CenturyLink is having a tough time competing against Tacoma, Wash.-based Click! Network, so the phone company hired third party vendors who are spreading lies about its community-owned competitor.

Click!, a division of Tacoma Power, recently upgraded its network to begin selling 100Mbps broadband to Tacoma residents. That proved a problem to CenturyLink’s outsourced sales force who cannot begin to offer those kinds of speeds to Tacoma residents over CenturyLink’s copper-wire facilities. So when you can’t compete, the next best thing is to lie.

The News Tribune reports CenturyLink’s door-to-door sales force is misinforming current Click! customers the service is shutting down and offering to transfer their service to CenturyLink.

“Customers have been told that Click! Cable TV is going out of business in the next couple of months,” said Tenzin Gyaltsen, Click! Network general manager. “That is not true. Click! Cable TV is still in business, offering competitive pricing – and will continue to do so for many years to come.”

A complaint will be filed with the Office of the State Attorney General against CenturyLink accusing them of an apparent violation of state law – RCW 19.86.020 – which states, “Unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce are hereby declared unlawful.”

“It’s a vendor we’re using,” Meg Andrews from CenturyLink admitted. “When we were made aware of the situation the vendor was told it is not in our best interest. It’s not really in our voice, or tone. It’s not a good thing for us. We’ve never had this type of experience before.”

Although the salespeople are not CenturyLink employees, the phone company hired the firm that employs them.

Tacoma residents enjoy the competition. Prices are lower than in nearby Seattle, and residents can choose from CenturyLink, Comcast, or one of three independent ISPs that provide service over the Click! Network.

One Tacoma resident told Community Broadband Networks the competition can’t afford to charge the usual prices other Washington residents pay:

I have Comcast in Tacoma and all I know is since there is competition down here Comcast is about half the cost as it is in Seattle. They give you a rate good for a year. When your year is up you call up and just say Click! and bam back down you go. A friend in Seattle once called Comcast with both of our bills with similar service and mentioned my price and they said I must live in Tacoma and they wouldn’t match the price.

The city asks anyone who hears a CenturyLink sales representative misrepresent Click! call 253-502-8900 to report it.

Pricing for broadband on Tacoma’s Click! Network

AT&T is being fingered as the party responsible for rendering Oakland’s $18 million dollar P25 digital public safety radio communications system unreliable, because police and fire radios are often inoperable near the company’s cell towers.

After more than a year of repeated failures and complaints from Oakland police over garbled communications, dead spots, and reception problems, investigators dispatched from the Federal Communications Commission finally identified the source of most of the problems: AT&T.

“If the officer is in an area close to one of their cell sites, essentially the cell site overpowers their radios,” said David Cruise, Oakland’s public safety systems adviser.

The system, built by Harris Corporation of Melbourne, Fla. is suspected of being intolerant of strong cell signals operating on nearby frequencies. The digital nature of the system means degraded communications often go unheard, and firefighters and police officers have complained loudly and repeatedly they have been unable to summon dispatchers while experiencing interference problems. The investigation found the problems are worst within a quarter to a half-mile from one of AT&T’s many cell sites.

The source of the interference is AT&T’s 2G network, operated on 850MHz. Oakland’s public safety P25 system operates on multiple frequencies nearby from 851-854MHz.

Under federal law, public safety communications have priority over cell phone service, and AT&T has cooperated by shutting down 2G service on 850MHz on at least 16 cell towers, immediately reducing complaints from police officers and firefighters.

“AT&T would never do anything to jeopardize law enforcement,” AT&T spokesman John Britton told the San Francisco Chronicle. “This spectrum has been out there since the 1990s. Thursday or Friday was the first time we were notified by Oakland. We reacted quickly.”

AT&T won’t say exactly how many cell sites are located in Oakland, but there are more than 1,000 AT&T-owned towers across the greater San Francisco Bay Area. Oakland officials plan to press AT&T to shut down more 2G data service on 850MHz until a solution can be found.

AT&T says only customers with the oldest phones are likely to notice the network shutdowns, because most current customers use 3G or 4G data service, which has not posed an interference problem. AT&T says it still maintains 2G service in San Francisco on 1900MHz, which should be accessible to customers with older phones, although the service may not operate as well on the higher frequency band when obstructions are present between a cell phone user and the nearest cell tower.

Representatives for law enforcement personnel hope the city is on the right track, but point out the Harris-built digital radio system has been nothing but trouble since it was first activated. The system has suffered repeated glitches, does not work inside hundreds of area buildings, and failed the night President Obama visited Oakland in July. Some critics note the Harris system does not even provide reception in the basement of Oakland’s police headquarters.

City officials are also investigating other contributing potential sources of interference, including T-Mobile, which also operates on similar frequencies in the area.

Ironically, the interference problem may have begun after Sprint Nextel committed to spending over a billion dollars to cover the costs of relocating public safety communications further away from its own cellular frequencies. Sprint Nextel paid $10.5 million to move Oakland’s radio system to a frequency further from its own network, but as it turns out, closer to AT&T’s.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KCBS San Francisco Oakland Police Radios Failed During Presidents Visit 7-26-12.mp4[/flv]

KCBS in San Francisco has been pursuing the dilemma of Oakland’s public safety communications system for months. Back in July, police were alarmed when the radio system failed the night President Obama arrived in town.  (3 minutes)

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Oakland police are fed up with the year-old $18 million dollar emergency radio system that they say simply does not work. KCBS investigates in this mid-August report.  (4 minutes)

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KCBS San Francisco ATT Cellphone Towers Blamed For Oakland Police Radio Failures 8-21-12.mp4[/flv]

Investigators from the Federal Communications Commission finally identified a major source of Oakland’s radio problems: AT&T cell sites.  (2 minutes)

Greenwich Village business owner Louis Wintermeyer has spent the last three months without phone or broadband service from Verizon Communications.

“It is hard to believe it has gone on this long,” Wintermeyer told the New York Post. “You feel like you’re in Bangladesh here. I mean we’re in the West Village!”

Across Manhattan, and well into upstate New York, Verizon customers who start experiencing landline problems often keep experiencing them for weeks or months on end.

Wintermeyer couldn’t wait that long — he relocated his car-export company to his Rockland County home. Another Verizon customer in the same building — the Darling advertising agency, experienced intermittent outages adding up to 10 weeks of no service since February.

“We really sounded like amateurs,” Jeroen Bours, president of the Darling advertising agency told the Post. “We would be in a conference call, and all of a sudden the call would go. It just doesn’t really make a good impression.”

In the Adirondack hamlet of Wanakena, when the rain arrives, Verizon service leaves a lot to be desired.

One person’s phone may be working but the one next door will be completely out of service or crackly at best, according to local residents.

“It’s almost comical,” Ranger school director Christopher L. Westbrook told the Watertown Daily Times. “It’s so bizarre because some phones will be working while others are not.”

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WWNY Watertown Phone Situation Improving Officials Say 8-3-12.mp4[/flv]

A fiber optic line cut near Cicero, N.Y. in early August disrupted phone and cellular service from Verizon across the North Country. WWNY in Watertown covers the event.  (1 minute)

One Adirondack Park Agency commissioner who lives in the area says he has been without a phone 15 times in the last two months. Unfortunately for North Country residents, cell phone service is often not an option, because carriers don’t provide reliable wireless service in the region.

Local businesses cannot process credit card transactions, broadband service goes down, and a handful of privately-owned pay phones out of service for months have been abandoned by their independent owner because of the ongoing service problems.

Verizon repair crews come and go, but affected customers report a real reluctance by Verizon technicians to complete repairs once and for all.

“The permanent fix is not happening,” says Angie K. Oliver, owner of the Wanakena General Store.

Bours said one Verizon technician told him the company no longer cares about its older copper wire landline business. Rural residents upstate sense the company has little interest spending money on deteriorating infrastructure.

Some Wanakena residents suspect Verizon has thrown in the towel in St. Lawrence and Franklin counties, where independent Nicholville Telephone subsidiary Slic Network Solutions is constructing over 800 miles of fiber optic cable and operates a fiber to the home broadband and phone service.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WWNY Watertown Lewis County Phone Service Restored 8-20-11.mp4[/flv]

Last summer, Lewis County suffered a similar widespread phone service outage that left businesses and homes without service for days.  WWNY says Barnes Corners was hardest hit.  (1 minute) 

Verizon spokesman John J. Bonomo blamed lightning strikes for the problems in Wanakena, but said the cable serving the area was intact and should not be responsible for service outages.

Gray

Near Syracuse University, some businesses and residents were without phone service for nearly two weeks in June.

The largest outage began when more than 150 customers around SU lost service after a storm. More than a week later, nearly two dozen customers were still without service, including the 4,000 member U.S. Institute for Theater Technology.

A damaged underground phone cable was deemed responsible, but repairs were slow.

Earlier this month, Massena town supervisor Joseph Gray fired off a letter to the deputy Secretary of State after a major Verizon line north of Syracuse was damaged, cutting off landline and cell phone service throughout Jefferson and St. Lawrence counties.

“I would have called your office to speak with you directly, but I couldn’t because our telephone service was unavailable,” Gray wrote. “Since I became supervisor of the town of Massena just over two and a half years ago, on at least three different occasions telecommunications in the entire North Country has been thrown into chaos because a Verizon fiber optic cable was cut 150 miles from here. Many of us found our emergency services, business, residential, and cellular telephone service interrupted, not to mention disabled credit card machines, facsimile machines and Internet service in some cases.”

Gray criticized the Public Service Commission for allowing Verizon to operate without service redundancy in the state, providing backup facilities if a fiber cut occurs.

“As a result, the Public Service Commission (which perhaps should be given a different name if my experiences with them is typical), has done nothing to address this dangerous situation and, more incredibly, appears unwilling to acknowledge that the problem exists,” Gray said.

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman blasted Verizon’s poor landline service in a petition sent to the New York State Public Service Commission. Schneiderman called Verizon’s service unacceptable in New York, with customers forced to wait inordinate periods to get service restored.

“Verizon’s management has demonstrated that it is unwilling to compete to retain its wireline customer base, and instead is entirely focused on expanding its wireless business affiliate,” said Schneiderman’s office.

Schneiderman’s office filed evidence in July that Verizon was undercutting its landline business in New York and diverting money for other purposes:

• Verizon’s claim it had spent more than $1 billion in investments to its landline network was misleading: Roughly three-quarters of the money was actually spent on transport facilities to serve wireless cell sites and ongoing spending on FiOS in areas already committed to get the fiber-to-the-home service;
• Verizon investment in landlines has declined even faster than its line losses. The dollars per access line budgeted for 2012 is one-third less than the investment for the 2007-2009 period;
• In just a five month period, 19.5% of the company’s 4.3 million customer lines in New York required repair. This means every Verizon customer will need an average of one repair every five years;
• Verizon’s complaint rate with the PSC has exceeded the PSC’s own limit for good service every month since June 2010. Most recently, Verizon exceeded the limit by more than double the threshold;
• Verizon’s agreement with the Commission establishes two classes of customers: “core” customers (8%) that qualify for enhanced repair service because they are elderly and/or have medical problems and non-core customers (virtually everyone else). The Commission only enforces service standards and repair lapses with “core” customers, which are required to have out of service lines restored within 24 hours 80% of the time. Verizon is free to delay other repairs indefinitely without consequence.
• The PSC has already fined Verizon $400,000 earlier this year for poor service from October-December 2011.

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WWNY talks with Massena town supervisor Joseph Gray, who has launched a campaign to force Verizon to develop a plan to better handle outages in northern New York. (2 minutes)

Verizon Wireless has settled a complaint brought by consumer group Free Press that accused the wireless carrier of violating federal rules allowing customers to use their phones as mobile hotspots or for tethering with the apps of their choosing.

The Federal Communications Commission announced Verizon had agreed to pay $1.25 million to the U.S. Treasury for violating the conditions of its 700MHz “C”-Block licenses, which carry the provision that Verizon not “deny, limit, or restrict” customers from using the applications or devices of their choosing.

Instead of abiding by those rules, Verizon Wireless reportedly pressured Google to disable and restrict tethering applications in the Google Play Store, forcing most customers to purchase Verizon’s Mobile Hotspot/Tethering service which, at the time, was priced at an additional $30 a month. Verizon Wireless’ recent plan changes now include tethering and mobile hotspot service for no additional monthly fee, although customers are subject to usage caps and overlimit fees.

“The FCC sent a strong signal to the market that companies cannot ignore their pro-consumer obligations,” said Free Press policy director Matt Wood. “Unfortunately, the fact that Verizon worked to block these apps in the first place is a clear indication that wireless providers have a strong incentive to discriminate against certain content and applications, an incentive that continues to threaten online freedom and innovation.”

Free Press notes consumers of other carriers lack the same protection Verizon’s customers have under the law. Verizon agreed to the more consumer-friendly language as part of its purchase of the frequencies where the company operates its 4G network.

Time Warner Cable is facing possible prosecution for vandalism over sidewalk graffiti the company used in Redondo Beach, Calif. to advertise its Wi-Fi network — a service the city claims the company has no authorization to provide.

Redondo Beach officials immediately began receiving complaints the morning of July 5 when Time Warner Cable’s blue chalk advertising messages began appearing all over the city’s sidewalks.

City councilman Steve Aspel told the cable operator’s director of government relations that constituents were upset about the large promotional messages.

Time Warner’s Wi-Fi equipment (City of Redondo Beach)

“It really pissed me off and everybody in the neighborhood too,” Aspel told Time Warner’s Steven Sawyer. “Please have your company never do that again.”

Aspel told Sawyer nobody knew the messages were written in chalk, which will likely dissipate in a few days or sooner in any significant rain storm. The thought the cable company might have used blue paint on public sidewalks enraged several local residents.

But city officials were even more concerned about the fact Time Warner Cable has a Wi-Fi service up and running in Redondo Beach, without any permission from city officials to either install or operate it.

Assistant City Manager Marissa Christiansen told the council Time Warner was not allowed to operate any Wi-Fi network inside the city without explicit permission from the council. The city had been negotiating with the cable operator to grant permission to install the necessary Wi-Fi hotspots in the city’s right of way, but the cable company went ahead and installed them anyway, according to city manager Bill Workman.

“When we actually saw the markings on the sidewalk and put two and two together that it had all gone on without all the things we had discussed in those meetings, we, too, were very upset,” Workman said. “Very clearly, this is outside of their state franchise.”

Cable operators also require a building permit to install new equipment on public property.

Sawyer told the city council Time Warner apologized for the sidewalk markings, and the company moved quickly to remove them.

“We’ve done these markings in other cities and have never had an issue,” Sawyer said.

City attorney Mike Webb said there is an active criminal investigation underway to determine if the sidewalk messages are criminal graffiti, and was not in a position to elaborate as to if or when the cable operator would be prosecuted for violating the city’s municipal code.

Discussions about the Wi-Fi service itself are reportedly ongoing.

Time Warner Cable is planning major expansion of its network of Wi-Fi hotspots across southern California and into other service areas nationwide in the coming years.