Milton, Vermont

Jesse and his nearby neighbors on the west side of Milton are frustrated.  They live just 20 minutes away from Burlington, the largest city in the state of Vermont.  Despite the proximity to a city with nearly 40,000 residents, there is no cell phone coverage in western Milton, no cable television service, and no DSL service from FairPoint Communications.  For this part of Milton, it’s living living in 1990, where dial-up service was one’s gateway to the Internet.

Jesse and his immediate neighbors haven’t given up searching for broadband service options, but they face a united front of intransigent operators who refuse to make the investment to extend service down his well-populated street.

“After many calls to Comcast, they eventually sent us an estimate for over $17,000 to bring service to us, despite being less than a mile from their nearest station,” Jesse tells Vermont Public Radio.  “They also made it very clear that there was no plan at any point in the future, 2010 or beyond, to come here unless we paid them the money.”

Jesse and his neighbors want to give Comcast money, but not $17,000.

For at least 15 percent of Vermonters, Jesse’s story is their story.  Broadband simply remains elusive and out of reach.

Three years ago, Vermont’s Republican governor Jim Douglas announced the state would achieve 100 percent broadband coverage by 2010, making Vermont the nation’s first “e-State.”

Vermont Public Radio reviewed the progress Vermont is making towards becoming America’s first e-State. (January 20, 2010) (30 minutes)
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Gov. Douglas

In June 2007 the state passed Act 79, legislation that established the Vermont Telecommunications Authority to facilitate the establishment and delivery of mobile phone and Internet access infrastructure and services for residents and businesses throughout Vermont.

The VTA, under the early leadership of Bill Shuttleworth, a former Verizon Communications senior manager, launched a modest broadband grant program to incrementally expand broadband access, often through existing service providers who agreed to use the money to extend service to unserved neighborhoods.

The Authority also acts as a clearinghouse for coordinating information about broadband projects across the state, although it doesn’t have any authority over those projects.  Lately, the VTA has been backing Google’s “Think Big With a Gig” Initiative, except it promotes the state as a great choice for fiber, not just one or two communities within Vermont.

[flv width=”480″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Google Fiber Vermont 3-22-10.mp4[/flv]

Vermont used this video to promote their bid to become a Google Fiber state.  (2 minutes)

Some of the most dramatic expansion plans come from the East Central Vermont Community Fiber Network.  ECFiber, a group of 22 local municipalities, in partnership with ValleyNet, a Vermont non-profit organization, is planning to implement a high-capacity fiber-optic network capable of serving 100% of homes and businesses in participating towns with Internet, telephone and cable television service.  In 2008, the group coalesced around a proposal to construct a major fiber-to-the-home project to extend broadband across areas that often don’t even have slower speed DSL.

The ECFiber project brought communities together to provide the kind of broadband service private companies refused to provide. Vermont Public Radio explores the project and the enthusiasm of residents hopeful they will finally be able to get broadband service. (March 8, 2008) (24 minutes)
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ECFiber's Partner Communities

The Vermont towns, which together number roughly 55,000 residents, decided to build their own network after FairPoint Communications and local cable companies refused to extend the reach of their services.  Providers claim expanding service is not financially viable.  For residents like sheep farmer Marian White, interviewed by The Wall Street Journal, that means another year of paying $60 a month for satellite fraudband, the speed and consumption-limited satellite Internet service.

White calls the satellite service unreliable, especially in winter when snow accumulates on the dish.  Unlike many broadband users who vegetate for hours browsing the web, White actually gets an exercise routine while trying to get her satellite service to work.

“I open a window and I take a pan of water and, a cup at a time, I launch warm water at the satellite dish until I have melted all the snow off the dish,” Ms. White says. “It works.”

Other residents treat accessing the Internet the same way rural Americans plan a trip into town to buy supplies.

Kathi Terami from Tunbridge makes a list of things to do online and then, once a week, travels into town to visit the local public library which has a high speed connection.  Terami downloads Sesame Street podcasts for her children, watches YouTube links sent by her sister, and tries to download whatever she thinks she might want to see or use over the coming week.

A fiber to the home network like ECFiber would change everything for small town Vermonters.  The implications are enormous according to project manager Tim Nulty.

“People are truly afraid their communities are going to die if they aren’t on the communications medium that drives the country culturally and economically,” he says. “It’s one of the most intensely felt political issues in Vermont after health care.”

Despite the plan’s good intentions, one obstacle after another has prevented ECFiber from making much headway:

• The VTA rejected the proposal in 2008, calling it unfeasible;
• Plans over the summer and fall of 2008 to approach big national investment banks ran head-on into the sub-prime mortgage collapse, which caused banks to stop lending;
• An alternative plan to build the network with public debt financing, using smaller investors, collapsed along with Lehman Brothers on September 14, 2008;
• An attempt by Senator Pat Leahy (D-Vermont) to insert federal loan guarantees into the stimulus bill in February 2009 was thwarted by partisan wrangling;
• Attempts to secure federal broadband grant stimulus funding has been rejected by the Commerce Department;
• Opposition to the plan and objections over its funding come from incumbent providers like FairPoint, who claim the project is unnecessary because they will provide service in those areas… eventually.

For the indefinite future, it appears Ms. White will continue to throw warm cups of water out the window on cold winter mornings.

Vermont Edition takes a comprehensive look at where the state stands in broadband and wireless deployment. (April 8, 2009) (46 minutes)
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For every Tunbridge resident with a story about life without broadband, there are many more across Vermont living with hit or miss Internet access.

Take Marie from Middlesex.

Most residents in more rural areas of Vermont get service where they can from FairPoint Communications

“I am in Middlesex, about a half-mile off Route 2, and five minutes from the Capitol Building. Yet up until just recently, we had no sign of high-speed Internet. I understand that my neighbors just received DSL a few weeks ago, but when I call FairPoint, they tell me it’s still not available at my house, which is a few hundred yards up the hill. Hopefully, they’re wrong and I’ll see DSL soon,” she says.

Marie is pining for yesterday’s broadband technology — FairPoint’s 1.5Mbps basic DSL service, now considered below the proposed minimum speeds to qualify for “broadband” in the National Broadband Plan.  For Marie, it’s better than nothing.

Geryll in Goshen also lacks DSL and probably wouldn’t want it from FairPoint anyway.

“We have barely reliable landline service. A tech is at my house at least three times per year. I was told the lines are so old they are decaying. Using dial-up is impossible. I use satellite which is very expensive and is in my opinion only one step up from dial-up. I am limited to downloads and penalized if I reach my daily limit,” he says.

Many Vermonters acknowledge Douglas’ planned 100-percent-broadband-coverage-by-2010 won’t come close to achievement and many are highly skeptical they will ever see the day where every resident who wants broadband service can get it.

Chip in Cabot is among them, jaded after six years of arguments with FairPoint Communications and its predecessor Verizon about obtaining access to DSL.  It took a cooperative FairPoint engineer outside of the business office to finally get Chip service.  His neighbors were not so lucky, most emphatically rejected for DSL service from an intransigent FairPoint:

“I laughed when Governor Douglas announced his e-State goal “by 2010” three years ago. Now I’m thinking I should have made some bets on this claim. It took years of legal battles and a zoning variance to obtain partial cell coverage here in Cabot. Large parts of the town still do not have any cell coverage. Governor Douglas can perhaps be forgiven – he has no technical knowledge, and as a politician would be expected to be wildly optimistic about such “e-State” claims. The Vermont Telecommunications Authority and the Department of Public Service should know better however. We’re talking about rural areas where there is no financial incentive to provide either DSL or cell service. It will take a huge amount of money to provide service to those remaining parts of the state. I’m not optimistic.”

[flv width=”512″ height=”308″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Wall Street Journal Vermont Broadband Problems 03-02-09.flv[/flv]

The Wall Street Journal chronicled the challenges Vermonters face when broadband is unavailable to them.  ECFiber may solve these problems.  Some of the stories in our article are reflected in this well-done video.  (3/2/2009 — 4 Minutes)

South Africa is the latest country on the way to finally discarding Internet Overcharging schemes like usage caps and usage-based billing.

MWEB, one of South Africa’s largest residential broadband service providers, last week “threw down the gauntlet” and unveiled an unlimited broadband option among its various rate plans.

“We realized there’s a major gap in the market. South Africa doesn’t experience the Internet like the rest of the world does. It’s a fantastic opportunity to change the Internet in South Africa,” MWEB CEO Rudi Jansen told News24.

For a country that has never known anything but expensive, slow, usage-capped Internet, MWEB’s announcement is nothing short of a broadband revolution for 49 million South Africans.

“This is not the end. There are still probably three or four big things that have to change in this market and for us, this is the first step. The other things that have to change are we have to get the mobile operators to offer wholesale data. The more competition there is, the better it is for the market,” said Jansen.

For $73.50US per month, MWEB offers 4Mbps DSL service that is truly unlimited, which is a radical notion in a country used to usage caps averaging 3GB per month.  Customers willing to tolerate slower speeds can reduce their unlimited broadband bill considerably — 384kbps starts at $30 a month; 512kbps is priced at $41 a month.  The company does admit to throttling torrent services, but customers have managed to bypass the throttle by encrypting their torrent traffic.

Although these speeds and prices are terrible in comparison to North American broadband plans, for South Africans, MWEB’s announcement was big news.  That’s because the competition charges far higher prices, often for limited service:

• Telkom, South Africa’s state phone company, wants $35US monthly, five dollars more than MWEB’s lowest speed unlimited alternative, for its DSL service with a 3GB usage allowance;
• Paying $39.50US per month buys you 10GB of usage from Afrihost;
• Using 3G wireless mobile alternatives are for the deep-pocketed only.  Paying $65.50US per month nets you less than a 2GB usage allowance;
• South Africa’s ‘Screamer’ offers a pricey unlimited plan at $54US per month for 384kbps service;
• Neotel offers an unlimited service package, but it’s so confusing few customers can be certain what they’re getting.  (Read this South African blogger’s experience with Neotel.)

MWEB hired marketing firm Quirk to generate buzz about the company’s unlimited service option.  Earlier this month, a Facebook group called Free the Web popped up asking consumers what improvements were needed in South Africa’s broadband service.  It attracted more than 15,000 followers in just two weeks.

What were South Africans complaining about?  Usage caps. Broadband users despise them, especially in a country where 5-10GB allowances are considered ‘generous.’  But the lack of competition for monopoly state-owned phone company Telkom also featured prominently.  Most South Africans rely on DSL service that first starts with renting a line from Telkom.  Telkom prices those in accordance with its monopoly status, and requires consumers to pay line rental fees combining both data and voice services, even if a customer only intends to use the line for data.  Because ADSL broadband speed is totally dependent on the phone company, and Telkom has no incentive to upgrade, few in South Africa can expect to see broadband service exceeding 4-8Mbps.  Most obtain considerably less, often well below 1Mbps.

“Telkom has to allow users of ADSL to split the line rental for the telephone line and the line rental for ADSL. That absolutely has to happen; then this market will grow,” Jansen said.

Jansen

MWEB hopes the unveiling of unlimited broadband will transform South Africans use of the Internet and bring prices down.

“Ubiquitous broadband is what this country needs to grow. We want to do our part in getting South Africa there,” said Jansen. “I hope [our competitors] follow us because I think as a country we desperately need it.”

Jansen may have his wish.  Hours after MWEB announced unlimited broadband, its competitors began to follow suit, meaning South Africans can finally follow Australians and New Zealanders discarding hated Internet Overcharging schemes.

Mybroadband.co.za took note of several broadband package changes coming as a direct result of MWEB’s new service (One South African Rand = 13.6 US cents):

Vox Telecom responded quickly and announced that @lantic will be launching bundled ADSL offerings – which include both ADSL access and an uncapped ISP account.  Pricing starts at R339 for a DSL384 bundle while a 512 Kbps service will cost R589 and a 4 Mbps solution R889.  This undercuts MWEB’s bundled pricing by R10 per month.

Openweb also joined the price war by announcing that they will resell MWEB accounts at the same rates as MWEB.

This is however not where it ends.  Afrihost said that consumers can look forward to their uncapped ADSL services next week, and G-Connect also indicated that they will respond to MWEB’s recent announcement with a competing service.

Even the state monopoly phone company Telkom has started talking about offering unlimited service.

“Uncapped speed-locked ADSL service consumer offerings are in development. However, no time-frames, offering specifications or price points can be disclosed at this stage. In the development process, Telkom is striving for optimal quality, reliability and affordability,” said Ajith Bridgraj, Telkom Senior Specialist for Media Relations.

MWEB expects a surge of new customers, which leads some to worry if the company can sustain its network under the burden of throngs of new customers.  Jansen says they can, noting their connectivity ultimately comes from Seacom, which is an important provider of international connectivity between Africa, Europe, and beyond.

Early tests by Mybroadband appear positive:

MyBroadband got its hands on an uncapped 4 Mbps test account to take the service through its paces – and early test results are very promising.

For basic email and surfing the MWEB uncapped account performed well, and results from Speedtest.net were on par with SAIX and IS based offerings.

Local Speedtest.net downlink speeds ranged between 3.28 Mbps and 4.13 Mbps while local uplink speeds ranged between 0.26 Mbps and 0.42 Mbps.

International Speedtest.net results – tested with servers in London, New York and Brussels – ranged between 2.96 Mbps and 3.61 Mbps while international uplink speeds were fairly steady at between 0.3 Mbps and 0.32 Mbps.

Local latency was fairly consistent and ranged between 17 ms and 41 ms in tests to Johannesburg and Cape Town based servers.  International latency was however less consistent, and ranged between 285 ms and 528 ms to the UK and US.

The MWEB uncapped account performed well with all bandwidth intensive applications.

YouTube videos streamed without any buffering, but some buffering was needed when moving to high definition video streaming (480p and more specifically 720p).

Standard file download speeds were quite consistent at between  2 Mbps and 3.4 Mbps while multi-threaded FTP and HTTP downloads sat at around 3.2 Mbps.

Good news for those keen on torrent services is that the MWEB uncapped account seems torrent friendly.  We selected 10 of the most popular torrents, and total download speeds ranged between 2.8 Mbps and 3.2 Mbps.

American broadband providers contemplating Internet Overcharging schemes of their own often point to usage limits and usage-based billing schemes that exist in other countries, implying they are well-tolerated by consumers abroad and should be likewise domestically.  The truth is, such pricing schemes are as despised abroad as they are domestically, and most countries seeking to improve broadband consider eliminating them a top priority.

[flv width=”448″ height=”356″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Carte Blanche Consumer – No Broader Than a Band.flv[/flv]

South African news program ‘Carte Blanche’ provides this general overview of the current state of broadband in South Africa, and the challenges that must be faced to improve it. (10 minutes)

[flv width=”384″ height=”308″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/News24 MWEB Unveils Unlimited Broadband 3-19-10.mp4[/flv]

South Africa’s News24 network reported on MWEB’s unlimited broadband package including an interview with MWEB CEO Rudi Jansen. (3 minutes)

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/South African Broadband.flv[/flv]

As part of MWEB’s social marketing campaign, ordinary South Africans talk about their broadband experiences, what the Internet has done for them, and the things they hate the most about South African Internet Service Providers. (9 minutes)

American Salt Company's salt pile in Hampton Corners, just south of Rochester, N.Y.

Faithful Stop the Cap! reader Lance dropped us a note this afternoon alerting us that Syracuse is the latest Time Warner Cable city getting the benefits of increased speed from Time Warner Cable’s DOCSIS 3 Wideband upgrade.

While those in the Salt City can now sign up for 50Mbps broadband service, Time Warner Cable tells residents of the Flower City to go pound salt — there are no upgrades for you!

Why?

Thank Frontier Communications anemic (read that barely-existent) competition against Time Warner Cable in Rochester.  While the rest of upstate New York is being wired for fiber-to-the-home service from Verizon, Frontier Communications is relying on decade-old DSL service… indefinitely.  For residents like myself, that topped out at a whopping 3.1Mbps. That fails the FCC’s newly-proposed minimum speed to even be considered “broadband.”

Buffalo has been Wideband ready since early this month, and New York City launched service last year.

The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle must have noticed nearby cities were getting speed increases, but Rochester was not, so they contacted Time Warner Cable to find out why:

While those DOCSIS 3.0 products — called Wideband and Road Runner Extreme — are being made available in Buffalo and Syracuse, the company “has just begun its national launch of this product across its entire footprint, but with no additional locations determined at this time,” said spokesman Jeff Unaitis.

The company, however, does plan to roll out a wireless broadband product for the Rochester market before the end of 2010, he said.

(*) - As long as you don't live in Rochester, N.Y.

That’s the nice way of saying Rochester isn’t getting the speed increases because there is no competitive reason to provide it.  With Rochester left off the upgrade list, and no real incentive to run to Frontier (which can’t beat Road Runner’s existing speeds), this community falls behind the rest of the state in broadband speed.

To think last April Time Warner Cable was promising dramatically upgraded service, if the community agreed to accept their Internet Overcharging usage-based billing scheme.  Apparently no other upstate city was required to commit to ripoff pricing, and speed upgrades came anyway.  The fact Rochester is bypassed this year proves our contention their pricing experiment came to Rochester only because they faced no real competitive threat from Frontier then, and they still do not today.

As for the wireless product coming to Rochester, that will come courtesy of rebranded Clearwire service, which has had very mixed reviews.  Time Warner Cable and Comcast are both major investors in Clearwire, and are using their service to provide a wireless add-on.  It won’t come cheap, however, if North Carolina’s pricing also applies here:

• Road Runner Mobile 4G National Elite gives unlimited access to both Time Warner Cable’s 4G Mobile Network and a national 3G network (Sprint, presumably), for use when traveling.
  o $79.95 per month for Road Runner Standard or Turbo customers.
• Road Runner Mobile 4G Elite gives customers unlimited access to the Time Warner Cable 4G Mobile Network.
  o $49.95 per month for Road Runner Standard or Turbo customers.
• Road Runner Mobile 4G Choice gives light users 2GB of service on the Time Warner Cable 4G network each month.
  o Available for $39.95 per month to customers of at least one other Time Warner Cable service.  Additional $5 off if you have a  bundled service package.

As for Wideband pricing, Syracuse residents should expect to pay:

• 30/5Mbps: $25 more than standard Road Runner service;
• 50/5Mbps: $99 per month, but ask about promotional pricing, which may be available.

In Syracuse, Road Runner speed now matches Verizon FiOS on the downstream side, although Verizon can deliver better upload speed at 20Mbps.  Formerly, Road Runner maxed out at 15Mbps in central New York.

About 30 percent of the central New York division of Time Warner Cable is now Wideband-ready, including the entire city of Syracuse.  By October, the company expects to have the faster service available in 70 percent of the central New York area.

Mediacom is the nation's eighth largest cable company, serving 1.3 million customers in 22 states

Customers across the country are growing increasingly annoyed with Mediacom, the nation’s eighth largest cable operator that scored rock bottom in this year’s Consumer Reports cable survey.

The complaints keep on piling up: unfulfilled service calls, uninformed customer service agents in the Philippines, poor quality service, and in one case, a supervisor more concerned about how a customer obtained her direct number than actually resolving the customer’s problems.

The fallout from irritated customers now extends beyond horror stories from some of the company’s 1.3 million customers in 22 states — it’s now costing the company rejection of extended franchise renewal agreements in some communities, and plenty of bad press.

Boone County, Illinois

Boone County, Illinois

Last spring, Boone County began discussions about renewing a cable franchise Mediacom had with the county for some 20 years.  Public meetings to discuss the renewal brought throngs of customers annoyed with Mediacom’s poor performance.

The Rockford Register-Star took up the story:

Candlewick Lake resident Roger McGee Sr. has been experiencing difficulties with his cable company since he moved to the gated community two years ago.

McGee, a former Huntley resident, said he’s spent more time trying to get resolutions to his cable and Internet issues than he ever imagined was possible. “Every single step of the way the customer service was horrible and mismanaged,” he said Wednesday. “I talked to Mediacom more than I talked to my wife in those three months.”

Mediacom representatives characterized the complaints as mere aberrations and suggested isolated complaints could be resolved without impacting the company’s franchise renewal.  But additional public meetings held later that summer illustrated Mediacom had problems in the north-central Illinois region where it provided service.  The Register-Star reported:

George Chorvat has experienced countless issues with Mediacom Communications, and he’s looking for relief. The Poplar Grove resident isn’t alone.

Chorvat attended the county’s second cable hearing Tuesday at the Belvidere Township Building along with roughly 20 residents to speak out about service woes and to provide input on the county’s nonexclusive franchise renewal, which is in the negotiation phase.

“You took away half of our movie channels and said it was OK because we had On Demand, but we do not and we’re paying the same price,” Chorvat said.

His challenge of the offerings provided by Mediacom was one of several problems residents said they face.

Some residents detailed months of waiting for maintenance cable wires to be buried underground. Others told of weeks without phone service or waiting at home for technicians to arrive for scheduled appointments only to find the cable company had canceled them.

Late last month, Boone County granted the cable company a one-year extension of its cable franchise, citing customer complaints as the primary reason for the short-term extension.  In addition, the county will hold a series of public meetings at three, six, and nine month intervals over the coming year to check on customer service concerns and how Mediacom responds to them before considering a five year franchise extension.

The interim extension also keeps Mediacom from using telecom-friendly legislation to obtain a franchise from the Illinois state government, bypassing local officials.  Statewide franchising in Illinois was the brainchild of AT&T, which wants to expand U-verse without having to answer to local communities.  Mediacom has the ability to hop on board the same provisions to avoid local control if local governments refuse to extend a franchise agreement.

“We need to make sure we keep some county control here,” board member Karl Johnson told the newspaper in February. “No matter how big we think we are here, they’re a whole lot bigger when they come through downstate.”

Johnson heard several complaints from Mediacom customers about missed appointments, incomplete wire maintenance, and some who went weeks without Mediacom phone or broadband service.

Springfield, Missouri

Springfield, Missouri

Cable customers who experience problems expect answers when calling customer service, but Springfield resident Nancy Walker found herself empty-handed after speaking with a Mediacom representative thousands of miles away — in the Philippines.

“I am really upset,” Walker told the Springfield News-Leader in February. “I want a local number I can call, not the Philippines.”

She finally resorted to calling the office number of a friend who once worked for Mediacom before that friend passed away.  A supervisor was more concerned about how she obtained that number than helping her, Walker said.

Mediacom disconnected its local call center about three years ago, and company officials admitted they route calls to call centers, including one in the Philippines.  Larry Peterson, regional vice president of Mediacom, said the company dropped the ball on Ms. Walker, finding the customer service she received “unacceptable.”  Peterson handed Walker his business card and promised any issues would be resolved.

For customers who do not have Peterson’s personal office number, many just have to take their chances.

Springfield’s Cable TV Advisory Commission, which actually holds almost no real power over Mediacom, thought the company could do better.

Commission member Rita Silic urged the cable company to find a way to route dissatisfied customer calls back to a local Mediacom representative.

Dave Iseman, editorial page editor of the News-Leader, opined Mediacom needs “a full-fledged apologetic jingle. And it better be a long one, considering the waiting time that can be necessary to phone in a complaint.”

Burlington, Iowa

The fact Mediacom rated near the bottom in Consumer Reports‘ latest ranking of telecommunications companies — 24th among 27 Internet providers, 15th among 16 television service providers and dead last among 23 telephone providers — didn’t escape the attention of Burlington-based newspaper The Hawk Eye.  The newspaper noticed local complaints were continuing to pour in about service quality and trouble reaching customer service.

Columnist Don Henry even wrote about his own personal experiences with Mediacom in December:

Mediacom last month took away the religious programming my wife enjoys: I guess she shouldn’t complain.

They also poked out one of C-SPAN’s eyes on Congress. The Nancy Pelosi House of Horrors remains fit for family viewing, but not the Senate Shell Game. No explanation of why and I watched both — but I’m not complaining.

We were satisfied with “expanded basic” — but Mediacom decided to improve our viewing experience by removing four channels and making us rent some new box gadget to see them, plus a few we didn’t need.

Lest you complain, you get one box free … until they automatically raise your bill a year later. Conservatives think God trumps Harry Reid, so our box went into Sandy’s exercise room. She’s not complaining.

Henry’s problems only got worse from there, including e-mail disruptions and other service outages.  He did what most customers do when their service is on the fritz — he called the cable company.  That turned out to be quite an adventure:

“For e-mail problems, press 1; otherwise, stay on the line.”

I pressed 1.

“For e-mail problems, press 1; otherwise, stay on the line.”

Burlington, Iowa

I pressed 1.

“For e-mail problems, press 1; otherwise, stay on the line.”

After maybe 10 replays, I disobeyed. I stayed on the line … and waited … and waited … until my patience wore thin enough to drive to the Mediacom office on Division Street. I talked to a rep who seemed blissfully unaware of any e-mail problems. It’s been over a day and I’m far from alone, I said.

“Well, nobody’s told us.”

Could you ask about it?

“I can’t do that.”

Could you at least adjust my bill for the lost service?

“I don’t know of that ever being done.”

You used to, when I could get someone by phone.

“Then you’ll have to call.”

Henry’s column struck a nerve among local residents, who flooded the newspaper with comments about their own horror stories, ranging from pesky squirrels chewing through fiber optic cables to tsunamis of spam after the company “improved” its e-mail service.

Phyllis Peters, communications director for Mediacom, admitted the company could improve its customer service, but decided to devote most of her attention to taking issue with… Consumer Reports‘ survey.  Peters wants customers to know Mediacom isn’t dead last in the country because the magazine didn’t ask customers about every cable provider in the United States.  She’s certain there are worse examples out there:

Peters said one reason the survey might rate Mediacom so poorly is because of the company’s ambition. Mediacom is the nation’s eighth largest cable company, and focuses on providing cable coverage to non-metropolitan areas. Expanding service over a large area means more fiberoptic cable and servers that must be monitored.

Peters said the top-ranking cable company Wow, which had top scores on almost every attribute in the ratings, serves a much smaller, consolidated area than Mediacom. Wow is the 12th largest cable provider in the country, and services parts of Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. Consumer Reports was enthusiastic about the company, but acknowledged its small size.

“We would like to be higher in the rankings. We’ve put a lot of effort into customer service, and we did add a lot of calling staff,” Peters said. “Those things have moved forward in a significant way, and it takes a while for perception to change.”

It may not always be easy to get a Mediacom representative on the phone, but the company offers the fastest Internet service in Burlington, she said. The company offers a standard download speed of 12 megabytes per second, and that service can be upgraded to 20 megabytes per second for a higher price.

Competition for Burlington residents’ broadband needs come mostly from Qwest, which offers most customers 1.2 Mbps DSL service, although the company can provide up to 7 Mbps in selected neighborhoods.

Max Phillips, president of the western Iowa division of Qwest, told The Hawk Eye he doesn’t know if the company will be able to provide higher speeds to Burlington in the near future.

“We have a long-term plan to bring higher speeds, but our business is constrained by the government model,” he said, whatever that is supposed to mean.

Carthage, Illinois

Carthage, Illinois

Mediacom has been out of luck securing a franchise renewal in Carthage because of ongoing customer complaints about the quality of service being provided to Hancock County residents.

Carthage has been without a Mediacom franchise agreement since the old one expired last June.

A proposed renewal was shot down by the city after a vote failed to approve it, citing reception complaints.  Mediacom has been asking the city for a franchise renewal ever since, but the city has resorted to four-month extensions, waiting to see what service improvements were forthcoming in the interim.

Mediacom installed new hardware in the community, which it felt would improve reception, and city officials were hopeful the noted drop in complaints reaching them was an indication of that.

But in February, complaints began arriving at the city’s doorstep once again.

Carthage Mayor Jim Nightingale said he heard two complaints right after the city council offered the latest extension.

Now he’s withdrawn the offer.

Mediacom can always appeal to the state of Illinois to seek a new franchise under statewide franchise laws, but discussions with city officials are continuing for now.

Prior Lake, Minnesota

Prior Lake, Minnesota

Communities looking for competitive alternatives to Mediacom usually find phone companies who refuse to offer video service in Mediacom service areas, because the cable company typically chooses smaller communities where such “telco-TV” projects don’t meet the minimum Return On Investment requirements necessary to build them.  Some communities served by independent phone companies or are lucky enough to find a willing fiber-to-the-home provider are in better shape, unless the cable company files suit to stop such projects from moving forward.

The community of Prior Lake, twenty miles outside of Minneapolis, and its 16,000 residents are a case in point.

Last fall, Mediacom filed suit against Integra Telecom, a Portland, Oregon-based provider of competitive voice, broadband, and television service that won a franchise agreement to provide “telco-TV” in Prior Lake and nearby communities within its existing service area.

The suit claims city officials discriminated against Mediacom by not compelling Integra to meet the same terms and conditions Mediacom agreed to in a 1999 franchise agreement. Specifically, Mediacom wants Integra held to the same requirement it agreed to in defining its service area.  Because Integra is not planning on matching Mediacom’s service area house by house, Mediacom claims they are in violation of Minnesota law.

That suit is awaiting a hearing in the state Court of Appeals expected to begin this month.

The dispute between Mediacom and the city has led one state senator to write legislation clarifying the existing cable franchise laws in Minnesota.

Senator Scott Dibble (DFL-Minneapolis), has introduced Senate File 2535.  The bill would allow telephone companies to provide competitive service within their natural service areas, instead of being required to match incumbent cable operator coverage areas.  For example, a cable company might serve a broader area where multiple phone companies provide service.  Under current state law, competing phone companies could be required to wire every area where the incumbent cable company provides service, even inside other phone company’s service areas.  Senate File 2535 recognizes the current telephone company service area boundaries as acceptable enough to proceed with a video franchise agreement.

Integra's service area in the Minneapolis/St. Paul region, which is not identical to Mediacom's service area, is one point of contention between Mediacom and Prior Lake officials

Prior Lake City Manager Frank Boyles and Senator Claire Robling (R-Jordan), both testified in favor of the bill at a recent hearing held by the state Senate Committee on Energy, Utilities, Technology and Communications. The bill was approved unanimously and now moves to the State and Local Government Operations and Oversight Committee, of which Robling is a member.

The League of Minnesota Cities is also calling on its members and the public to support SF2535 which could speed competition across Minnesota.

Text of Senate Bill 2535:

A bill for an act relating to cable communications; clarifying requirements for the granting of additional cable franchises; amending Minnesota Statutes 2008, section 238.08, subdivision 1.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA:

Section 1. Minnesota Statutes 2008, section 238.08, subdivision 1, is amended to read:

Subdivision 1. Requirement; conditions.

(a) A municipality shall require a franchise or extension permit of any cable communications system providing service within the municipality.

(b) No municipality shall grant an additional franchise for cable service for an area included in an existing franchise on terms and conditions more favorable or less burdensome than those in the existing franchise pertaining to: (1) the area served; (2) public, educational, or governmental access requirements; or (3) franchise fees. The provisions of this paragraph shall not apply when the area in which the additional franchise is being sought is not actually being served by any existing cable communications system holding a franchise for the area. Nothing in this paragraph prevents a municipality from imposing additional terms and conditions on any additional franchises.

(c) An area for an additional cable franchise is not more favorable or less burdensome if the franchisee is a telephone company, as defined in section 237.01, subdivision 7, and the area of the franchise is no less than the area within the municipality in which the telephone company offers local exchange telephone service. This paragraph is in addition to and not a limit to the authority of a municipality to grant an additional franchise for cable service.

Time Warner Cable this week announced it signed up its’ nine-millionth Road Runner customer, making the company the third largest Internet Service Provider in the United States.

Broadband service continues to grab an increasing share of business for the nation’s cable operators, even as they continue to lose video subscribers.  During the last quarter of 2009, Time Warner lost 105,000 video subscribers  but added 120,000 residential high-speed Internet subscriptions.

Nine million subscribers paying even a promotional rate of $30 a month earns the company $270 million dollars a month — $3.24 billion dollars a year.

Hobbs

“This is a great milestone for Time Warner Cable, and it further proves that our customers enjoy the speed and content our HSD products deliver, as well as the value seen when bundling this service with our video and phone offerings,” said Landel Hobbs, COO of Time Warner Cable. “High Speed Data continues to be a growing part of our business and we look to keep adding new features and further enhance speeds as we move through 2010.”

The company claims it has not lost a significant amount of business to its most-feared potential competitor, Verizon’s fiber to the home network FiOS.  But the company is installing DOCSIS 3 upgrades to increase speeds in markets where FiOS competes for broadband customers.  Cable industry experts suggest broadband is becoming a mature industry, and growth from customers new to the high speed experience are fewer in number.  A strong percentage of new Time Warner Cable broadband customers come from landline customers defecting from relatively slower DSL service from phone companies.

As interest in high bandwidth applications like streaming video increase, DSL service can prove a frustrating experience for those stuck with lower speeds.  Despite claims by some phone companies that consumers don’t care about broadband speed, Time Warner Cable will offer increased speed tiers and upgrades in most of its competitive markets in 2010 based on the assumption many customers do.