they probably will skip it. “We’d be interested in getting to that if we could actually pull up the show,” she said.

Netflix relies on third-party traffic distributors to deliver much of its streamed programming to customers around the country. Cogent Communications Group is a Netflix favorite. Cogent maintains two-way connections with many Internet Service Providers. When incoming and outgoing traffic are generally balanced, providers don’t complain. But when Cogent started delivering far more traffic to Verizon customers than what it receives from them, Verizon sought compensation for the disparity.

“When one party’s getting all the benefit and the other’s carrying all the cost, issues will arise,” Craig Silliman, Verizon’s head of public policy and government affairs told the newspaper. The imbalance is primarily coming from the growth of online video, and as higher definition video grows more popular, traffic imbalances can grow dramatically worse.

A spat last summer between Cogent and some ISPs is nearly identical to the current slowdown. Ars Technica reported the traditional warning signs providers used to start upgrades are increasingly being ignored:

“Typically what happened is when the connections reached about 50 percent utilization, the two parties agreed to upgrade them and they would be upgraded in a timely manner,” Cogent CEO Dave Schaeffer told Ars. “Over the past year or so, as we have continued to pick up Netflix traffic, Verizon has continuously slowed down the rate of upgrading those connections, allowing the interconnections to become totally saturated and therefore degrading the quality of throughput.”

Schaeffer said this is true of all the big players to varying degrees, naming Comcast, Time Warner, CenturyLink, and AT&T. Out of those, he said that “AT&T is the best behaved of the bunch.”

Letting ports fill up can be a negotiating tactic. Verizon and Cogent each have to spend about $10,000 for equipment when a port is added, Schaeffer said—pocket change for companies of this size. But instead of the companies sharing equal costs, Verizon wants Cogent to pay because more traffic is flowing from Cogent to Verizon than vice versa.

Cablevision, which participates in Netflix’s Open Connect program, experiences no significant speed degradation during prime time. The same cannot be said of Time Warner Cable, which refuses to take part.

Netflix offered a solution to help Internet Service Providers manage its video traffic. Netflix’s Open Connect offers free peering at common Internet exchanges as well as free storage appliances that ISPs can connect directly to their network to distribute video to customers. Free is always good, and Netflix claims many ISPs around the world have already taken them up on the offer, slashing their transit costs along the way.

A few major North American ISPs have also agreed to take part in Open Connect, including Frontier Communications, Clearwire, Telus, Bell, Cablevision and Google Fiber. Open Connect participating ISPs also got an initial bonus for participating they could offer customers – exclusive access to SuperHD streaming.

But most Americans would not get super high-resolution streaming because the largest ISP’s refused to participate, seeking direct compensation from content providers to carry traffic across their digital pipes instead.

On Sep. 26, 2013 Netflix decided to offer SuperHD streaming to all customers, regardless of their ISP. As a result, one major ISP told the newspaper Netflix traffic from Cogent at least quadrupled. ISPs taking Netflix up on Open Connect saw almost no degradation from the increased traffic, but not so for Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner Cable, and Comcast customers.

Net Neutrality advocates fear the country’s largest phone and cable companies are making an end-run around the concept of an Open Internet. Providers can honestly guarantee not to interfere with certain web traffic, but also refuse to keep up with needed upgrades to accommodate it unless they receive payment. The slowdowns and unsatisfactory performance are the same in the end for those caught in the middle – paying customers.

“Customers are already paying for it,” said industry observer Benoît Felten. “You sell a service to the end-user which is you can access the Internet. You make a huge margin on that. Why should they get extra revenue for something that’s already being paid for?”

Some of the web’s biggest players including Microsoft, Google and Facebook may have already capitulated — agreeing to pay major providers for direct connections that guarantee a smoother browsing experience. Netflix has, thus far, held out against paying ISPs to properly manage the video content their subscribers want to watch but in some cases no longer can.

(Image: Crooks and Liars)

The mother of all cable mergers between Comcast and Time Warner Cable will bring tens of millions in executive bonuses and golden parachutes, massive job losses at Time Warner, a lucrative stock buyback that will help Comcast shareholders, and a higher cable bill and usage cap for you.

Back in 2008 when Stop the Cap! started we offered this tip for rational living: When a cable company promises you it has a great deal that will save you money, grab your wallet and run. Just as the sun rises in the east, cable bills never really go down, they just keep going up.

Comcast at least admits that fact of life when discussing the “benefits” of a merger with Time Warner Cable.

“We’re certainly not promising that customer bills are going to go down or even that they’re going to increase less rapidly,” David L. Cohen, a Comcast executive vice president, said in a conference call with reporters.

Heaven forbid.

Bigger has never been better for the cable industry. As waves of consolidation reduce the number of significant cable operators from dozens to fewer than 10, cable subscribers have contributed mightily to finance the merger deals. What used to be a big basic cable bill of $20 a month will soon exceed $75, and rising. The industry has always tied itself to the value proposition that a month of cable television costs no more than a cup of coffee. In 1990, it was Maxwell House. Today it’s closer to a Starbucks Grande Latte once taxes, fees, and surcharges are included.

(Image: Mike Keefe)

The New York Times reports cable prices have grown at more than twice the rate of inflation over the last 17 years. But Comcast likes to say you are getting a lot more bang for your cable buck.

“Where we might have had 100 standard-definition channels in a package more than a decade ago, today you have 250 standard-definition channels plus 100 channels in high-definition,” Cohen told the Times. “The level of service being provided is night and day.”

According to Cohen’s way of thinking, that matters a lot more to you and I than the “Please pay this amount” at the bottom of your monthly bill.

The bountiful cornucopia that is Cohen’s idea of cable television bliss includes networks like Bonsai Xtreme, Office Supplies Network, Glidden’s Paint Dry 24/7, and… no, we’re kidding. But are TV One, Ovation, Youtoo TV, and Retirement Living TV any more compelling? You are probably paying for one or more of them now. Extra credit to customers that can even find them on their cable dial.

Time Warner Cable and Comcast carry most of the same networks, but they arrange them differently. Time Warner likes the shovel-them-all-at-you approach with one simple digital expanded cable tier. Only a handful of networks that should be on the basic lineup cost a little more and most of them are HD movie channels (and inexplicably RFD-TV, which features cattle auctions every Friday afternoon). Comcast nails their customers with a range of tiers and compels many to keep upgrading to get the networks they really want. Just ask subscribers like Thomas Howell of Seattle who was livid when Comcast moved Turner Classic Movies out of the equivalent of basic cable and put it on an enhanced basic tier that cost him an extra $18 a month.

What channels will they add next?

“The s*** they shovel on cable these days and they can’t give us one channel with good movies that aren’t loaded with sex and violence without raping us for more money?” Howell told Stop the Cap! “My wife and I took back their box and we got satellite TV instead. We don’t want to pay for the crap they keep putting on our TV, but they don’t give you much choice.”

Comcast executives are living in a parallel universe and are not listening:

“I think consumers are going to benefit from this transaction,” Cohen added. “They’re going to benefit by quality of service, by quality of offerings, by technological innovation, and I don’t believe there’s any way to argue that they’re going to be hurt from a price perspective as a result of this transaction.”

“Mr. Cohen can pay my cable bill, then,” responded Howell. “He’s obviously got the money to pay whatever Comcast is asking, if he doesn’t get it for free.”

Remarkably even some House Republicans that are normally reticent about interfering with corporate affairs are expressing concern about the deal — especially those who represent districts served by either cable company.

You’re gonna love this merger. It’s best best best!

“The proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable could have a significant impact on competition in the video and broadband marketplace,” said Virginia Republican Bob Goodlatte, the House Judiciary Committee Chairman. Comcast dominates Virginia.

Comcast and Time Warner argue they are not competitors so it will have no impact on the competitive landscape.

The argument from merger proponents is that a larger Comcast will have a stronger position to fight programmer rate increases. But Comcast has a poor record of success at its current monolithic size, with no evidence making it larger will make much difference. Even if it did, will those savings be passed on to subscribers? Cohen signals they won’t when he warns cable bills will not go down as a result of the merger. In fact, Comcast recently added a $1.50 monthly Broadcast TV surcharge to alienate local television stations in the eyes of subscribers and boost Comcast’s profits. But most will blame the cable company for the rate increase, not the local CBS station.

Consumers generally hate their local cable company, with some minor exceptions (WOW! does very well by customers, as does Verizon’s FiOS in customer rankings). Why? Because in 1995 you paid an average of $22.35 for 44 channels of basic cable. In 2012, you paid $61.63 for 150 channels, 100 or more you never watch and don’t want.

Demands for a-la-carte — pay only for the channels you want — have fallen on deaf ears for years, with nothing on the horizon to change the current pricing model. Besides, some critics warn if a-la-carte does become reality, cable companies will dramatically jack up the per channel price to protect their revenue.

The Arris IP805-M DVR, produced for Time Warner Cable

Time Warner Cable customers in New York City and Los Angeles will get a major set-top box upgrade from a next generation DVR allowing six programs to be recorded and once and viewed anywhere in the home.

Arris filed papers with the Federal Communications Commission seeking certification of its new IP805-M set-top, branded with the Time Warner Cable logo.

The new device includes six internal tuners, 1TB of recording space, and a “whole house” platform that will let customers watch recordings from other televisions or portable wireless devices within the home. The new DVR is capable of transcoding traditional QAM channels into IP video.

Time Warner Cable will unveil the new box later this year as part of plans to upgrade service in New York City and Los Angeles under the TWC Maxx project. Customers in other cities may have to wait for the device to become available.

Time Warner has fallen behind many other cable operators, satellite providers and phone companies that offer superior DVR equipment.

Arris’ newest piece of equipment, caught by FierceCable, is just one of the upgrades the company announced last week.

From this…

What used to be known as CNN Headline News will soon become a network devoted to following popular websites and blogs to cover the latest viral social media stories to attract a younger audience.

HLN is dropping much of its news format, considered too stuffy to attract the under-34 crowd, and will instead focus on the most-Tweeted stories, the ‘coolest viral videos,’ and other trending topics making the rounds around the web.

“Taking a cue from today’s connected and wildly social generation, HLN will curate the news from across all platforms,” trumpets the HLN press release. “Headlines will be ripped from the most ‘plugged-in’ sites and blogs, and HLN will make it its mission to share the trending news, viral events and stories that have viewers most obsessed, plus discover emerging social stars.”

…to more of this.

In a nod to the growing trend of the self-obsessed and the “15-minutes of fame” crowd, new HLN head Albie Hecht told Buzzfeed’s Peter Lauria he was toying with a new tagline for HLN: “We’re not the news, you are.”

The new format is designed to chase off HLN’s older audience in favor of “millennial-minded viewers.” Advertisers consider the 18-34 demographic the sweet spot, and are not particularly interested in reaching anyone 50 or older (unless they are selling mobility products, life insurance, reverse mortgages, and home medical supplies.) That is what Me-TV is for.

The first new show to appear on HLN’s new format is “RightThisMinute,” featuring the stories behind viral Internet videos. Audience members will be encouraged to take part through social media like Twitter and Facebook.

Those annoyed with Nancy Grace and HLN’s other personality-driven programming are out of luck. HLN will retool prime time programs like “Nancy Grace” and “Dr. Drew on Call” to incorporate more social media interaction, but the programming will remain a major part of HLN’s new format.