Rep. Marilyn Avila’s (R-Time Warner Cable) anti-community broadband bill will be up for a vote this Wednesday in the Public Utilities Committee (Room 643, 12 noon) in the state legislature.

The bill was custom-written by Time Warner Cable to eliminate competition and keep your broadband prices high and speeds slow.  The proposed bill, H129 is bad news for every North Carolinian:

1. It will drive existing community networks out of business with onerous conditions;
2. It will damage the state’s credit rating and reputation when community networks fail under the legislative burdens that Time Warner Cable made certain it was exempt from;
3. It will harm local jobs.  Advanced fiber optic cables and equipment are also manufactured in North Carolina;
4. It destroys investment in the high tech infrastructure required to survive in the growing digital economy;
5. It guarantees that rural residents will never have access to the same kinds of broadband choices urban consumers and businesses have.

Nine high tech businesses and associations serving North Carolina have signed a letter telling the Legislature this bill will stifle high technology business in North Carolina.

But Marilyn Avila does not care.  She is only working for the interests of a single cable company that donates to her political campaigns.

Tell your legislator to vote NO on H129, and let them know you are appalled that this anti-consumer, anti-competition legislation keeps coming up year after year because of the lobbying influence of Time Warner Cable.  Make it completely clear you are watching their vote on this bill like a hawk, and it means everything to you at the next election.

Tell your representative to stand up for competition, stand up for advanced fiber optic networks, and to stand down on special interest legislation like H129, which only benefits the cable company that has overcharged you for years.

Your Call List

(click on each name for contact details)

Chairman	Rep. Steen
Vice Chairman	Rep. Brubaker
Vice Chairman	Rep. Cook
Vice Chairman	Rep. Hager
Members	Rep. K. Alexander, Rep. Blackwell, Rep. Brawley, Rep. Brisson, Rep. Collins, Rep. Dockham, Rep. Earle, Rep. Gill, Rep. Harrison, Rep. Hastings, Rep. Hilton, Rep. Hollo, Rep. Howard, Rep. Jeffus, Rep. Johnson, Rep. LaRoque, Rep. Lucas, Rep. Luebke, Rep. McComas, Rep. McLawhorn, Rep. T. Moore, Rep. Owens, Rep. Pierce, Rep. Pridgen, Rep. Samuelson, Rep. Setzer, Rep. Tolson, Rep. E. Warren, Rep. H. Warren, Rep. West, Rep. Womble, Rep. Wray

 

When people in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre noticed their neighbors in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh —  even Allentown were getting super high-tech fiber upgrades from Verizon, they wondered why northeastern Pennsylvania has been bypassed, left to contend with Comcast as the only cable company in town.

The Scranton Times-Tribune went to Verizon to find out why they snubbed the region.

Starting four years ago, Verizon made FiOS available in Philadelphia and surrounding counties, South Central Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh and even Allentown. Now the company wants to cultivate those market, said Verizon spokesman Lee Gierczynski.

“We are focusing on the commitments we have,” he said. “No plans have been outlined for future expansion.”

Smaller local phone carriers don’t have the money involved in providing their own Internet television. Instead, those such as Frontier Communications, re-sell satellite service.

“Offering out television service is expensive, too expensive for most smaller telephone companies,” said telecom industry analyst Jeff Kagan. “So many are reselling satellite service to keep customers who want one bundle and one bill.”

Because of that, satellite television providers, who were never a formidable challenge to conventional cable companies, gained market share, Mr. Kagan said.

Verizon ended their FiOS expansion partly because of ongoing negative reaction from Wall Street.  Now with a change in CEO’s, things don’t look promising for upgrades anytime soon.  It was former CEO Ivan Seidenberg that green-lit the idea of replacing old copper wire networks with new state-of-the-art fiber optics.  Seidenberg got his start in the phone business as a cable splicer’s assistant, working with the copper wires and fiber-optic cables that are the backbone of today’s phone companies.

His successor, Lowell McAdam grew up in the wireless industry, which is increasingly responsible for Verizon’s revenue.

At a telecommunications crossroads, Seidenberg’s vision of fiber optic service replacing antiquated copper phone cables may be at risk from new leadership at the helm of Verizon — leadership that lives and breathes in a wireless world.

For phone companies, the choices are clear: suffer ongoing landline losses and hope wireless profits can cover the difference, sell off your landline customers to a third party that specializes in rural areas where wireless signal penetration is insufficient, or make required upgrades to stay competitive with cable companies that are also eroding your market share.

As far as the cable industry is concerned, they’d prefer Verizon just stay out of the video business altogether.  Dr. John “Darth Vader” Malone, a former cable kingpin that owned Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI), said there is room for only one player in the wired video business — cable companies.

“I’ve never seen overbuilds work … it always ends up badly,” Malone has said repeatedly about cable competition.

So for northeastern Pennsylvania, and millions of other Verizon customers hoping for something better, prepare for a long wait.  Save for satellite services, your local cable company is likely to remain the only television service provider for the foreseeable future.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Are you a cable or telephone company scared of the costs associated with tearing out existing underground or overhead copper-based wiring to upgrade to fiber optics?

Why bother going through all of that effort when you can just yank the old copper wire out and push state-of-the-art fiber cable in.

Buckeye CableSystem, a Toledo, Ohio cable operator intends to do just that, using a process invented by an Austrian company, Kabel-X.

Buckeye will inject a Kabel-X supplied fluid between the outer jacket and the inner core of the cable.  This allows the cable company to pull the copper center conductor and the insulating material right out of the center of the cable, leaving plenty of space to insert new fiber optic cables, without having to tear up streets, get permission from local zoning authorities to string new cable, or go through the expense of completely replacing it.

Better known in Europe, where the process has been used throughout the continent, Kabel-X is now making inroads in North America with small scale projects with companies like Buckeye.  Kabel-X has been particularly attractive in eastern Europe, where the process is more affordable than complete cable replacement.  With more limited budgets, re-using existing cable already in place provides an attractive alternative.

The company claims it can replace up to 1000 feet of existing coaxial cable with fiber in as little as three hours.

Buckeye intends to experiment with the technology in a Toledo subdivision to see how well it works.

The one major downside to using Kabel-X is that service is typically interrupted while the cable work is being done.  Should something go wrong, customers could be left entirely without service, a prospect that mandates small scale experiments to train cable engineering crews to work speedily and efficiently, and prove the technology can work well in a variety of conditions.

“We see the Kabel-X technology as an innovative tool that will allow us to cost effectively deploy a fiber-to-the-home architecture in areas currently served by a traditional hybrid fiber coax network,” Buckeye Cablevision chief technology officer Joe Jensen said.

Buckeye’s efforts to upgrade to true fiber-to-the-home service may come as a response to AT&T’s U-verse service, which began competing for Toledo customers about a year ago.  Buckeye has 150,000 subscribers in the Toledo area, and remains the largest pay television operator, but U-verse is positioned to steal away some of those customers over time.

Buckeye’s cable broadband service, bex-Buckeye Express, offers customers up to 20Mbps service, if you opt to subscribe to other Buckeye services.

The company’s Acceptable Use Policy indicates they do not impose limits on usage at this time, but curiously do admit to throttling the speed of peer-to-peer traffic and dynamically reducing speeds for customers who are considered “high bandwidth users” during peak demand periods.  Both of these seemed to get Comcast into hot water with the Federal Communications Commission.

BUCKEYE EXPRESS™ HIGH SPEED INTERNET SERVICE ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY

Buckeye uses reasonable network management techniques to improve overall network performance and reserves the right to employ additional techniques as necessary or desirable. Some applications, including certain peer-to-peer applications, can consume inordinately high amounts of bandwidth on the network and degrade network performance. Buckeye’s current network management techniques include:

Speed Caps – limiting the speeds that a modem can transmit or receive data. Buckeye may lower the transmission rate or reception rate of high bandwidth users during times of high network demand. This may slow the transmission or reception rate for affected modems.

Connection Limits – limiting the number of simultaneous connections for any modem during an online session. With a typical user having a dozen or so simultaneous connections for routine use, this limit provides a means of identifying and hopefully thwarting malicious attempts to harm the network or other users. This limit is currently set well above the number of connections used by typical user in a session.

Application-based Rate Limiting– limiting transmission speed of certain high bandwidth applications. Some applications, typically peer-to-peer applications, can consume large amounts of bandwidth, often without the knowledge of the user/customer. By limiting the portion of the network capacity available for these applications during periods of high traffic, Buckeye is able to improve the overall performance of the network for all users. Transmission of traffic subject to this technique may be slower during periods of high network usage.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Kabel-X Demo.flv[/flv]

Watch the Kabel-X process at work in this company-produced demonstration video. (7 minutes)

FairPoint Communications’ performance in New England, finally leading to bankruptcy, harms not only itself but also smaller local Internet companies providing jobs and service across the region.  That’s the gist of a report in this morning’s Kennebec Journal outlining a dispute between FairPoint and Great Works Internet, a Biddeford, Maine Internet Service Provider caught between FairPoint’s fiber optic network and a billing dispute that demands GWI pay more than $3 million dollars by December 19th, or face service termination by FairPoint.

GWI leased fiber optic cables with FairPoint’s predecessor Verizon back in 2005.  As part of the Communications Act of 1996, designed to spur competition, GWI obtained access at special interconnection rates, lower than the prices charged for retail customers.  Verizon felt the price was too low, and went to court in 2005 to seek the right to charge “market rates” for access, but the issue was never settled before Verizon sold its landline network to FairPoint last year.  In March of this year, FairPoint stopped accepting new orders from GWI for fiber service, which has kept the company from growing beyond its current fiber network agreements, costing the company plenty in new business.  Then, in September, FairPoint back-billed GWI for $3,085,025, representing the price FairPoint felt GWI should have been paying since 2006.  If the Maine-owned ISP doesn’t pay up, it has been threatened with having its service cut off altogether.

Fletcher Kittredge, GWI’s founder and chief executive officer, has been around the ISP business a long time.  The company was founded in 1994, before Internet access became common, and he has grown the company into a locally owned business serving 18,000 customers with phone and Internet connections.  At risk are the loss of up to 75 local jobs and a significant part of $13 million in annual revenues earned by what the Journal calls one of Maine’s leading Internet providers.

“For us, it’s vital that this be settled soon,” Kittredge told the newspaper. “FairPoint has been threatening us with some pretty draconian action.”

FairPoint’s threat has already cost the company customers, Kittredge said, and the uncertainty makes it hard to go after new business accounts.

But growth has been trimmed by FairPoint’s actions, according to Kittredge. For instance: The company signed a contract with the Skowhegan school system for high-speed access and set up equipment. But the connections it needed from FairPoint were never made, Kittredge said, and he had to cancel the school contract. That has had a chilling effect on efforts to go after new accounts.

“We can’t go out and solicit new businesses,” he said. “We can’t say, ‘This is going to be great, but we may not be able to deliver it to you.’ ”

Great Works hasn’t wanted to make a big deal in public of its fight with FairPoint. It’s concerned that the news will cause existing customers to worry that they could lose their Internet connections.

“It’s a threat I’m going to watch,” said Mitch Davis, chief information officer at Bowdoin College in Brunswick.

Bowdoin gets phone service from FairPoint, but most of its Internet access is from Great Works. Davis was aware of the initial court dispute, but didn’t realize FairPoint was threatening to cut line access. He hopes the bankruptcy judge will let the case go forward and get settled.

GWI told the Journal the company may just be trying to steal Great Works’ lucrative business customers.  That might come to pass if the circuits are cut.  Despite Davis believing FairPoint probably wouldn’t make good on their threat because of the bad publicity it would generate, he admits if they do, he might be forced to transfer the college account to FairPoint.

“I would do what I need to do to keep the college running,” Davis said.

One Journal reader characterized the dispute as just one more consequence of approving FairPoint Communications’ takeover of Verizon service in Maine.

“I would like to thank the governor of Maine for letting such a strong stable company like FairPoint in this state. You really did your homework.  I thought we had a Public Utilities Commission that watched out for public interest.  Boy are they on the ball.  I am glad to see […] they are not running my business.”