Time Warner Cable has appealed to the Secretary of the New York Department of Public Service to keep information about taxpayer-subsidized broadband expansion projects in New York a secret.

The case is part of a series of ongoing requests for disclosure of information about the proposed merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable under New York’s Freedom of Information Law.

Several public interest groups are requesting copies of documents submitted to the state Public Service Commission that the two cable operators have repeatedly asserted should remain confidential. Gerald Norlander from the Public Utility Law Project has been seeking details about how the two companies plan to address New York’s rural broadband dilemma before any decision about the merger is made by state regulators. Norlander requested copies of documents that include details about Time Warner’s taxpayer-subsidized rural broadband expansion under the auspices of Gov. Cuomo’s Connect NY program. Time Warner wants to keep the information confidential, citing competitive concerns.

New York Administrative Law Judge David L. Prestemon ruled earlier this month that while Time Warner could maintain secrecy in the early stages of its proposed expansion efforts, once the company disclosed details about a project in a public filing with state or local officials, confidentiality should be lifted.

Prestemon rejected efforts by Time Warner Cable to maintain confidentiality even after news of one broadband expansion project was reported by Albany-area media outlets. Prestemon added that public regulatory filings submitted by the company as a project commences effectively places information about it in the public domain.

Counsel for Time Warner Cable rejected that assertion, claiming information found in certain regulatory filings or in a newspaper article lacks the granularity sought by Time Warner’s competitors.

“Simply because physical construction begins on a project does not mean that the public or competitors would be aware of who is completing the project, the geographic extent of the project, the number of passings, or the estimated completion date,” argued Maureen O. Helmer and Laura L. Mona in an appeal filed by Time Warner’s legal team at Hiscock & Barclay, LLP. “This information would be difficult and costly for a competitor to compile, such that disclosure would significantly harm Time Warner Cable’s competitive advantage.”

The attorneys revealed Time Warner Cable’s use of subcontractors is already helping shield the company from having expansion projects become public knowledge:

Time Warner Cable typically uses subcontractors to complete the physical construction. Therefore, the vehicles used to construct the build-out are often not Time Warner Cable owned vehicles. While Time Warner Cable generally requires contractors to display signs stating “Contractor for Time Warner Cable,” the existence of construction vehicles on the side of a road would not convey to an average member of the public or a competitor that Time Warner Cable was engaged in construction of new facilities, as opposed to repair, maintenance, or some other activity. In similar fashion, if a Time Warner Cable vehicle was present on the side of a road, it would not mean that a new build-out was being constructed as the vehicle could be performing any number of tasks that would not be known to the public.

Norlander’s group is concerned Comcast intends to combine Time Warner Cable’s systems in New York and could focus entirely on large urban markets while potentially abandoning rural customers to maximize revenue.

This is the third time Time Warner Cable has appealed one of Judge Prestemon’s rulings on this subject.

Comcast’s dependence on third-party contractors to support its cable plant and handle certain service calls has made a few companies very rich while putting several others into bankruptcy.

In March, Cable Line, Inc., and McLaughlin Communications filed suit against the cable company in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court for putting them out of business after being compelled “to start and finance work in new markets, only to abandon [both] firms once they had been induced to create the infrastructure necessary for Comcast’s expansion.”

Attorney Charles Mandracchia alleges both companies were sold on Comcast’s commitments and hired and trained scores of workers, opened new facilities and borrowed heavily to finance purchases of trucks and equipment only to face what the suit calls an arbitrary cancellation of both companies’ contracts while their workforce was hired away by firms favored by Comcast.

“This is about more than my company,” Cable Line owner Kevin Diehl told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “‘Scale up or die,’ they told us. I bought a Harrisburg warehouse and a Perkasie office,” and built his staff up to 120 workers.

Comcast’s dependence on Diehl’s firm was so strong, the cable company enforced a no-compete clause in Cable Line’s contract to block a lucrative acquisition offer from another company in the early 2000s.

Things changed dramatically in 2012 when Comcast suddenly canceled its contract and gave Cable Line’s business to larger firms that recruited away his trained workforce. Cable Line went out of business shortly afterwards. McLaughlin makes similar claims.

“Comcast clearly had a decided intent and plan to eliminate small companies like Cable Line and McLaughlin Communications in order to monopolize the market, and in fact it did precisely that,” according to the lawsuit.

Allegations of corruption were included in a similar federal lawsuit filed by an Illinois-based cable installer, Frontline Communications, that claimed top Comcast officials “accepted cash, gifts and other benefits” in exchange for awarding installation contracts to favored firms. That case was dismissed on a technicality and has yet to be refiled.

A handful of firms favored by Comcast have done well as favored partners. Dycom, a Florida-based telecommunications installer with a nationwide footprint has acquired a number of smaller competitors over the last three years and disclosed to the Securities & Exchange Commission that just three companies — AT&T, CenturyLink and Comcast account for 39% of its business. If Comcast and Time Warner Cable win merger approval, that number will increase to above 50%.

With consolidation of third-party cable contractors continuing, workers have seen dramatic compensation cuts. Installers working for Dyson-acquired Prince Telecommunications accuse the company of cutting their labor rate in half. Others complain contractors force them to buy their own tools, under-compensate for fuel and don’t pay workers when they arrive to find subscribers not at home to accept a service call.

“This consolidation across the country is very bad for skilled cable technicians, who now have very few choices of employment,” Diehl told the newspaper, warning that installers working for Time Warner Cable will see even more dramatic compensation and benefits cuts “as Comcast gobbles them up.”

Diehl told the newspaper he personally helped build Comcast’s cable system in the Philadelphia suburbs and calls it “obsolete.”

“It should be fully fiber. It should have a bigger power supply, like FiOS,” Diehl said. “That’s why your TV sometimes doesn’t work after a storm.”

Earlier this week, UniTek Global Services Inc., a Blue Bell company that employs 3,200 people installing DirecTV, ATT, Comcast and other TV and Internet systems, filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in federal bankruptcy court in Wilmington, Del. The company is seeking a “comprehensive debt restructuring” after trying to diversify its business portfolio beyond its major clients, including Comcast.

Money for some

Time Warner Cable will pay $416 million in retention bonuses to the company’s top and middle management to entice them to stay with the cable company as its merger deal with Comcast is scrutinized by regulators.

The bulk of the bonuses will be paid to the company’s top executives in New York, but an additional 1,800 middle management employees would also receive twice their regularly scheduled annual equity award to compensate for canceled awards in 2015 and 2016. About 15,000 rank and file employees eligible to participate in Time Warner’s supplemental bonus program will receive a much smaller bonus — averaging less than $70 per employee.

While upper level management will gorge on cash and stock, middle management will receive stock only. Rank and file employees will receive a token payout amounting to 50 percent of their target bonus for 2014. Recipients may want to save the money. As part of Comcast’s plans to realize cost savings from the merger, many employees of Time Warner Cable’s call centers and technical staff may not have a future paycheck at all if the merger is approved. Comcast relies heavily on existing offshore call centers for customer service and subcontracts a significant percentage of engineering and service call work to third-party subcontractors.

Among the top recipients of the largesse:

• Time Warner Cable CEO Rob Marcus, who will receive a golden parachute package worth $81.8 million in cash, restricted stock and stock options. Because his compensation package is so large, Time Warner Cable has also agreed to pay an extra $300,000 to allow Marcus to hire his own financial planning firm to manage the enormous sums involved;
• The other top five executives of Time Warner Cable in New York will share more than $136 million in golden parachute compensation. They will have to figure out how to spend the money on their own.

Omario Kris Henley Carlyle, 33, was charged with burglary and two counts of battery after kicking in the door of two Florida Comcast customers and attacking them.

At the recent Public Service Commission hearing held in Buffalo, I promised the commissioners a comparison of the type of service Comcast customers have gotten in the past vs. what Time Warner Cable customers have received. Neither company is a prize by any means, but at least with Time Warner Cable, your chances of surviving a service call unscathed are far better than being robbed, raped, or murdered by one of Comcast’s sketchy sub-contractors.

There are too many examples to bring to light in just one article so we’re launching a regular series of reports, illustrating these are not isolated problems and are unlikely to go away anytime soon.

In today’s edition, Comcast’s image isn’t helped hiring a homeless man who defecated in a customer’s yard, Comcast sub-contractor rapists run amuck, and why you should never leave a Comcast worker alone in your home:

The Chicagoist: “When he cut my throat I thought I was going to be dead,” said Natasha Saine. Saine was attacked in 1996 in Little Rock, Arkansas by Ceotis Franks, an independent contractor paid by Comcast to install their cable service. Franks also, “…raped her, threw her in a bathtub and tried electrocuting her. He even set her bedroom on fire.”

Boston Globe: Braintree Town Council reprimanded Comcast this week after one (homeless) worker for a subcontractor it hired to hand out flyers door-to-door allegedly defecated in a resident’s yard, and two others were arrested by police on outstanding warrants.

XFINITY Wi-Fi may be here, but good customer service sure isn’t as these Walden residents wait in line over an hour for assistance.

Gloucester Times: A cable television salesman and installer admitted yesterday to swiping jewelry from two apartments in a Route 1 complex where he was working last month. But Brian Kuschner, 37, of Manchester, N.H., is only serving time for one of those thefts, after making an unusual deal with Danvers police. Kuschner was part of a crew of workers hired by a subcontractor for Comcast selling cable packages and upgrading cable service at the upscale Endicott Green Apartments on Route 1 on the evening of Nov. 23 when he was sent to apartment 1303. The resident told police that when she went into the bedroom after Kuschner left she realized that a Rolex watch was missing from a dresser. She immediately called police, who rounded up all the Comcast workers at the complex’s clubhouse.

TCPalm: Comcast cable installer accused of attacking customers in their home in Indian River County – A cable service contractor kicked in the door of a home and attacked two customers at their home Saturday, according to an Indian River County Sheriff’s Office affidavit.

J.R. Roberts Security Strategies/Sacramento Bee: A former cable television installer with a history of sex crimes was sentenced to 37 years in prison Friday for raping a developmentally disabled Carmichael, California woman while working in her neighborhood. Judge Michael T. Garcia sentenced Luis Jeovanny Saravia, 31, in Sacramento Superior Court, closing the criminal prosecution for the 20-year-old woman and her family. Luis Saravia had worked for Links Communication, a Sacramento-based firm contracted by Comcast.

Semmes, Attorneys At Law: How Comcast legally washes its hands of any responsibility for the conduct of their subcontractor installers.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Worst ever customer service from Comcast.mp4[/flv]

In this lighter moment, Comcast kept these customers in Malden, Mass. waiting more than one hour at their customer service center with just one employee barely interacting with customers while the other three service windows remained closed and the line stretched out the door. Finally, someone offering worse service than the DMV! (1:44)

Time Warner Cable truck?
(Image: WHAM-TV)

A Time Warner Cable contractor threatened to cut off cable service for a Brighton, N.Y. woman after arriving at her doorstep demanding a credit card payment. Suspicious, she called police.

While snapping photos of a blue truck with a Time Warner Cable logo on its side, the woman, identified only as “Michelle,” contacted Time Warner Cable customer service and was told the man was not a Time Warner employee and she should call the cops.

The customer had every right to be suspicious,” said Brighton Police Chief Mark Henderson.

Brighton police quickly tracked down the truck after the incident and discovered the driver was, in fact, a Time Warner Cable subcontractor. He was unable to show any work order for the address and Michelle claimed her account was current, leaving no reason to demand payment on the spot at her front door under threat of service suspension.

A Time Warner Cable spokesperson said that customers should ask for proper identification if they receive an unexpected visit from the cable company. In the meantime, Time Warner is reviewing the case, especially because contract workers are not authorized to process credit card payments.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WHAM Rochester Police track down Time Warner subcontractor 12-13.flv[/flv]

WHAM-TV in Rochester reports Brighton Police tracked down the suspicious Time Warner worker and discovered he was a sub-contractor not authorized to accept credit card payments. (1:37)