EastLink customers in Nova Scotia are getting three things from their local cable company: slightly faster Internet speeds, a higher bill, and insulted.

EastLink has mailed letters to subscribers in certain parts of Atlantic Canada notifying customers they are now getting speed boosts on the company’s lower speed tiers.

Basic Internet customers subscribing to 1.5Mbps service will now see 5Mbps, while those at 5Mbps are getting upgraded to 10Mbps service.

EastLink said the upgrades target its budget-minded customers who are also getting pelted with competing mailers from Bell Aliant, which sells fiber service in the region. But the speed upgrades don’t come for free. In a move EastLink denies is tied to the broadband speed improvements, the company is also notifying customers of its annual general rate increase.

Atlantic Canada enjoys some of the fastest Internet service in the country, often without any usage caps. EastLink offers, in addition to its budget Internet tiers, service at 20, 40 and 80Mbps. Their primary competitor is Bell Aliant, which operates its FibreOp broadband at speeds of 50, 80, and 175Mbps.

“Our customers have told us that they want and need faster internet service,” Isabelle Robinson, media relations with Bell Aliant said about the company’s higher Internet speeds. “Things like file sharing, uploading, video streaming have really become commonplace. The demand for both speed and bandwidth has been exploding.”

Nonsense, responds Jordan Turner, EastLink’s public relations coordinator. He said subscribers often have no comprehension about the broadband speeds they get now, and certainly don’t need anything faster than what EastLink now provides.

“Frankly, that is plenty of speed and all the speed customers need,” Turner told Halifax NewsNet. “When you read what they suggest people are going to do with the Internet, you can already do that with our standard Internet offering. It’s not like, because you have faster Internet, you’re going to watch a three-hour movie in half an hour.”

Verizon is “redefining the power of the Internet” in select FiOS areas with the introduction of a new 500/100Mbps speed tier that blows away Time Warner Cable and leaves Cablevision and other competitors woefully behind.

Just weeks after Cablevision boosted upload speeds, Verizon has responded with service offerings up to a half gigabit in speed, telling customers FiOS Quantum 150/65Mbps, 300/65Mbps, and 500/100Mbps plans will “radically change everything you do online right now – and in the future.” It is ten times faster than the fastest service available from Time Warner Cable in the northeast: 50/5Mbps.

Verizon’s fastest broadband does not come cheap, however. The 500Mbps package starts at $294.99 a month for new customers with a two-year contract. Verizon Voice service is required to get the promotional price and a $165 early termination fee applies (reduced by $7.50 for each month a customer maintains service). A $59.99 activation and other fees, taxes, charges, and terms apply. Customers must also pass a credit check to avoid a deposit. Skip the contract and other requirements and the rate is only slightly more: $304.99 a month.

Verizon is charging nearly four times more than what Google charges for its twice as fast gigabit service. But analysts believe that Google will never venture into Verizon FiOS territory so price competition is unlikely in the near term. Cable operators that compete with Verizon would have to dedicate a considerable amount of bandwidth to best Verizon’s download speeds, and matching upstream speeds will be even more problematic unless and until cable operators transition their systems to all digital video to free up bandwidth.

But Verizon’s fastest Internet speeds are not available in all FiOS areas. The company warns “500/100Mbps service availability may be limited in your area based on network qualification requirements.”

Verizon’s competitors, which don’t have the benefit of an all-fiber network, continue to stress consumers simply don’t need any speeds faster than what they now offer. Frontier Communications believes most consumers do just fine with 6Mbps DSL. Verizon’s larger cable competitors range from Time Warner Cable, which does not even try to match its competitor’s fiber speeds, to Bright House, which competes with Verizon FiOS in Florida, to Comcast, which offers faster Internet service but regularly threatens to cap how much customers can use each month. Verizon FiOS has, in practical terms, no usage caps.

“For some, the discussion about the broadband Internet seems to begin and end on the issue of ‘gigabit’ access. The issue with such speed is really more about demand than supply. Most websites can’t deliver content as fast as current networks move, and most U.S. homes have routers that can’t support the speed already available.” — David Cohen, chief lobbyist, Comcast Corp., May 2013

“Residential customers, at this time, do not need the bandwidth offered with dedicated fiber – however, Bright House has led the industry in comprehensively deploying next-generation bandwidth services (DOCSIS 3.0) to its entire footprint in Florida – current speeds offered are 50Mbps with the ability to offer much higher. We provision our network according to our customers’ needs.” – Don Forbes, Bright House Networks, February 2011

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Verizon FiOS Introduces 500Mbps 7-22-13.mp4[/flv]

Verizon FiOS introduces faster broadband speeds to help customers accomplish more of what they want to do online. Verizon’s Fowler Abercrombie says ‘it’s only the beginning’ as Verizon continues to innovate on its fiber to the home network. (2 minutes)

Comcast’s discounted Internet service for the poor forces customers to jump through hoops to get the service and considers protecting revenue from existing customers more important than expanding the service to reach those who need it most.

Those are the views of John Randall, program manager at the Roosevelt Institute/Telecommunications Equity Project.

For $9.95 a month, those that can meet some complicated eligibility requirements and prove they are not existing Comcast customers are qualified for 3Mbps broadband service with a 768kbps upload rate. It represents a $30 savings off Comcast’s regular price — a considerable amount of revenue that Comcast is effectively forfeiting for the benefit of poor families who live in Comcast’s footprint.

Except Comcast isn’t actually “out” that much at all, argues Randall.

Of the 2.6 million households eligible for Internet Essentials from Comcast, only 150,000 have taken Comcast up on their offer. That represents only 5.8 percent of those eligible. In Comcast’s hometown — Philadelphia — there are just 3,250 families hooked up, which represents only 3.3 percent of those eligible.

Randall calls the program ineffective and says the onerous requirements to qualify (and re-qualify) are such a hassle, few families bother. What is worse, those families already sacrificing something else in their lives to get broadband service for the benefit of their school-age children are punished for their noble efforts — they are completely ineligible for Internet Essentials regardless of income or need because they are existing customers. Randall argues Comcast carefully constructed the program more as a public (and government) relations exercise than a charitable endeavor. Comcast zealously protects its existing revenues from being cannibalized by customers switching to the discount plan.

Some might argue that Comcast is managing the program with costs in mind, but Randall dismisses that as nonsense.

“Within its footprint (which spans 50 million households in 39 states– 45 percent of the US population), the cost for Comcast to connect additional households is vanishingly low,” says Randall. “With no additional network build needed, Internet Essentials represents almost pure profit for Comcast.”

Randall claims Comcast’s gross profit margin on its broadband service is around 95 percent where the network has already been built. At that rate, Comcast’s cheap Internet still delivers almost $18 million in additional income, and there is a promise of much more as soon as a customer defaults on a bill, misses a qualification deadline, or their children graduate. When any of these occur, Comcast will reset customers to regular rates.

“While most observers might assume that the program is an act of corporate generosity, it was originally conceived in the fall of 2009 as a way to turn a profit by offering slower connections to certain low-income households,” said Randall.

“These plans were temporarily tabled at the direction of Comcast lobbyist David Cohen, who knew that this type of program would be attractive to the FCC and thus useful as a bargaining chip. When the time came for negotiations over Comcast’s $13.75 billion takeover of NBC Universal, Comcast was able to offer something it was planning on doing anyway. In the end, the FCC was able to claim credit for forcing Comcast to implement a program to combat the digital divide, while in reality no arm-twisting was needed,” he added.

One of the biggest challenges of America’s digital divide is making affordable Internet access available. Cable companies in particular are prepared to wring even more money from their Internet customers in the form of higher prices, new and increasing equipment rental fees, and consumption billing schemes that charge more for less service.

But that isn’t the story elected officials receive from Congress.

The potential public relations benefits far outweigh any costs to offer the service. Randall notes Comcast had delivered the Internet Essentials message to over 100 members of Congress and more than 2,000 state and local officials. To broaden its outreach effort, Comcast also engaged leading intergovernmental associations at the state and local level such as the National Governors Association, National Conference of State Legislatures, U.S. Conference of Mayors, and various other organizations of elected officials. On top of that, Comcast says that the impressions generated by media coverage of Internet Essentials launch events earned it “millions of dollars” worth of media.

What message don’t these public officials hear?

America is subjected to local broadband monopolies and duopolies that guarantee the lack of competition for high-speed Internet access.

“It earns Comcast good press while distracting regulators and public officials into thinking that changes in policy aren’t needed and that digital divide problems will somehow work themselves out on their own as a result of corporate generosity. In the long run, Comcast Internet Essentials will do no more than contribute to the delay of much-needed regulation,” concludes Randall.

Google Fiber may not be coming to a Kansas City apartment complex near you.

The coveted gigabit fiber to the home service is drawing criticism from owners of multi-dwelling units, condos, and apartment buildings because of its installation fee.

Google requires property owners to either go all-in or forget about getting the service. That means $300 for each apartment or condo, regardless of whether it is occupied or if an existing tenant wants the service or not.

Landlords tell the Kansas City Star the installation fee is just too much, especially when considering the phone and cable company wired their buildings for free. The newspaper notes that a 350-unit apartment complex opting in to Google Fiber will have to pay more than $100,000 upfront just to get the service.

Those living in one of nine CRES Management apartment complexes suspect they won’t be getting Google Fiber now or in the future — the property owners balked at an installation fee for their properties well into the six figures.

“I don’t know many apartment complexes that have $100,000 in the bank just waiting to be spent,” said Jon Gambill, CRES Management information technology director.

Google doesn’t offer volume discounts for multi-dwelling unit owners, but is willing to accept installment payments over 12 months. Google has also promised to refund the installation fees in $25 monthly increments for each paying customer until the $300 per unit fee is returned. But if a renter opts for the free, slower Internet service Google provides, the landlord will have to absorb the installation cost.

“If people can get free Internet, they’re not going to pay for premium,” Gambill told the newspaper. “If someone doesn’t want to pay for Internet, they really don’t have to, but then we’ve lost out on that reimbursement.”

Schneiderman

The New York Attorney General has some strong words for Verizon Communications:

“Verizon [must] divest those portions of its New York franchise where it is no longer willing to continue providing wireline service and replace Verizon with another carrier that will provide wireline service.”

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is more than a little concerned with Verizon’s plans to abandon offering landline service on the western half of Fire Island and potentially other areas further upstate to satisfy the company’s wireless business strategy.

In a hostile 13-page filing directed to the New York Public Service Commission, Schneiderman’s office accused Verizon of abdicating its responsibility to provide universal access to high quality landline service in favor of moving customers to inferior Verizon Wireless service.

“Verizon is asking the Commission to depart from a century of telephone service regulation, which had as one of its fundamental principles, universal wireline telephone service for all customers,” Schneiderman wrote.

In return for a guaranteed monopoly, profits, and a secure franchise area across portions of New York, telephone companies like Verizon historically agreed to offer phone service to any customer who wanted it. State and federal universal service rules provided subsidies to phone companies to reach their most rural or expensive-to-reach customers.

The goal, Schneiderman argued, was for every resident in New York to have home phone service, enabling them to communicate with their doctors, families, schools, friends and businesses, as well as to send for police, fire and ambulance assistance in an emergency.

Verizon’s intended replacement, Voice Link, represents a downgrade in service even worse than hundred-year old copper wire “plain old telephone service,” according to the attorney general. Schneiderman called Verizon’s Voice Link inferior and its thick 10-page terms, conditions, and disclaimers “legalistic,” leaving consumers without services they previously received or imposing significant new burdens and obligations.

The issues cited by Schneiderman:

Voice Link Service “is not compatible with fax machines, DVR services, credit card machines, medical alert or other monitoring services or some High Speed or DSL Internet services.” Customers in western Fire Island and other rural parts of New York have no FiOS or cable modem Internet providers to switch to, so those who rely on these services have no alternatives if switched to Voice Link.

Because Voice Link “may not be compatible with certain monitored home security systems,” customers’ homes and businesses will be at greater risk from flooding by burst plumbing, fire or burglars. In the case of plumbing emergencies, visit Carlson Plumbing Company website for reliable solutions and prompt support.

Although wireline customers whose service is suspended for nonpayment can still reach a 911 operator in emergencies, suspension of Voice Link “will prevent ALL Service, including any 911 dialing and associated emergency response services. Customers may also lose the ability to receive or place calls, even to 911, if they fail to “promptly notify Verizon” of a change in their address, email, or credit card expiration date.

Customers must “defend, indemnify and hold harmless Verizon from and against all claims … for infringement of any intellectual property rights arising from use of Voice Link or its software.”

Voice Link Service “does not allow the Customer to make 500, 700, 900, 950, 976, 0, 00, 01, 0+, calling card or dial-around calls (e.g., 10-10-XXXX),” so customers will be unable to use such pay-per-call information services. Voice Link Service “does not allow the Customer to accept collect calls or third number billed calls. The Company will not bill any charges on behalf of other carriers. [Customers] must have an International Calling Plan in order to make international calls. Wireline customers are able to subscribe to toll and international calling plans provided by other carriers, and have these and other third-party service charges included on their Verizon bills.

Verizon Voice Link

Voice Link Service “is subject to the availability of adequate wireless coverage throughout your home, and is not available in all locations.”

Unlike wireline service, which supplies its own power over the copper wiring, Voice Link uses customers’ house current to operate. Verizon has not disclosed how much customers’ electric utility bills will increase to power the Voice Link device. Also, if electric power is interrupted, Customers may have to “reset or reconfigure equipment prior to using” Voice Link. This may be difficult for some physically limited or technologically unsophisticated customers to perform.

During power interruptions, the wireless Devices used in Voice Link are battery operated. Although the Devices include a rechargeable battery back-up that provides only 36 hours of standby power and up to 2.5 hours of talk time in the event of a commercial power outage, “[a ]fter the battery is exhausted, the Service (including 911 dialing) will not function until power is restored.”

After the expiration of a one year replacement warranty for the battery back-up included with customers’ wireless Device, customers “are responsible for replacing the back-up battery as needed,” but Verizon has not disclosed the cost of such replacement batteries.

Wireline customers purchase their own telephones from competitive manufacturers, but the Voice Link device is only supplied by Verizon, which continues to own it. Thus, customers will have to pay Verizon to repair the device if “such repair or maintenance is made necessary due to misuse, abuse or intentional damage to the Device.” Verizon has not disclosed what [the] repair or replacement might cost customers in such event.

When wireline customers end their service with Verizon, they have no equipment to return to the company. However, Voice Link customers who cancel their service “are responsible for returning their Wireless Device to [Verizon] in an undamaged condition. Failure to return the Device within 30 days … may result in [Verizon] charging [customers] an unreturned equipment fee.” Verizon has not disclosed the amount of this fee.

Schneiderman accused Verizon of dragging its feet on repairs on Fire Island and forcing Voice Link on customers as the only available alternative.

“It is clear that Verizon is leveraging the storm damage from Sandy as part of its long-term strategy to abandon its copper networks by substituting Voice Link for [landline] service on western Fire Island and forcing customers to accept wireless Voice Link wherever it does not build FiOS,” Schneiderman argued. “Verizon’s failure to make prompt repairs to its Fire Island facilities during the seven months following Sandy left the Commission little choice but to provide temporary approval of Voice Link so that customers would have some form of telephone service during the 2013 summer beach season. However, this ‘temporary approval’ should not be expanded to allow Verizon to avoid its obligations permanently, on Fire Island or anywhere else in New York.”

Schneiderman wants the PSC to force the issue with Verizon, and not on the preferred terms of its senior executives.

“Rather than allow Verizon to provide inadequate Voice Link service to Fire Island and other New York customers, the Commission should compel the company to either maintain its wireline network throughout its franchise territory or sell
those parts where it is unwilling to do so to another provider that will provide adequate service,” Schneiderman wrote.