An aversion of open, hilly landscapes and trees is apparently responsible for keeping residents of rural Connecticut from getting broadband service from the state’s two dominant providers — Comcast and Frontier Communications.

In the Litchfield Hills of northwestern Connecticut, you can visit some of the state’s finest antique shops and Revolutionary War-era inns, tour vineyards and even establish roots in the Upper Naugatuck Valley in towns like Barkhamsted, Colebrook, Goshen, Hartland, Harwinton, Litchfield, Morris, New Hartford, Norfolk, Torrington, and Winchester. Just leave your cellphone, tablet, and personal computer behind because chances are good you will find yourself in a wireless dead spot and Internet-free zone.

Obtaining even a smidgen of cell phone service often means leaning out a second story window or worse, climbing the nearest church steeple. The wealthiest residents, often second-homeowners from New York or California, can afford to spend several thousand dollars to entice the cable company to extend a coaxial cable their way or buy commercial broadband service at eye-popping prices from Frontier Communications, which acquired AT&T’s wireline network in the state. But for many, dial-up Internet remains the only affordable or available option.

Despite the area’s significant number of high income residents ready and willing to pay for service, Comcast and Frontier blame hilly terrain and dense woods for staying away. Those excuses get little regard from residents who suggest it is all about the money, not the landscape.

Broadband-challenged areas in northwest Connecticut are shown in green and the often “No signal” and “No Internet” Litchfield Hills region is shown in blue.

Despite the need for service, deregulation largely allows cable and phone companies to decide where to offer broadband service, and arguments about fulfilling a public need and performing a community service don’t get far with Wall Street and shareholders that constantly pressure companies to deliver profits, not expensive investments that may never pay off.

State Rep. Roberta Willis (D-Salisbury) told the Register Citizen News the status quo is not acceptable — telecommunications companies are not doing enough to build out their networks.

“You just can’t say it’s the topography and walk away,” she told the newspaper. “If electricity companies were deregulated like this there would be no electricity in my district.”

Comcast spokeswoman Laura Brubaker Crisco claims the company extended cable service nearly 62 miles in northwest Connecticut since 2005 (ten years ago) and completed nearly 100 projects extending fiber more than 10 miles in the past two years. But many of those projects overhauled Comcast’s existing middle-mile network and extended cable service to profitable new markets serving commercial customers, especially office parks and commercial storefronts. Comcast’s other priority was to reach new high-income residential developments being built as the area continues to grow. Rural customers who could not meet Comcast’s Return On Investment formula in 2005 are still unlikely to have service in 2015 unless population density increases in their immediate area.

Connecticut’s effort to extend gigabit fiber statewide is dismissed as a waste of money by incumbent cable operators.

Crisco admits Comcast does not wire low density areas and isn’t surprised other providers won’t either.

Frontier prefers to blame the area’s topography for keeping broadband out.

David Snyder, vice president for engineering for the east region of Frontier Communications, told the newspaper “it’s just natural the investment and the time become more challenging.”

Frontier does say it has expanded broadband to 40,000 additional households in Connecticut since taking over for AT&T a year ago. But nobody seems to know exactly who can get broadband in the state and who cannot. The have-nots are the most likely to complain, and those businesses that serve visitors are in peril of losing business without offering reasonable Wi-Fi or Internet access. Rural families with school-age children are also at risk from having their kids fall behind those that can get broadband.

Wireless Internet Service Providers, which offer long-range wireless broadband in rural areas, complain the federal government is wasting money on studies instead of helping to underwrite solutions that can quickly bring Internet access to the rural masses.

Others believe talking to Frontier and Comcast is futile. They prefer to follow the lead of western Massachusetts, where 24 small communities across the region have joined forces to build a public fiber to the home broadband network. One estimate suggests 22 Connecticut towns covering 200,000 residents could be reached with a bond-financed fiber network completed by 2018. That network would likely reach more unserved customers than Frontier or Comcast will elect to serve over the next three years combined.

A separate effort to establish gigabit fiber broadband across the state — the CT Gig Project — promptly ran into a buzzsaw of opposition, primarily from incumbent telecommunications companies that refuse to offer that service now. With a threat to current profitable business models, it was not unexpected to hear opposition from Paul Cianelli, CEO of the New England Cable & Telecom Association — a cable company lobbying group.

He called public broadband unnecessary and “potentially disastrous.” He wants assurances no government subsidies or loan guarantees are given to the project. He also said providing gigabit service was unnecessary and faster Internet speeds were not important to the majority of customers in the state. Public broadband proponents respond Cianelli should tell that to the residents of Litchfield Hills and other unserved and underserved communities.

The Don’t Care Bears

Americans seem to hate dealing with their cable company so much, they are willing to pay someone else to do it for them.

AirPaper, a Bay Area company, is now offering to help rid you of Comcast for a one-time charge of $5.

You supply them with your name, e-mail, address, phone number and Comcast account number/any security verification information required to cancel your account and they will send Comcast a letter requesting your account be closed.

For now, media reports are vague about the duo’s success rate. Because the request to cancel will arrive in writing, nothing precludes Comcast from having a retention specialist contact you by phone and still attempt to save your business. Comcast is also notorious for not being especially responsive to written requests for anything and its Executive Customer Service department also draws complaints.

Of course, nothing precludes you from keeping the $5 in your wallet and using our recommended methods of dealing with Comcast, which come for free.

You can write your own letter to Comcast requesting a no-negotiation cancellation of your service by sending a letter with your name, address, phone number, account number and e-mail to:

Office of the President
Comcast Headquarters
Comcast Center
1701 JFK Blvd.
Philadelphia, PA 19103

(215) 286-1700
(215) 981-7790 (fax)

Even better, you can follow Comcast’s usual cancellation procedure using 1-800-XFINITY (1-800-934-6489) and tell the agent you are canceling service for any of these reasons, and you will be spared customer retention hardball:

• You are moving in with an existing Comcast customer and do not need two accounts at the same address;
• You are relocating to a senior care or assisted living facility that already has service for all residents;
• Tell them you are moving to a non-Comcast service area. Need an address? Tell them an apartment on Elmwood Ave., Rochester, NY 14618. It’s well outside of Comcast’s service area and they won’t try and offer you Time Warner Cable service if you remind them the complex already provides service to every renter;
• Tell them you are converting your home into a seasonal residence and you wish to disconnect service with no reconnect date available;
• Inform them your home succumbed to a fire, flood, killer bees, or whatever other natural disaster will make your home uninhabitable indefinitely. What they will care about the most is if their equipment survived the calamity. When you tell them yes and you are returning it, they won’t bug you any further;
• You are relocating overseas for a job, volunteer work, or military service with no known return date.

If you use any of these excuses, you will be off the phone 10 minutes after speaking to someone.

Fred Willard appears as a cable executive in this new DirecTV ad.

DirecTV, itself recently acquired by AT&T, is having fun with the recent spate of cable mergers and acquisitions.

A new ad from the satellite provider lampoons a merger between Cable Corp and CableWorld, likely stand-ins for Charter Communications, Comcast, and Time Warner Cable.

“That company stinks,” complains a board member of “Cable Corp,” the target of the buyout. “And I mean they smell. I used to work there. I had to breathe through my mouth all the time.”

To those in the know, the ad is more accurate than funny.

“We all know that DirecTV’s better at this whole TV thing, so to beat ‘em, we’re going to get bigger, we’re going to merge with CableWorld,” says Jeffrey Tambor, who plays Cable Corp’s CEO.

AT&T bought DirecTV to combine the satellite provider’s much larger customer base with AT&T U-verse to win better volume discounts for cable programming.

Consumers will get a higher bill regardless and Fred Willard is on hand to deliver the pink slips.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/DirecTV Cable Corp Merges with CableWorld 10-1-15.mp4[/flv]

Fred Willard and Jeffrey Tambor appear as CEOs of rival cable companies merging in this new ad from DirecTV. (30 seconds)

Another satisfied customer

After more than a decade of legal wrangling, a class action lawsuit originally valued at up to $875 million filed on behalf of Philadelphia-area cable customers accusing Comcast of rigging a cable monopoly has settled for $50 million.

A federal judge in Philadelphia has approved a considerably reduced payout to affected subscribers and ex-customers who earlier submitted a claim form.

Under the settlement, former Comcast cable customers in the Philadelphia area qualify for a $15 check. Current Comcast customers can choose a $15 bill credit, six free pay per view movies, or two free months of The Movie Channel. If you failed to file a claim form before the July closing date, enjoy The Movie Channel for two months at no charge — it represents your default damage settlement.

Comcast is happy the suit, originally brought in 2003, has now come to a close. So are the lawyers who brought the case, who will receive $15 million in fees.

The lawsuit accused Comcast of colluding with other cable companies to buy or swap area cable customers to form a regional monopoly in southeastern Pennsylvania, where it could safely raise prices and scare off would-be competitors. The suit sought refunds and damages up to $875 million for Comcast’s allegedly ill-gotten gains.

Comcast’s attorneys eventually mowed down much of the plaintiff’s case when they convinced the U.S. Supreme Court the class action was too broad, involving cable customers that were formerly served by other cable companies before they were snapped up by Comcast. Because any potential damages inflicted by Comcast’s rate hikes and service varied depending on the date of ownership transfer, it was impossible, the attorneys argued, to determine appropriate damages. The Supreme Court agreed with Comcast and eventually eliminated class members who lived outside of Philadelphia and the four counties that surround the city. Having gutted much of the case, the two parties reached a settlement amounting to a fraction of the original request for damages.

Customers seemed less than thrilled.

“The Movie Channel? Really?,” complained Linda Martinez of Philadelphia. “They already give that channel away like candy when you phone up Comcast and complain about their lousy service. I had it for six months and I never even found it on the TV.”

Despite endless promises better customer service is right around the corner, the Federal Communications Commission’s e-mail box is overflowing from angry consumers fed up with Comcast.

A Freedom of Information Act request by CityExplainer brought a massive document dump in response, containing more than 2,200 customer complaints received over three months (April, May and June 2015) regarding Comcast’s broadband service — about 25 a day. The complaints rolled in despite little or no publicity the FCC is open to hearing from consumers about shoddy service. The top five cities for complaints — Atlanta, Ga.; Chicago, Ill.; Knoxville, Tenn.; Houston, Tex.; and Jacksonville, Fla.

“The types of complaints CityExplainer reviewed included customer issues with Comcast Internet service availability, billing conflicts, and speeds,” the blog reports. “You’ll see senior citizens and others complaining about unrelenting billing errors, people complaining about alleged data throttling and data caps, and residents’ sad tales of dealing with technicians who come — or don’t come — to their homes to fix problems.”

Comcast complaint hotspots (Image: CityExplainer)

One customer in Mobile, Ala. told the FCC he is livid about Comcast’s usage cap trial affecting his community, and accused the cable company of lying about the length and nature of the trial:

Since October 1, 2013, Comcast has been charging consumers in Mobile, Alabama additional money for every 50GB of traffic over an artificially mandated 300GB traffic limit. They have been conducting this “test market” of tiered pricing in other areas as well. (See https://customer.xfinity.com/help-and-support/internet/data-usage-Where-will-these-plans-be-launched). Complainant argues that Comcast should treat all of its customers across the nation equally. Whereas in other markets, no traffic limitation is currently being applied, Complainant and all others in the “test markets” have been charged additional money for internet traffic above and beyond an artificially set limit of 300GB, as if the data were a tangible utility such as water that were going to run out. Comcast has provided no rationale for the 300GB/month limitation other than congestion, and has provided consumers no evidence that such congestion actually exists.

While the FCC likely sees only the most persistent complainers fed up and fueled by anger to reach out to the FCC, the company’s Facebook page is a Niagara Falls of Nihilism — stories from weary customers waiting six hours for a technician that never showed, gotcha surprise fees, or “tell them anything” sales agents who promise customers the world and rarely deliver. One thing that isn’t rare at Comcast customer service is being disconnected in the middle of your call.

Cindi Satoria’s story is just today’s example:

I moved last week. A technician was at my home over 6 hours. Smoked most of the day. Rummaged through all of my closet doors and when he left, my telephone still has not worked in a week. I called customer service and waited all day Saturday for a no show appointment. Then, customer service argues that we never had an appointment. I am so fed up. I want to cancel everything. I have been with Comcast for years. The service is unbearable. I am not satisfied. I asked to file a complaint with the technical group and I was hung up on.

The FCC passes along the complaints it receives to Comcast for follow-up. In many cases, a complaint to the FCC will win the customer service credits (especially on overlimit charges), free upgrades or other complimentary services to placate the customer. Stop the Cap! readers have used the FCC complaint form for months to get extra charges for Internet overlimit fees removed from their bill and credited back. Others have been offered new equipment, a better class of service, or lower rates.

(All 2,200+ complaints are available for free download here [in spreadsheet format]; and in the original PDF format released by the FCC, available here, courtesy of CityExplainer.)