Randolph (Chesterfield Township Police booking photo)

Even with proper identification, the cable guy who comes to install or repair your cable service may not be trustworthy.

Maureen Sharp of Chesterfield Township, Mich. discovered that for herself when she called Comcast to help fix a problem with a phone line.

The cable company sent Lequentin Ahmad Randolph, 22, who told the family to leave their own bedroom while he “checked for a problem.”

Instead, he allegedly checked out Laureen’s armoire and emptied it of its contents — $10,000 worth of sentimental jewelry including her wedding ring.

Randolph, a Detroit resident, was found nearby by local authorities and was pulled over still in his cable truck. Chesterfield Township police found two pieces of gold jewelry on the driver’s seat, the rest in a bag hidden behind a panel in the truck.

Comcast immediately declared they were not responsible and had no comment regarding the alleged actions of the cable repairman because he was an employee working for LE Com Communications, a contractor hired by Comcast to handle routine installation and repair work.

Randolph was booked for felony larceny and was scheduled for a preliminary hearing today.

[flv width=”360″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WXYZ Detroit Cable Guy Allegedly Steals Jewel From Womans Home 7-24-12.mp4[/flv]

WXYZ in Detroit says one Chesterfield Township family’s trust has been shaken after welcoming a cable repairman into their home that allegedly robbed them of $10,000 in sentimental jewelry.  (2 minutes)

In the eyes of many entertainment executives, pressing fast forward to skip past commercials recorded by your DVR is a crime, and they want it stopped.

We’ve made progress. In the 1970s and early 1980s, those same executives were arguing recording a television show itself was a crime.

The copyright infringement wars continue, beyond college students facing ruinous lawsuits from the recording industry or movie studios sending a blizzard of subpoenas to Internet Service Providers seeking the names and addresses of those suspected of using file swapping networks.

With the increasing concentration and combination of entertainment conglomerates, the reflexive need to “control” the medium and means of distribution is gaining a receptive audience in Washington and in the courts, threatening to influence what you can and cannot do with the programming you pay to watch.

The impact is also weighing on innovative new technology from small companies like Aereo and much larger ones like Dish Network that have attempted to launch new services that challenge the conventional ways Americans watch entertainment. The result for all concerned: lawsuits designed to stifle anything the media business perceives as an imminent threat.

Dish Network has a new DVR box that can automatically skip past commercials on selected networks. The satellite company’s new “Hopper” DVR automatically records eight days’ of prime time programming from the four major American broadcast networks, analyzes the programming to find commercials, and allows subscribers to watch the recorded shows “ad-free” just hours after the original broadcast.

Major entertainment moguls immediately denounced the feature as criminal theft.

“If there were no advertising revenues, the free broadcast television model in the United States would collapse,” wrote an alarmed News Corp. (owner of FOX Broadcasting) in its complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court. That network also accuses Dish of violating their contract with FOX and copyright infringement.

“Of course, you know this means war.” — Dish’s new AutoHop feature raises the ire of the entertainment industry.

“This service takes existing network content and modifies it in a manner that is unauthorized and illegal,” CBS said in a prepared statement, echoing earlier statements that have historically argued recording, modifying, or re-purposing broadcast content in any way is automatically a violation of federal law, copyright, or the terms and conditions under which the network makes programming available for viewing.

NBC and ABC filed their own complaints against the technology as well.

Technically speaking, subscribers who pay a cable or satellite provider for television programming are already paying extra for the programming they are watching, negating the usual arguments commercial sponsorship covers the cost of watching “free TV” (that isn’t always free) and skipping commercials is the same as stealing.

Commercial television business models in the United States increasingly rely on “retransmission consent” fees — money paid by your satellite, cable, or phone company to the programmer for permission to carry a channel on their lineup. Virtually all of those fees are passed along to consumers as part of their monthly bill.

Some station owner groups are willing to play extreme hardball to get viewers to pay up -and- win the right to put a piece of tape over their fast forward buttons to keep them from skipping commercials on their stations.

Dallas-based Hoak Media is an example. Viewers in Panama City, Fla. were without WMBB-TV, the Hoak-owned ABC affiliate, on Dish Network for a week. Hoak Media pulled the plug on viewers earlier this month after Hoak demanded a 200% increase in retransmission consent payments and the disabling of Dish’s AutoHop commercial-skipping technology. Thirteen other Hoak stations around the country were also pulled off the satellite TV service.

“WMBB and Hoak don’t respect customer control — they are telling customers they must watch commercials,” Dave Shull, senior vice president of programming for Dish, said in a news release. “Channel skipping has been around since the advent of the remote and we think Hoak has taken an incredibly hostile stance toward their viewers.”

WMBB’s station management appeared caught off guard by their owners back in Dallas. WMBB General Manager Terry Cole admitted he didn’t even know about the AutoHop feature Hoak was demanding be disabled. A week later, the dispute appeared settled and the stations were back on Dish.

Entertainment executives are hopeful their deep pockets and industry partnerships with content distributors will ultimately win the day. They have a few things they can count in their corner.

In 2002, some of the same companies protesting Dish filed suit against ReplayTV, which had its own automated commercial skipping technology. The case dragged its way through the courts, with mounting legal expenses eventually forcing ReplayTV out of business. Problem solved.

The use of deep pockets have also intimidated other innovative ventures such as Aereo, which delivers over-the-air New York City stations online to a paying local subscriber base.

Innovation like that is also a concern to the cable industry, which itself has been around since the 1970s. Developing an online alternative to the local cable company puts cable TV executives in the same position entertainment industry executives live to fear: a threat to the business model that has earned billions in profits. In those terms, some cable operators seem willing to support the entertainment industry, even at the expense of their own customers.

That may explain why Time Warner Cable applied for, and won, their own patent for technology that disables fast-forward functionality on digital video recorders.

“Advertisers may not be willing to pay as much to place advertisements if they know that users may fast forward through the advertisement and thus not receive the desired sales message,” the cable company explains in its patent application. “Content providers may not be willing to grant rights in their content, or may want to charge more, if trick modes are permitted.”

The technology would look for digitally embedded cue tones, which are today used mostly to let local stations and cable operators insert their own local advertising messages on a network feed, to block fast forwarding past those ads.

Time Warner Cable is not likely to implement the technology anytime soon, not if they expect customers to continue to pay well over $10 a month for a recording device that won’t allow them to skip commercials.

Comcast is taking a different approach, considering plans to insert billboard advertising messages that automatically appear on-screen whenever a customer hits their fast-forward button. Broadcasters and networks have no love for that feature either, claiming it changes the programming the consumer recorded and represents… yes, copyright infringement.

Courts will once again have to find a balance between consumers’ home recording rights and the rights of large entertainment and cable companies. With more courts increasingly favorable to the notion of corporate rights enjoying equal prominence with those of citizens, who ultimately wins the right to your fast forward button remains a toss-up.

This scrap copper wire is as good as gold

While telephone companies continue to suffer repeated outages from copper wire thieves, the growing problem of copper theft has now begun to impact cable-TV providers and even electric service in some areas.

Over the Memorial Day holiday, thieves were busy stripping phone, cable, and electric wiring from utility poles, underground conduit, and even buildings. Windstream suffered significant losses in the greater Tulsa area late last week when thieves sliced through wiring supporting phone, television, and broadband service, quickly spooling it up on pickup trucks to be hauled to copper recyclers, often to finance drug habits.

Windstream reports the problem of copper wire theft is growing and becoming more widespread, especially in out of the way places where thieves are not likely to be caught in the act. The Tulsa-area copper capers are characterized as semi-professional because thieves are starting to use professional tools to quickly slice through wiring and can scoop up 1,000 feet or more of cable in minutes.

Copper theft has even become a problem in office parks, where thieves are stealing high voltage electrical cables, often at the point where they attach to buildings. One Albuquerque radio station was off the air for nearly 14 hours after thieves ripped the radio station’s electrical wiring right off the building and out of the underground conduit.

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KOKI in Tulsa takes a look at the latest wave in copper cable theft — stealing cable television -and- telephone wires that disrupt phone, TV and Internet service all at once. (Warning: Loud Volume) (2 minutes)

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KOB in Albuquerque talks with a nearby radio station taken off the air when cable thieves cut the building’s electrical wiring and yanked some of it right out of the ground.  (2 minutes)

AT&T is facing a class action lawsuit from customers who allege the wireless giant is profiting handsomely from the stolen smartphone trade.

The suit, filed in California, claims AT&T makes customers purchase new cell phones to replace stolen ones, while allowing the thieves to sell phones to buyers who can walk into any AT&T store and reactivate them with a new SIM card, helpfully supplied by AT&T.

In effect, the lawsuit argues, AT&T is earning new revenue from victims forced to purchase a new phone as well as from the buyers of stolen phones who reactivate as new paying AT&T customers.

A Salt Lake City television station couldn’t believe AT&T was looking the other way when dealing with the pervasive problem of cell phone theft, so they sent reporters undercover with a deactivated iPhone that was reported stolen, and found AT&T employees ready and willing to reactivate the dead phone.

“All you would have to do is pay for the plan, said the unnamed AT&T agent. “We’ll set up your account with your ID and then put the new SIM card in there and put money on it.”

Those victimized by smartphone theft found AT&T agents less helpful, as KTVX reports:

At a second store I tell an agent “I think my phone has been stolen.” Unlike the claims in the lawsuit, this agent at a second store tells me he can suspend the service, but there’s no way to shut the phone down.

The agent said, “If they tried to activate it, we don’t have a way to flag serial numbers on the phone unfortunately.”

So the thief has an activated phone and the victim is left buying a new one for several hundred bucks.

AT&T claims the suit is without merit.  The company also claims it is working with other cell phone providers and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), to establish a new database of stolen cell phones.  When a smartphone is reported stolen, the forthcoming policy would guarantee the phone could not be reactivated with any participating carrier.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KTVX Salt Lake City Class action lawsuit claims ATT helps cell phones thieves for profit 4-30-12.mp4[/flv]

KTVX reporters go undercover and visit a few Salt Lake City AT&T stores to learn if the phone company is aiding and abetting smartphone thieves.  (2 minutes)

Cablevision is using contract workers that have subsequently been accused of sexual assault and theft during service calls.

Last week, a Stony Point, N.Y., subcontractor handling repairs on behalf of the cable company was charged with a misdemeanor sex crime, after allegedly kissing and touching a Cablevision customer without her consent.

Jonathan Malave, 29, of Belleville, N.J., was charged after Stony Point police investigated a complaint filed by a woman in her 20s who claimed Malave made sexual advances while she was home alone.

Malave

Lt. Keith Williams told The Journal News Malave was there to repair the woman’s cable modem, but instead allegedly made unwanted advances towards the woman, first kissing and then reaching down and touching her.

Malave quickly left the customer’s home after the incident without making the repairs and the woman called police.  Malave was picked up by Stony Point authorities within hours, charged with inappropriate touching, and is expected to appear and answer the charges in Town Court on May 15.

This is not Cablevision’s first problem with subcontractors.

In late January, a South Salem, N.Y. customer reported that nearly $100 in change was stolen from her home while a Cablevision technician was there to repair cable-TV wiring.

The customer said the only individual with access to the money, other than herself, was the Cablevision worker.  Lewisboro police later learned the employee hadn’t directly worked for Cablevision, but was in fact a subcontractor working on behalf of the company. Individuals who are also facing similar charges should hire a criminal defence lawyer to ensure their rights are protected. In cases of assault and battery, make sure to contact battery attorneys. You may consult the experts from criminal law Schaumburg for professional legal services. You should also learn how to remove mugshots online if you have a criminal record and mugshot you want to expunge from the internet.

Cable companies increasingly rely on subcontractors to perform basic installation and repair work, and some critics say lax hiring standards can present a risk to customers.

But Cablevision spokesman Jim Maiella told the newspaper, “We take the safety and security of our customers very seriously. We are investigating the matter fully and cooperating with authorities.”

The editor of Fierce Cable believes Cablevision should focus more on protecting subscribers than contractors:

Cablevision refuses to name the contractor that employs him. The company also declined to comment when asked if it performs background checks on employees who visit subscriber homes.

[…] Cablevision may resist detailing the names of its technology suppliers for competitive reasons, but there is no legitimate reason to refuse to share the names of companies it hires to visit subscriber homes. It’s also not unreasonable for Cablevision to share information about whether or not it investigates if an employee has a criminal record before he is allowed to enter the home of one of its subscribers.

[…] Cablevision could better protect its subscribers, and it could also perform a service for its fellow cable MSOs, if it were to disclose the name of the contractor.