Invest or die.  That succinctly explains the current state of the landline telephone business and the companies providing service to a decreasing number of Americans.  Some companies, like AT&T and Verizon have heavily diversified their business into wireless, fiber, IPTV and broadband.  Others, like Frontier are hoping their presence in uncompetitive rural markets will keep them in business, as long as their dividends keep stockholders happy.

CenturyLink, which is in the process of absorbing the last remaining Baby Bell — Qwest, has decided to invest in their business to stay competitive with their biggest nemesis — the cable company.  CenturyLink is still hanging on to ADSL broadband service in many rural areas, but the company sees the promise of future relevance with bonded DSL, which is delivering 25/2Mbps broadband service to an increasing number of their customers.  Where distances allow, CenturyLink is at least temporarily providing the fastest residential broadband service available in areas like southwest Florida.  They are holding their own against local cable competitors like Comcast.

Now the company is following AT&T in introducing a new IPTV service to many of its customers.  Dubbed Prism, the U-verse like service delivers a true triple play package to customers who thought they would be stuck with their local cable company or satellite dish provider for TV programming.

Prism offers more than 200 channels, a multi-room DVR capable of recording up to four shows at the same time, and an interactive program guide that doesn’t need an instruction manual to navigate.

[flv width=”640″ height=”390″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Introducing CenturyLink Prism.flv[/flv]

This promotional video introduces CenturyLink’s Prism service and its television features.  (4 minutes)

Prism has been introduced in larger CenturyLink areas ranging from southern Nevada, southwestern Florida, and North Carolina, where EMBARQ used to provide telephone service.

The service works through a hybrid fiber-copper wire IPTV network.  Fiber optic cable reduces the distance data needs to travel over ordinary copper phone wires.  The less copper, the faster the potential speed.  With a 25-30Mbps broadband platform, Prism can divide up available bandwidth to support television, phone, and up to 10Mbps broadband service.  It’s all delivered over the same digital network.  While not as advanced as Verizon FiOS and other fiber to the home networks, IPTV services like Prism and U-verse are cheaper to provide, and that can mean faster deployment in areas not well served by competition.

Reaction to Prism has been generally positive among Stop the Cap! readers who have shared their stories with us.  Among the positives:

• The interactive program guide is light years ahead of Comcast, Cox, and Time Warner Cable;
• Broadband speeds are generally better than the original DSL service CenturyLink used to provide;
• The picture quality is excellent where the telephone network has been upgraded the most;
• Competitive introductory and retention offers mean consumers can pay less for service, at least initially.

But there are some problems, too:

• Bandwidth varies depending on how far away you are from the nearest fiber node.  This affects what you can do with the service.  If you are further out, you can only watch one HD television channel at a time, and may not be able to record more than one HD channel at the same time;
• The DVR box has issues — readers report shows disappear, don’t get recorded, or show poor results when line quality drops;
• Broadband speeds with Prism officially max out at 10Mbps;
• If you are watching a number of televisions at the same time, your broadband speeds could drop;
• Variability in service quality comes largely as a result of inferior copper wire phone networks CenturyLink chose to stick with.  If your phone line is prone to static or hum, or deliver poor results when the weather is bad, Prism might not work well for you.

Some subscribers found they initially loved the service, but when bad weather arrived, it all fell apart.

“Our phone lines are decades old, so this comes as no surprise,” says Manny who writes from Naples, Fla.  “I was also disappointed some of the channels in HD I had with Comcast are not available from Prism.”

In parts of Raleigh, N.C., Prism just launched a few weeks ago.  But some of our readers are sticking with Time Warner Cable.

“After looking over their pricing and packages, Time Warner has more HD channels and doesn’t charge $12 a month extra for them,” writes Ralph.  “CenturyLink also only bundles 3Mbps broadband service with most of their packages, and you have to pay extra for 10Mbps service.”

Ralph thinks Road Runner from the cable company will provide a more consistent broadband experience for his family.

“There is only so much you can push through a phone line at the same time; I like the fact they are competing, but they will not be able to keep up if they rely on copper phone wiring forever,” Ralph says.

Cox faces new competition in southern Nevada

Despite some of the negatives, CenturyLink may deliver formidable competition where cable companies haven’t kept up.  Some other markets where Prism will offer service: Jefferson City, and Columbia, Mo., and La Crosse, Wis.  Cox Cable in southern Nevada is now competing with Prism, and believes it has the superior network.

“The way our system is constructed, we have services equally distributed everywhere in the valley,” Juergen Barbusca, Cox manager of communications, public and government affairs in Las Vegas said. “Everybody in our footprint can get our highest advertised speeds.”

Cable broadband is less susceptible to distance degradation that can make Prism a no-go in neighborhoods at the far end of a phone company’s central office.

Also equally distributed is the price.  Outside of new customer promotions, nobody will save any money here.  Cox and CenturyLink are both selling their respective triple-play packages of TV, Internet, and phone for exactly the same price: $143 a month.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KTNV Las Vegas CenturyLink Prism 2-8-11 WFTX Cape Coral CenturyLink in SW Florida 12-7-10.flv[/flv]

KTNV-TV in Las Vegas introduces viewers to CenturyLink’s Prism service and WFTX-TV in Cape Coral, Florida talks with CenturyLink about their new 25Mbps broadband service in two exceptionally company-friendly pieces from the stations’ respective news shows.  (13 minutes)

Time Warner Cable’s “Whole House DVR” service has arrived on the east coast, and it’s no longer only available to the company’s super-premium customers.  Now every subscriber in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina and South Carolina can get the service without signing up for a $200 monthly service package.

The service’s biggest selling feature is the possibility of starting a recorded show on one television and picking up where you left off on another — perfect for late night viewing that continues in the bedroom before nodding off.  By networking set top boxes to communicate with one-another, customers are no longer tied down to a single television set watching their recorded shows.

The cable company is a bit late to the party.  Verizon FiOS, AT&T’s U-verse, and even satellite providers like DirecTV have offered this functionality for a few years now, but for customers who can’t or don’t do business with those rivals, it’s a nice addition to the company’s offerings.

But how well does it work?  Stop the Cap! found out after having our existing DVR boxes switched out for the new service last week.

Time Warner currently sells the service at different price points.  Bundled customers, especially those buying the company’s expensive Signature Home package for nearly $200 a month, will find the service included in their package.  Customers with bundles of services can upgrade their existing DVR units to Whole House service for just a few dollars more.  Standalone customers will spend $19.99 per month for the service, which includes the DVR box.  (Additional set top boxes on other televisions are provided at the usual rental price, around $7 a month.)

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/TW Cable Whole House DVR.flv[/flv]

Time Warner Cable’s promotional video introducing Whole House DVR service.  (1 minute)

The cable company is deploying different boxes in different areas.  You will end up with the Cisco Explorer 8642HDC, the Motorola DCX3400M or the Samsung SMT-H3272.  These boxes replace any existing DVR equipment already installed, so be prepared to lose your recordings when you upgrade — they cannot be transferred.

Time Warner requires a service call to upgrade your service for the new Whole House DVR.  That’s because the company must install new filters on your cable line which block signals that can interfere with the boxes.  Time Warner uses the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) home networking standard.

Motorola DCX3400M

In our area, the favored box is the Cisco unit.  It’s larger than its predecessor — the Scientific Atlanta 8300,and has an updated look.  The older box was silver in color.  Today’s look demands basic black and the 8642 delivers.  Heat dissipation was obviously a major concern for Cisco, and the box is well ventilated, and even carries a fan, about the size of a CPU.  Hard drive failure is the single most common reason for DVR problems, and a spinning hard drive often throws off considerable heat.  Stacking boxes together in an enclosed home entertainment center cabinet eventually spells doom for many DVR units.  Hopefully, the improved ventilation will reduce those failures.

Capacity has also been an ongoing concern for DVR users.  The hard drives in most traditional DVRs were designed to accommodate standard definition cable programming, not today’s world of HD channel choices.  Time Warner has dramatically beefed up capacity offering Whole House DVR service with 500GB of storage — a major improvement over earlier boxes.  The company says this should allow customers to record up to 75 hours of HD programming.

After Time Warner installed the necessary filters, checked line quality, and verified where we wanted the boxes placed, in came the new equipment.  In addition to the 8642 DVR box downstairs, an accompanying “client” set top unit replaced the existing box we had in the bedroom.  The client boxes are similar in style to the DVR, but considerably smaller.  Time Warner will install the Cisco Explorer 4642HDC, Motorola DCX3200M or Samsung SMT-H3262 on any television where you want to watch your recorded shows.

After installation is complete, Time Warner adds the set top equipment to your account and that authorizes the service.

Recording and watching shows will be very familiar if you have used DVR service from Time Warner before.  Recordings are accessed from client boxes just as if you were in front of a traditional DVR box.

Basic Whole House DVR service allows customers to record two shows at once while also watching a recorded show.  If your home needs additional recording capability, you can obtain additional equipment that will let you record four shows at the same time for an additional charge.

Overall, everything about the service feels evolutionary, not revolutionary.  Time Warner is simply extending the DVR service to additional televisions in the home without the need for DVR equipment on every set.  Taking shows with you from room to room is by far the biggest selling point of Whole House DVR, but it carries a price.  What originally began as a $9.95 add-on for DVR service is quickly getting more costly.  Two rate increases just a few years apart have upped the price for traditional DVR service to $11.95 per month, and now Time Warner is breaking the cost of the recording service out of the price to rent to equipment.  That means you can expect to pay up to $20 a month for DVR service, plus additional rental fees for every additional box in the house.  Packaged bundles can bring those costs down, and asking about special deals and offers before signing up can make a major difference in price.

One thing we do expect in the future: additional leveraging of MoCA technology, which can support far more than just multi-room DVR service.  This technology can handle multiple simultaneous HDTV, SDTV, DVR, data, gaming, and voice streams. It can support up to 1 Gbps home networks and is consistent with DLNA, CableHome, UPnP™ Technology, and 1394.  That means applications like multi-room gaming, or delivering all of your home entertainment system streams across a single coaxial cable is possible.  That could eventually challenge Ethernet cabling common in many newer homes, if improvements in wireless don’t make the very concept of cables obsolete.

What Works

• The service works consistently to record programs as requested, with no missed shows or failures;
• We were able to consistently access recorded shows on the unit with no pixels or glitches when playing them in full;
• The Cisco box remembers where we left off when we partially view recorded shows, for every show. This is an excellent new feature;
• There is plenty of recording space to handle today’s HD viewing choices;
• The box is virtually silent. We never heard the hard drive or any cooling fans, something we could not say about the earlier generation of DVR boxes;
• The menu options now let us consistently watch standard definition channels in “stretch” mode on our television without fussing with the picture settings;
• On demand channels are far more fluid and responsive, especially when accessing shows or flipping channels between them.

What Sort of Works

• Playback functions on client boxes are sloppy. Fast forward and rewind functions are imprecise at best;
• 4x fast forward and rewind functionality is gone;
• We found an inexcusable audio thumping sound present all-too-often during fast forward and rewind functions on client boxes;
• The ponderous Navigator software remains as awful as ever. Intuitive design is lacking, navigating through the on-screen program guide is torture, and managing and finding new shows to record is tedious. When will cable companies simply give up their bad designs and license Tivo?
• Remote recording through Time Warner’s MyServices website or from smartphone applications remains an inconsistent possibility. All too often this service is unavailable, and we found repeated instances when requested shows simply refused to be registered for recording. This remains “beta”-ware;
• If one of your cable boxes crashes, it can mess up your in-home viewing network. Boxes can sometimes become “de-registered” and forgotten by the primary set top DVR box.

What Doesn’t Work At All

• You cannot manage recordings on client boxes. That means you cannot delete old shows or schedule new ones unless you are in front of the DVR box;
• You cannot attach external storage devices to the Cisco set top box we tested, at least not yet. It appears add-on expanded storage, which can increase your recording capacity, is presently disabled;
• Our earlier DVR, the Scientific-Atlanta 8300, recorded several seconds before a recording was scheduled to begin, to make sure the start of a show was not cut off. The 8642 does not do this, so many shows we’ve recorded miss the first 10-20 seconds of the program;
• Multiple DVR homes do not benefit from the ability for one box to pick up recording a show if another is busy or full. This elegant add-on would be a real convenience;
• Rogers Cable customers in Ontario report their boxes do allow external add-on storage, but programming recorded on external hard drives cannot be accessed from client boxes;
• The equipment remains expensive. Canadians can purchase this equipment for under $400CAD, while Time Warner customers will pay rental fees… forever.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/MoCA DVR Installation.mp4[/flv]

Learn more about how MoCA-enabled services like Whole House DVR are installed in this video from the MoCA Alliance.  Ignoring the appalling acting, reminiscent of one of those late night movies on Cinemax where clothes start to come off, the video closely mirrors how our own installation went.  (7 minutes)

Haggling for a better deal from your telecommunications provider is beginning to resemble buying a car.

Less than a day after writing up our experiences with the Customer Retention Department of Time Warner Cable, there have been new developments.

Because our account was configured for a disconnect, a Time Warner retention specialist called us, this time from Albany, N.Y.  His role — to win us back as a Time Warner customer.  His office formerly called customers who turned in their equipment and canceled service, but now that the company is losing more cable-TV customers than it adds, they are now trying to stop disconnects at all costs.

Incredibly, this high-level office was authorized to provide deals even Time Warner’s regional office could not touch.

The best deal we could negotiate with the Buffalo office included the company’s triple play package, Road Runner Turbo, one DVR box and one digital set top box for $132 a month.

That was until we received a call this morning with an offer that blew that out of the water — $79.95 a month for the company’s triple-play package including a year of free DVR service. Putting the two packages together to compare pricing, Albany’s Time Warner office was willing offer that same package for $106.90, plus tax.

That’s a difference of $25 a month.

That’s quite a difference.

But then, on cue, Time Warner proved our earlier point about confusing and conflicting information being thrown at customers.

Minutes after agreeing to that offer, which would have cut some additional red tape from the earlier deal, we were called back and told the deal fell apart, at least temporarily.

It seems customers who agree to an earlier offer end up locking themselves out from something even better.  Because we worked with another retention specialist who partially entered an order into the system, and despite the fact the company called us with something better, they reneged on the better offer.

“I can’t even begin the order,” we were told.  “As long as a pending order is in place, there is nothing we can do.”

We found it odd the company would call us with an offer we couldn’t get.  We were then told that office is authorized to make offers to customers who:

• downgrade to one service;
• have a pending disconnect order;
• actually disconnect service.

We asked if we pulled out of our earlier retention deal, would we then be qualified to proceed with his?  He repeated the three conditions and said he’d love to offer us something but until one of those conditions were in place, he could not.

Hint. Hint.

It’s remarkable Time Warner would offer customers one deal they insist was the best available price, only to have another employee cut $25 off the top without breaking a sweat.  It’s quickly reminding me of my last car buying experience — always a major headache.  So many tricks, traps, and games.

We’ll be bringing this whole matter up with the company shortly.

In the meantime, we’re going to modify our advice to customers searching for a better deal.  Call and schedule a disconnect or downgrade of your service two weeks out, tell the agent you are not prepared to discuss a retention deal, and then wait for them to call you a few days later.  Ours originated from the Time Warner Sales Center at 1-877-726-0712, for those who check caller ID.

Ask about the triple play $79 offer that includes a year of free DVR service.

Oh, and about the free “DVR service.”  We learned Time Warner no longer considers the “service” the same as the “box.”  This word salad means customers pay about $8 and change for the DVR hardware, but get the “service” that let’s you record shows on the equipment for free — a $3 value.

We told you it was confusing.

[Updated: 1:02pm ET — We just spoke with Time Warner Cable, who apologized for the confusion over pricing and the follow-up retention call we received.  Time Warner Cable will honor any offers made by any of their agents, so with the assistance of a supervisor, we were able to take advantage of this offer after all.  They even threw in free Turbo service for a year, free Showtime, and gave us a “whole house DVR” at a special rate, bringing the total out of the door price to around $116 a month, including all equipment.  When Road Runner Extreme (30/5Mbps) service arrives, that will run an additional $10 per month.  The entire ordeal netted us almost $60 a month in savings, more if we didn’t upgrade to the “whole house DVR.”]

A massive fire raced through 62 apartments at the Galleria apartment home complex in Fargo, N.D., in mid-October leaving two firefighters temporarily trapped and 150 residents with nowhere to stay.

As displaced residents contemplated the loss of their personal possessions, dealt with insurance company red tape in trying to get temporary housing allowances, and coped emotionally through the devastation, Cable One, the complex’s cable operator (owned by the Washington Post), wanted to let fire victims know they were thinking of them… and the hundreds of dollars in cable equipment lost in the fire.

“We’ve been hurt too,” Cable One’s General Manager Scott Geston actually told NBC’s Today show.

Two days after the fire, Cable One started reaching out to some fire victims demanding payment for their lost cable equipment, payable with cash, check (with proper ID of course), or money order… or else.

Cash, check, or money order?

“When may we expect payment?” was the most important question on the cable company’s mind according to several residents infuriated by Cable One’s completely unsympathetic attitude.

In Fargo, local stores, churches, community groups and individuals are donating time, money, and even places to stay for displaced Galleria residents or their pets. Cable One’s disaster recovery plan is to hurry out bills for $1,000 or more for their lost equipment.

“They can… exhale rapidly on me,” writes former Galleria resident Jim who found Stop the Cap! thanks to the Washington Post‘s opposition to Net Neutrality.  “I ‘re-phrased’ that because I am sure your group has readers of all ages, but I think most can put it together.”

Jim said Cable One is trolling around looking for at least $1,000 from him for equipment incinerated in the fire.

“We are staying at a extended-stay motel on an emergency stipend and these bloodsuckers have started demanding money,” he writes. “If only my renter’s insurance agent was as aggressive in handling my claim.”

Other fire victims are reporting similar experiences of unparalleled aggressiveness by the cable operator, literally hours after the fire.

It’s also the talk of Fargo:

Some fire victims say the pain and suffering they endured from the cable company didn’t start with the fire, because Cable One provided bad service all along.  But now that the fire is over, the company’s attitude towards the fire victims shows the true extent of how low this cable company can go.

“It’s all about the money with them — they want their money, and some fellow victims tell me the company has been increasing the dollar amounts demanded,” Jim writes.

When will Jim be paying Cable One?  “When hell freezes over.”

Pets rescued from the fire at the Galleria

That’s an attitude shared by several Galleria residents.

It’s also an attitude expressed by many other cable and satellite companies who would not think of charging fire victims for equipment lost in tragic circumstances like this.  The damage to the company’s reputation would be worth more than the value of the lost equipment.

“If you have a crappy reputation to start with, there is little to lose acting like insensitive thugs in cases like this,” according to Jim.

Many residents have other issues more important than repaying the cable company for cable boxes.  Many Galleria renters with pets are discovering finding a new permanent home may mean giving up their dogs and cats — they are not allowed at most Fargo apartment complexes.

After the local and national media pounced on the story, Cable One retracted their earlier insistence on being paid… slightly.

The Associated Press reported Cable One has now agreed to “eat the cost of damaged equipment for customers with modems, telephones or digital receivers.”

But the company still demands payment for lost DVR boxes, which Geston says are worth $500 new. The company wants residents with renter’s insurance to submit claims. For those without insurance, Geston says Cable One is open to resolving the issue by determining a fair payment plan.

Customer Rick told a Fargo TV station they shouldn’t hold their breath waiting for his check. He won’t be paying them. “No. On principle, I’m not.”

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KVLY Fargo Cable One Wants Their Money 10-17-10.flv[/flv]

KVLY-TV in Fargo shares the story of upset fire victims horrified Cable One is demanding hundreds of dollars to replace lost cable equipment, in some cases just 48 hours after the fire.  (3 minutes)

Get used to seeing this screen because we saw it for minutes on end when testing Time Warner's new Remote DVR service.

Time Warner Cable has launched its free Remote DVR programming service throughout the country, allowing customers to remotely manage their DVRs from the cable company’s website or through a smartphone application.

Stop the Cap! gave the service a test run this morning to see how well it works.

Here are some of our early impressions using the online, web-based interface (we did not test the smartphone application):

1.  The service is in beta and it showed.  Our first attempt to use the system this morning was laboriously slow, taking 30 seconds or more to change pages.  Things worked better as the morning progressed, but it still suffers from sluggish responsiveness.  Several features failed for us occasionally, such as deleting some scheduled recordings remotely.  After two minutes or more of waiting, we gave up.

2.  The application was generally intuitive and we did not need a lot of hand-holding to get started. But at the same time, the usefulness of the application itself was limited.  Scrolling through the online program grid was as tedious as the using the television version.  It’s fine if you know exactly what you want to watch and what channels to check, but terrible for browsing through hundreds of channels.

3.  The search and browse functions are far too limited to be useful.  It is impossible, for instance, to search just for movies.  Categories are too broad to be of much use, and many are missing.  “Drama” and “Action” included everything from a documentary to a series to a movie.  Netflix succeeds where Time Warner fails.  Their search categories are much better — documentaries, TV series, horror, foreign and classic films, and many more make it far easier to drill down to the type of show you want to see.  Netflix even offers sub-categories, helping people find similar programs to watch they never realized were available.

4.  Changing the name of the DVR from its hexadecimal default did not work consistently.  When we tried to rename ours to “Living Room,” sometimes it appeared that way, other times it defaulted back to the cryptic “DVR 00:xx:92.E9.xx.xx” (we replaced some numbers and letters with “x”).

5.  The more scheduled recordings you have, the more ponderous the application seemed to work.  We tried deleting some series (which did not always work either) and it helped responsiveness.  If you use your DVR a lot, you may find using Remote DVR a patience-testing experience.

6.  There did not seem to be an indicator as to how much recording space you have remaining or what is already stored on your DVR.

Time Warner customers who use smartphones and other Web-enabled mobile devices can access “Remote DVR Manager” at mdvr.timewarnercable.com.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/TWC Introducing Remote DVR.flv[/flv]

Time Warner Cable produced this video to help introduce customers to its Remote DVR service, explaining how to register and get started with the free service.  (1 minute)