[flv width=”360″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WBGH Binghamton Verizon Supports Occupy Binghamton 10-28-11.mp4[/flv]

Verizon employees in upstate New York are joining the “Occupy” movement that began protesting Wall Street, but has since broadened to include criticism of some of America’s largest corporations.  Company employees are arriving at “Occupy” protests holding signs attacking the company for “destroying the middle class” through job and benefit cuts.  The protests are also impacting cable operators.  Several arrests were made this week by protestors at Comcast headquarters in Philadelphia.  Most of the protestors are concerned about jobs and the pervasive influence corporate lobbyists have on American public policy.  WBNG in Binghamton covers the protests against Verizon.  (2 minutes)

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.

Stop the Cap! reader Wayne A. dropped us a line to let us know Comcast has been getting very aggressive in the Denver area, poaching CenturyLink customers with enormous discounts:

My wife and I just accepted a package from Comcast to leave CenturyLink for a package that includes:

• Digital Premier HD with DVR
• HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, and other premium movie channels
• Broadband service at 25/5Mbps
• Unlimited Long Distance Digital Phone Service

Comcast’s price?  An amazing $109.99/month for the first year, $129.99/month for the second.  Wayne says that’s a savings of $90 a month over ordinary Comcast prices, and compared with what he was paying CenturyLink, he will save $912.12 during the first year and around $600 for the second.

What makes Comcast’s pricing so aggressive is the fact they include much faster broadband speed than many other retention or “capture” customer deals.  They also throw in free premium movie channels.  We’ve seen Time Warner Cable offer triple-play retention deals for less than $90 a month for the first year, but they don’t include movie channels and deliver broadband service at the standard 10/1Mbps speed.

If you are paying Comcast more, it may be time to pick up the phone and threaten to walk unless you can have the same deal.  We’ve found dealing with customer retentions to be a real “your results may vary”-experience.  Don’t be willing to take the first offer.  Don’t be afraid to dismiss weak deals with a non-committal “I’ll think about it” if the price is not right for you.  Then call back.

In the last few weeks, we’ve found Time Warner Cable’s best deals still go to customers who actually schedule a service disconnection. Within hours, Time Warner starts calling, looking to “make an offer you cannot refuse.” The retention specialists at Time Warner who reach out to you generally have the most aggressively priced deals. You qualify if you call, schedule a disconnect a week or two out, and wait by the phone. You can keep your service running while company representatives try to convince you to stick with them.  Just make sure you answer those unfamiliar Caller ID-calls — it’s probably the cable company.  Most will ask why you disconnected.  If you answer “price,” the deals start coming.

Unfortunately, there was no way we could take advantage of any of their latest offers, which literally started two hours after disconnecting my late grandmother’s cable service.

It’s a buyer’s market for telecommunications products, so never settle for the regular price when a substantial discount is a phone call away.

[flv width=”480″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Daily Local New cable TV programming guide on display 10-5-11.mp4[/flv]

Comcast has been showing off changes to the company’s set top boxes, which have been effectively “dumbed-down” by removing internal processing power for box-based program guides and other content functions and moving it to the cloud.  Comcast’s newest generation of boxes offer a slimmed-down “browser” experience which relies on stored content at the cable company office, delivered over the cable to the set top box. 

In Denver, Xfinity representatives demonstrated the new products to groups of media and local radio personalities.  Among the most visible improvements is the program guide, which is starting to come closer to Netflix and farther away from the TV Guide Channel of years-past.  Among the features includes box art from movie titles, online reviews, social networking tie-ins, and instant recommendations for other similar programming to watch, either concurrently or in the future.  Subscribers can program shows for recording, alert friends to upcoming shows, and even submit their own review for other subscribers to see.

It’s a significant improvement over older technology, like that still used by Time Warner Cable and other cable operators, which requires extensive delays before incremental improvements are made, and operates on expensive set top terminals.  Video courtesy of: The Daily Local.  (2 minutes)

A Comcast customer in San Carlos, Calif., wanted to change her Comcast account so she need not be reminded of the recent passing of her husband, under whose name the account was listed.  A simple call to Comcast to request a change met with resistance from a representative, who told her to get in her car, drive to Redwood City, and go stand in line with an original copy of his death certificate.

Judy did as she was told, and Comcast didn’t.  The following month, another bill in his name arrived.  Judy ended up telling the whole story to the San Jose Mercury News:

I again called customer service and was told, “Don’t worry, the change is in the system and will show on your next bill.”

Well, I received the bill dated Aug. 28, and it is still in his name.

On Sept. 1, I mailed a letter to the customer service manager at the Redwood City service center and to this date have had no response.

On Sept. 6, I emailed to the “We Want to Hear from You” address telling them about this, and I received an automatic response: “Thank you for your comments,” but nothing since.

In my letter I told them I will not pay that bill until I receive the bill in my name accompanied by a written apology for this gross insensitivity and complete lack of “customer service.”

A Comcast representative eventually called her back and told her the company doesn’t do written apologies, but did apologize over the phone.

After the newspaper intervened, attitudes changed dramatically.

“On Monday morning Debbie called me and after much apologizing on her part, we agreed on a month of our service deducted from my current bill,” Judy reports.

Cable companies who have earned the scorn of their customers could go a long way towards correcting their dismal record of customer service by using some common sense and sensitivity.  A family tragedy should never force someone to hike down to the local cable office with an original death certificate just to change a name on an account.  It also should not take media intervention to get someone to do the right thing.  Stop the Cap! has covered at least a dozen cases of customers running into brick walls with front line service representatives who are not authorized to do what needs to be done.  When that changes, consumers will be grateful.