Comcast has introduced an upgraded Outage Center showing nearby service outages on a map and offering customers near-real time updates on repairs.

The new outage maps depict the specific areas impacted, usually by zip code or service node, along with what services are involved, whether the outage is part of scheduled maintenance or unplanned, how many customers are affected, and an estimated time when repairs will be completed.

Comcast’s new service outage map, in this case showing outages in northeastern New Jersey. (Image courtesy of: telcodad)

The cable company is using technology similar to what many electric utilities use to pinpoint and report on outages automatically. Detailed outage information both appeases customers and cuts down on the number of duplicate calls reporting outages Comcast already knows about. Comcast’s engineers can also self-report planned maintenance to give customers an immediate notification that work is underway. Just minutes after completing the work, a technician can report service as restored. The more customers that report an outage, the more red alert symbols appear on the map.

Comcast customers note the outage map is not exact in accuracy, but is a major improvement over Comcast’s original outage website, which offered only vague information.

Unlike most electric utilities, Comcast is still keeping access to the complete roster of service outages under wraps. The outage map only offers limited zoom-out, limiting one’s ability to check for outages in other areas.

Comcast has dropped sports network beIN Sports off the lineup after its contract with the cable company expired July 31.

Customers who tune to the channel will find a series of rotating on-screen messages explaining the network was switched off because the renewal price was too high:

Have you heard about a disagreement between beIn Sports and Comcast?

Every month Comcast has to pay networks to bring their programming to you. That’s right, we pay the network. Not the other way around.

Now beIN sports is asking for a major increase in fees for the channel you already have, which could have a big impact on your bill.

beIN Sports won’t allow Comcast to carry its channels until this is resolved.

beIN Media Group, a spinoff of Al Jazeera Media Network, owns the network and has already filed a complaint against Comcast for violation of the deal conditions imposed by the FCC after approving the merger of Comcast and NBCUniversal. The complaint alleges Comcast is giving preferential treatment to its own sports networks, a violation of program carriage rules. That complaint remains pending.

“We are deeply disappointed that despite our best efforts over the last year to resolve the situation, millions of Comcast XFINITY subscribers have lost access to the content they love. We are happy to extend existing terms while we continue to negotiate, but unfortunately Comcast would rather continue to charge the same while taking away valuable and loved content from customers,” said Antonio Briceño, beIN Sports’ deputy managing director for the U.S. and Canada. “The truth is, we face a disheartening trend of media consolidation, where the big get bigger and innovative brands like ours that serve diverse audiences get pushed-out. This is almost always to the detriment of consumers who end up paying the price. We hope it stops now.”

Moving on out?

New York’s Public Service Commission on Friday set the stage for ‘an orderly transition’ ending Spectrum’s brief life in New York, to be replaced with a ‘to be announced’ new cable operator to serve the needs of New York subscribers.

Or so the New York Public Service Commission hopes.

Although Friday’s 4-0 unanimous decision to revoke Charter’s merger deal in New York is a public relations and legal nightmare for the country’s second largest cable operator, we suspect top executives are getting a good night’s sleep tonight, not too concerned about the immediate consequences of today’s stunning vote.

Losing New York is what Wall Street would call “a materially adverse event” for any cable operator. New York City is the country’s largest media market. Billions of dollars worth of cable infrastructure, subscriber and advertising revenue, and prestige are at stake. Despite the ‘vote to revoke,’ Charter’s attorneys have signaled for weeks they intend to preserve and protect the cable company’s legal rights, and it is almost certain the PSC’s merger revocation order will meet a court-ordered injunction as soon as next week.

The courts are likely to make the final decision about whether Spectrum can stay or has to go. That aforementioned injunction will stop the clock on any ‘rash action’ and start what could be years of litigation, filled with discovery, endless hearings, stall tactics, blizzards of motions, appeals, more appeals, and then more lawsuits over whatever final exit plan is eventually filed, if one is required by the courts. A judge could also order the cable company and the state to work it out in a court-approved settlement, something the PSC seems loathe to do in its two orders published today which make it clear the regulator is done talking only to feel strung along by the cable company.

For the near term, Spectrum customers won’t notice a thing. Even if the PSC was not taken to court, Charter has 60 days to file a six month transition plan, making the earliest date to waive Spectrum goodbye is sometime in early 2019.

To help readers out, we’ve prepared a short FAQ to address any concerns:

Q. Will I lose my cable and internet service?

A. No. Regardless of what happens, the PSC has ordered a transition plan designed to provide a seamless switch between Spectrum and a future provider. For most customers, it will resemble Charter’s own transition from Time Warner Cable to Spectrum.

Q. Who will replace Spectrum?

Not again.

A. The cable industry often resembles a cartel, whose members go to great lengths to protect each other. Historically, no large cable operator will entertain requests for proposals from cities or states requesting a replacement of a cable company already providing service. In short, if a city is fed up with Comcast and wants to shop around for another provider, it is highly unlikely Charter/Spectrum, Cox, Altice/Cablevision, Mediacom, or other providers will submit a bid to replace Comcast. If they did, Comcast could theoretically retaliate in their service areas. Should the Public Service Commission itself solicit bids to replace Spectrum, it is unlikely any operator will send a proposal unless/until Charter indicates it wants to leave the state. This kind of informal protectionism has proven highly effective limiting the power of towns and cities to play companies off each other to get a better deal for their residents.

Q. If Charter loses its court challenge and has to leave, what happens then?

A. If Charter exhausts its appeals and realizes it can no longer do business in New York, it will seek a private sale or system swap with another provider. Comcast would be the most likely contender, having shown prior interest in serving New York and having contiguous cable operations in adjoining states, especially in northern New England, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Comcast could agree to trade its cable systems in states like Texas, Florida, or California in return for its New York State’s Spectrum systems, which cover cities across the state. But that is likely years away.

Q. Isn’t Comcast worse than what we have now with Spectrum?

A. Consumer satisfaction surveys suggest the answer is yes. Comcast is routinely rock bottom in customer satisfaction, customer service, pricing, and service options. Its 1 TB data cap on internet service has not yet reached many of its northeastern customers, but most observers expect it eventually will. In contrast, Charter has agreed not to impose data caps for up to seven years after its 2016 merger. But Comcast has delivered more frequent broadband speed upgrades and has more advanced set-top boxes and infrastructure.

Stop the Cap! would vociferously oppose Comcast’s entry in New York, however, just as we did a few years ago when we participated in the successful fight to stop Comcast’s merger attempt with Time Warner Cable.

Q, What other providers might be interested?

A. Altice, which does business as Cablevision or Optimum, is New York’s other big cable operator, providing service exclusively downstate. Altice had aggressive plans to become a big player in the U.S. cable business, but its acquisition dreams were halted by shareholders, concerned about the European company’s already staggering debt, run up acquiring other companies. Altice is currently scrapping Cablevision’s existing Hybrid Fiber Coax infrastructure and replacing it with direct fiber to the home service, which offers improved service. But the company charges a lot for its advanced set-top box, has bloated modem rental fees, and is notorious for vicious cost-cutting, which stalled service improvements at its mobile and cable companies in France and raised a lot of controversy among employees.

Cox could be another contender, but would have to find a few billion to acquire Spectrum’s statewide system. Wild card players include AT&T and Verizon. Verizon would face extreme regulatory challenges, however, because it is the local phone company for most residents in the state. AT&T sold its U-verse system in Connecticut to Frontier Communications and seems increasingly focused on content, not on the systems that deliver content. A hedge fund or private equity firm could also be contenders, but perhaps not considering the high cost to acquire the systems and New York’s reputation for fierce customer protection. Remember, New York insists that a cable company ownership transfer must meet public interest tests, not simply enrich hedge fund participants.

Q. What happens to Charter’s pre-existing deal conditions on rural broadband and speed increases?

A. Officially, the PSC has ordered Charter to continue abiding by the 2016 Merger Order and its deal commitments. The state will likely continue to fine Charter if it keeps missing rural broadband rollout targets until a court stops them or the company leaves. Charter will probably continue rural broadband expansion to show good faith. Charter has met its merger obligations related to speed increases, so it is not currently out of compliance. But a legal challenge offers the opportunity for a third-party judge to suspend or modify existing deal commitments, at least temporarily. It is unlikely Charter will want to invest large sums in its cable systems if it believes it will lose its case in court. The timetable for an upgrade to 200 Mbps Standard speed will likely now occur on a regional basis. The northeast division will still likely activate these speeds across multiple cities in the region sometime this summer, especially in places where it faces competitive pressure. The 300 Mbps upgrade in 2019 is more likely to be impacted by any forthcoming legal action.

Q. Is this political or about the union striking Charter? It is an election year.

A. All things are political to some degree in an election year in New York. That said, the New York Public Service Commission has the nation’s best track record of protecting consumers from bad actor telecom and energy companies. They take their responsibilities very seriously, and have shown consistent independence from the governor’s office, especially in recent years. The Commission was by far the most responsive of any state, including California, in taking our concerns about the Charter/Time Warner Cable merger seriously, and incorporated several of our suggestions into the final Merger Order. We warned the PSC cable companies have routinely reneged or slipped through deal conditions. We even predicted Charter would attempt to count new buildouts in non-rural areas and business office parks towards any commitment to expand their service areas. The PSC smartly conditioned its Merger Order by defining the goal of Charter’s broadband expansion — serving the unserved and underserved. That is why the company is not getting away with counting New York City buildouts towards this commitment.

Cynthia Nixon and Andrew Cuomo, both running for New York governor, neither fans of Charter Spectrum.

Few voters are likely to tie a PSC decision to the governor’s race, although Gov. Andrew Cuomo has repeatedly taken credit and praised the PSC for not tolerating bad behavior from Spectrum. If it was a purely political play, it would originate in the governor’s office. Gov. Cuomo’s Broadband for All program depends on achieving near-100% broadband penetration, something it may not manage if Charter fails its rural buildout commitments. That would be a PR mess. There is ample evidence that Charter’s own conduct was sufficient to trigger this kind of response, with or without an election looming.

New York is also a union-friendly state, and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 3 has held out for over a year in the New York City area striking to preserve important job benefits Charter wants to discontinue. New revelations from the PSC outlining Charter’s increasingly bad safety record has strengthened the union’s case that Charter would rather bring in unqualified replacement workers and put safety at risk than settling with a union that essentially built the cable system serving New York City. There is no credible evidence that the union is involved in the PSC’s decision to revoke the merger agreement, although we suspect most affected members will fully support the decision.

Q. Is the PSC being too harsh? Can’t they work it out with Charter?

A. For New York to revoke a merger and effectively boot the company out of business in the state is remarkable. Utility companies that irresponsibly lack a credible disaster plan or do not comply with industry standards to maintain tree trimming and infrastructure repairs that result in plunging parts of upstate into darkness for up to two weeks after wind storms in two consecutive years were fined, but not ordered to leave. The ongoing scandal of competing private ESCO electric companies that have almost all scandalously overcharged New Yorkers with electric bills higher than their incumbent utility have been threatened with de-certification and fines, but are still conducting business, even though much of their marketing material was misleading.

Is it too late to work it out?

That should tell you the PSC’s move today was a final straw. The two parties have negotiated and debated Spectrum’s performance lapses for nearly a year. Tension was clearly rising by the spring after the PSC uncovered evidence Charter was intentionally counting areas it knew were outside of the spirit and language of the merger order’s rural broadband deal commitments. Charter’s brazen behavior achieved a new low when it questioned the PSC’s authority to oversee the merger agreement Charter signed. At one point, it unilaterally announced it would only honor the deal commitments found in one appendix of the Merger Order, conveniently ignoring the section describing and defining the rural broadband commitment Charter agreed to. The company also continued to air what the PSC declared to be false advertising, promoting Charter’s claimed accomplishments in rural broadband expansion. Charter repeatedly ignored warnings to suspend and remove those ads. In fact, the PSC issued strongly worded warnings to Charter at least twice, specifically outlining the possibility of canceling the merger agreement and forcing Spectrum out of the state. In response, Charter began staking out its legal arguments in filings, obviously preparing for litigation.

The PSC would probably argue it is impossible to work things out with a company that repeatedly breaks its own commitments. The PSC also openly worried what message it would send to other regulated utilities if it did not react strongly to Charter’s behavior. If the company had a corporate agenda to cheat New York out of important rural broadband expansion, negotiating, fining, and sanctioning a company is unlikely to change its behavior at the top.

Stop the Cap! had earlier recommended the PSC adopt new sanctions to force Charter to comply with its commitments, and expand them to bring service to many New Yorkers who were left behind by Gov. Cuomo’s Broadband for All program, suddenly saddled with satellite internet service. A large percentage of those affected are frustratingly close to nearby Spectrum service areas and although it would cost Charter a significant sum to reach them, it would deliver a financial sting for their bad behavior while also bringing much-needed internet access to the leftovers left-behind by the governor’s broadband expansion program. Such a settlement would require the company to actually comply with their commitments, something the PSC had been unable to achieve through no fault of their own. Perhaps a judge might have better luck should a negotiated settlement come up in litigation.

Rural Roane County, Tenn.

Earlier this month, a standing room only crowd packed the offices of Rockwood Electric Utility (REU) in Rockwood, Tenn., despite the fact the meeting was held at 10 a.m. on a Friday morning.

Local residents were there on a work day to listen to area providers and local officials discuss rural broadband access. Most wanted to know exactly when the local phone or cable company planned to expand to bring internet access to the far corners of the region between Knoxville and Chattanooga in east Tennessee.

Comcast, Charter, and AT&T told Roane County Commissioners Ron Berry and Darryl Meadows, State Sen. Ken Yager (R-Kingston), and the crowd they all had a long wait because the companies couldn’t profit offering rural broadband service to the county.

“That is what our shareholders expect and the way we operate in a capitalistic society,” declared Andy Macke, vice president of external affairs at Comcast.

“The biggest challenge for all of you in this room is what they call the last mile,” said Alan L. Hill, the regional director of external and legislative affairs at AT&T Tennessee. “It is a challenge. We all face these challenges.”

In short, nothing much had changed in Roane County, or other rural counties in southeastern Tennessee, to convince service providers to spend money to bring internet service to the region. Until that changed, AT&T, Comcast and others should not be expected to be on the front lines addressing rural internet access. Successive governors of Tennessee have long complained about the rural broadband problem, but the state legislature remains cool to the idea of the state government intervening to help resolve it.

Gov. Haslam

In 2017, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam noted Tennessee currently ranked 29th in the U.S. for broadband access, with 34 percent of rural Tennessee residents lacking access at recognized minimum standards. In splashy news releases and media events, Haslam sold his solution to the problem — the Broadband Accessibility Act, offering up to $45 million over three years to assist making broadband available to unserved homes and businesses.

In reality, the law authorized spending no more than $9.5 million annually on rural broadband grants over the next three years. It also slashed the FCC’s broadband standard from 25/3 Mbps to 10/1 Mbps, presumably a gift to the phone companies who prefer to offer less-capable DSL service in rural areas. In the first year of awards, 13 Tennessee counties, none in the southeastern region where Roane County lies, divided the money, diluting the impact to almost homeopathic strength.

Critics called Haslam’s broadband improvement program “The Smoke and Mirrors Act” for promising a lot and delivering little. At current funding levels, broadband service can only be expanded to 5,000 of the estimated 422,000 households that lack access to internet service, and then only with the award winner’s matching financial contribution.

The demand for rural broadband financial assistance is obvious from the $66 million in requests received from 71 different utilities, co-ops, and communications companies in the first year of the program, all seeking state funding to expand rural broadband. Only a small fraction of those requests were approved. AT&T applied for money targeting Roane County and was turned down. AT&T’s Hill expressed sympathy for the county’s school children who need to complete homework assignments by borrowing Wi-Fi access from fast food establishments, area businesses, and larger libraries. But AT&T’s sympathy will not solve Roane County’s broadband problems.

What might is Rockwood Electric Utility, the municipal power company that sponsored the broadband event.

REU is a not-for-profit, municipally owned utility that has successfully served portions of Roane, Cumberland, and Morgan counties since 1939. By itself, the community-owned utility is no threat to companies like Comcast, because it offers service in places the cable company won’t. But if REU partnered with other municipal providers and offered internet service in larger nearby towns and communities to achieve economy of scale and a more secure financial position, that is a competitive threat apparently so perilous that the telecom industry spent millions of lobbying dollars on state legislatures like the one in Tennessee to ghost-write legislation to discourage utilities like REU from getting into the broadband business, much less dare to compete directly with them. AT&T, Charter, and Comcast also fear how they will compete against municipal utilities that have successfully delivered electric service and maintained an excellent reputation in the community for decades.

Tennessee law is decidedly stacked in favor of AT&T, Charter, and Comcast and against municipal utilities. Although the state allows municipal providers to supply broadband, it can come only after satisfying a series of regulatory rules designed to protect commercial cable and phone companies. It also prohibits municipal providers from offering service outside of existing service areas. That leaves communities served by a for-profit, investor-owned utility out of luck, as well as residents in areas where a rural utility lacked adequate resources to supply broadband service on its own.

Haslam’s Broadband Accessibility Act cynically retained these restrictions and blockades, hampering the rural broadband expansion the law was supposed to address.

For several years, Sen. Janice Bowling (R-Coffee, Franklin, Grundy, Marion, Sequatchie, Van Buren and Warren Counties), has tried to cut one section of Tennessee’s broadband-related laws that prohibits municipal providers from offering service outside of their existing utility service area. Her proposed legislation would authorize municipalities to provide telecommunication service, including broadband service, either on its own or by joint venture or other business relationship with one or more third parties and in geographical areas that are inside and outside the electric plant’s service area.

In her sprawling State Senate District 16, a municipal provider already offers fiber broadband service, but Tennessee’s current protectionist laws prohibit LightTUBe from offering service to nearby towns where service is absent or severely lacking. That has left homes and businesses in her district at a major disadvantage economically.

Sen. Janice Bowling (R-Tenn.) discusses rural broadband challenges in her 16th district south of Nashville and her bill to help municipal utilities provide broadband service. (4:20)

“In rural Tennessee, if we have what is called an industrial park, and we have electricity, you have running water, you have some paved roads, but if you do not have access to fiber at this point, what you have is an electrified cow pasture with running water and walking trails. It is not an industrial park,” she complained, noting that the only reason her bill is prevented from becoming law is lobbying by the state’s cable and phone companies. “We can no longer leave the people of Tennessee hostage to profit margins of large corporations. We appreciate what they’re doing. We appreciate where they do it, but in rural Tennessee we will never meet their profit margins and so we can no longer be held hostage when we have the ability to help ourselves.”

Sen. Yager

Her sentiment in shared by many other Tennessee legislators who serve rural districts, and her Senate bill (and House companion bill) routinely receive little, if any, public opposition. But private lobbying by telecom industry lobbyists makes sure the bill never reaches the governor’s desk, usually dying in an obscure committee unlikely to attract media attention.

That reality is why residents of Roane County were meeting in a crowded room to get answers about why broadband still remained elusive after several years, despite the high-profile attention it seems to get in the legislature and governor’s office.

“‘It is a critical issue as I said. It is not a luxury. It is a necessity. I certainly understand your frustration,” responded Sen. Ken Yager. “This problem is so big I don’t think one person can do it alone, one entity. It’s going to have to have partnerships. One thing this bill encourages is for your co-ops to partner with one another to bring broadband in.”

The bill Sen. Yager refers to and endorsed at the meeting was written by Sen. Bowling. Sen. Yager must be very familiar with Bowling’s proposals, because she has appeared before the Senate Commerce & Labor Committee he belongs to year after year to promote it. On March 3, 2018, the bill failed again in a 4-3 vote. But unbeknownst to those in attendance at the public meeting, Sen. Yager himself delivered the fourth “no” vote that killed the bill.

Undeterred, Bowling promises to be back next year with the same bill language as before. Perhaps next time, voters will know who their friends are in the legislature, and who actually represents the interests of big corporate cable and phone companies.