Comcast Cable out? No refunds, but enjoy a free movie on us if and when your service is restored.

Colorado Comcast customers suffering service outages due to defective cable company equipment are being told they are not entitled to service credits for extended outages and instead are now offered vouchers for discounts off pay-per-view events and movies.

Janice Howard sent word to Stop the Cap! customers are still annoyed with Comcast after a major outage knocked out service for more than 100,000 customers last fall because of a “router problem.”

“The outage hit right in the middle of a Broncos’ game against the Cowboys — a must-see event for any football fan in this state,” Howard recalls. “The reason I remember this now is the local paper has started a sort of movement encouraging residents to cancel Comcast service, if only because of their arrogant attitude during and after the outage, and the fact many of us just had another one.”

Howard called Comcast at the time looking for a credit on her next bill for the outage, but Comcast refused her and tens of thousands of others.

“I will never forget the surly Comcast representative who told me, and I can repeat it word for word because I recorded the call, ‘We don’t do no refunds for service outages anymore,'” said Howard. “Everyone who asked, including me, got nothing more than a pay-per-view movie voucher, which does no good if you cancel service.”

Enterprise columnist Armand Lobato confirmed that, and the fact his family finally “fired” Comcast this month:

Yes, Comcast is fired. We took a page from young adults’ playbook and canceled the phone. It seems nobody younger than 40 these days owns a land line, why should we? Even our smart friend Barbara said the only reason she hangs onto the land line is so she can use it to locate her misplaced cell phone.

No more. And no more TV either.

That was the tough one for me. But come to think of it, I don’t miss scanning through the scores of channels I never watched to get to the one I did. Nor do I miss mostly contrived reality shows or the endless blocks of foreign language stations for which we needlessly paid. No mas, Comcast.

With few exceptions, I find I don’t miss cable TV that much. We both like to read and with warmer weather, we’re outside more anyway, which it makes it easier to avoid the boob tube altogether.

I sure don’t miss the insanely ballooned, end of the month statements. Comcast’s bills, you have to admit, started to rival those hokey emails from the fictitious Zaire lawyer who promises the world if only you agree to hand over all your financials. Uh-huh.

For the record, Comcast’s official refund policy for most customers is that they are entitled to credit for some service interruptions exceeding 24 consecutive hours if Comcast is in the mood.

Howard has sympathy for Time Warner Cable customers about to be absorbed into the Comcast family.

“I feel for you because we have family back east who have Time Warner and they hate it, but we’ve always been able to prove Comcast has them beat when it comes to bad service, high prices, and customer service only a mother could love, assuming it was her child answering the phone.”

Comcast is using an offline console game that misrepresents the speed and performance of its Internet service in its latest advertising.

Eagle-eyed game fans were annoyed to find Comcast promoting its speedy Internet service with a mall demo of Ubisoft’s Trials Fusion, a game that has no online multiplayer mode.

“If you’re a real gamer then you need the speed of XFINITY Internet,” advises a Comcast spokesman in the 30-second ad.

“Do you find that when you’re playing games online with your current service that it’s slow, a Comcast representative asks gamers.

“Yes,” says one, they do! “I get some lag,” says another.

“Do you want to try XFINITY Internet,” asks the employee.

“Sure.”

“Do you notice any buffering,” asks the employee.

“No sir.” “There is certainly no lag at all.”

The smooth game play and responsiveness looks impressive, until one realizes the game was never connected to XFINITY Internet. Without an online mode, there is no Internet connection with slow speeds and lag to worry about while playing. The game would work just as well in the middle of a Kansas wheat field, 50 miles from the nearest DSL connection.

But Comcast’s Internet service does eventually come into play when game enthusiasts want to download software updates, which can be enormous for many titles.

XFINITY Internet does not come with infinite usage. The company is now testing a return of usage allowances tied to overlimit fees in several cities and a senior vice-president predicted Comcast will be limiting how much Internet usage customers get without paying more within five years. So while you may not notice any buffering issues when using your offline content with XFINITY Internet, the more you do go online, the closer you get to Comcast’s arbitrary usage allowance.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Xfinity Internet – Gamers Tent May 2014.flv[/flv]

False Advertising: Comcast uses offline game play to prove the speed and responsiveness of their Internet service. Your Keurig coffeemaker is also 50% faster when inside a home powered by XFINITY Internet. So are your cats. (0:30)

The New York Times recommends the Justice Department and Federal Communications Commission reject Comcast’s $45 billion purchase of Time Warner Cable, if only because the combined company will have an unregulated choke-hold on telecommunications services not seen since the days of the regulated AT&T/Bell monopoly.

In an editorial published Sunday, the newspaper called out many of the “merger benefit”-talking points claimed by the two cable giants as specious at best, hinting some even bordered on misleading:

By buying Time Warner Cable, Comcast would become a gatekeeper over what consumers watch, read and listen to. The company would have more power to compel Internet content companies like Netflix and Google, which owns YouTube, to pay Comcast for better access to its broadband network. Netflix, a dominant player in video streaming, has already signed such an agreement with the company. This could put start-ups and smaller companies without deep pockets at a competitive disadvantage.

There are also worries that a bigger Comcast would have more power to refuse to carry channels that compete with programming owned by NBC Universal, which it owns. Comcast executives say that they would not favor content the company controls at the expense of other media businesses.

The company argues that this deal would not reduce choice because the company does not directly compete with Time Warner Cable anywhere. Comcast would face plenty of competition in high-speed Internet service, they say, from telephone and wireless companies.

The reality is far different. At the end of 2012, according to the FCC, 64 percent of American homes had only one or at most two choices for Internet service that most people would consider broadband. Wireless services can handle streaming video, but many customers of Verizon or AT&T would blow through their monthly wireless data plan by streaming just one two-hour high-definition movie, at which point they would have to fork over extra fees.

Comcast executives argue that companies like Sprint are planning to provide very fast Internet service that will compete with wired broadband. But wireless companies have been working on such services for more than a decade with little success.

Those wireless services that do exist uniformly impose low usage caps and cost considerably more than traditional wired broadband plans, especially when considering the cost compared to the actual speed delivered to consumers.

The Times doesn’t believe imposing a litany of conditions in return for approving the deal, similar to those involving Comcast’s purchase of NBCUniversal, would be sufficient to protect consumers from monopoly abuse.

“This merger would fundamentally change the structure of this important industry and give one company too much control over what information, shows, movies and sports Americans can access on TVs and the Internet,” concluded the newspaper. “Federal regulators should challenge this deal.”

Comcast has at least 40 lobbying firms working on its merger deal with Time Warner Cable.

It’s shock and awe time in D.C. as Comcast pulls out all the stops to ram its $45 billion deal with Time Warner Cable down Washington’s throat.

The Hill reports Comcast is assembling one of the biggest lobbying teams ever seen inside the beltway, hiring at least seven additional lobbying firms on top of the 33 it already retains. Their mission: to pressure legislators and overwhelm regulators to accept the merger deal and ignore the critics.

The lobbying firms are loaded to the rafters with D.C.’s frequent revolving-door travelers — former legislators, staffers, regulators and their aides that worked in the Clinton and Bush Administrations who now work on behalf of the companies many used to oversee.

On Comcast’s generous payroll: former aides for the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House and Senate Judiciary committees, in addition to the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission — precisely the agencies that will review the merger for anti-trust concerns.

“If you’ve worked on the committees, or if you’ve worked in an agency overseeing a transaction like this, you’ve got knowledge about how the process works and credibility with the staff — it’s that simple,” one lobbyist told the newspaper.

A quick review of some of the players from The Hill:

Britt

Another two weeks, another stock sale for retired Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt. The man that oversaw a business now rated worse than the MERS coronavirus no longer has to worry about the day-to-day ordeals of running a cable company under fire. His biggest challenge is where to stash all the cash he collects selling off the generous profligate number of shares he received during 12 years at the helm of the cable operator, as well as those granted in his golden parachute retirement package.

Last Friday, Britt dumped another 30,000 shares on the open market at an average price of $136.04 a share. His total take home: $4,081,200.00.

Incredibly, no matter how many shares Britt sells, he seems to end up with the same number he started with. The Legacy reports Britt still owns 177,542 shares in the company after the sale, worth an estimated $24,152,814. That does not include what he has cashed out over the last several months.

When you consider your last rate hike, remember one of the “increased costs of doing business” facing Time Warner Cable is paying exorbitant salaries, bonuses and benefits to top executives that increase annually. That is money out of your wallet.