Here today, gone tomorrow.

Cablevision West, formerly known as Bresnan Communications, has been up for sale for weeks, and at least three major cable operators have submitted bids to acquire its 300,000 customers in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah.

Cablevision bought Bresnan Communications in 2010 for $1.37 billion. The cable operator invested millions updating the cable properties in the mountain west, but ultimately decided the more rural cable systems were too far away from its hometown systems in densely populated suburban New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

Selling Cablevision West would improve Cablevision’s balance sheet and allow the company to concentrate on its highly competitive home territory in the northeast, where Verizon FiOS frequently competes.

Among the three vying for Cablevision West, Charter Communications seems to be the best positioned to win. Charter already operates cable systems in the central and western United States, mostly in smaller cities and rural areas. Former Cablevision CEO Thomas Rutledge was in charge when Cablevision bought Bresnan Communications, and in his new role as CEO of Charter, he told CNBC he still admires those western systems.

Suddenlink has attained deeper pockets after its acquisition earlier this year by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, European private equity firm BC Partners and the cable operator’s current management. With money to spend, Suddenlink Communications could find itself the highest bidder. Suddenlink currently serves over 1.4 million residential and commercial customers, primarily in Texas, West Virginia, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.

Time Warner Cable, the second-largest U.S. cable provider, is also among the stingiest of the three bidders. CEO Glenn Britt has consistently told investors the company will not engage in bidding wars or overpay for acquisition opportunities. The company has passed on several earlier opportunities for cable systems up for sale, although it did successfully acquire Insight Communications earlier this year.

The winner will likely be announced as early as January and then customers will have to prepare, once again, for another owner to take control.

Top-rated WOW! only delivers service in a handful of cities in the midwest, but is getting larger after acquiring Knology.

Lawrence, Kansas can’t catch a break. While their neighbors in Kansas City are preparing for Google’s unlimited-use gigabit broadband, the three different owners of the area’s cable operation in the last three years have stuck local residents with usage caps as low as 5GB per month.

What began as Sunflower Broadband, formerly owned by the The World Company, which publishes the daily Lawrence Journal-World, has now been sold to a new owner that plans to leave the current caps in place.

Knology of Kansas Inc., a division of West Point, Ga.-based Knology acquired the Sunflower operation for $165 million in 2010. This week, WideOpenWest (WOW) announced it had completed a system-wide acquisition of Knology, including the former Sunflower system for $1.5 billion.

Consumers in Lawrence hoping for something better from one the nation’s top-consumer-rated cable operators will apparently have to wait. The company announced it was planning no immediate changes to its services or rates, said Rod Kutemeier, who currently remains general manager of the operation.

“Which means while Kansas City becomes a gigabit broadband city with unlimited-use broadband ranging in price from free to $70 a month, we’re stuck with this lousy cable operation that wants $53 a month for 18/2Mbps service with a nasty 50GB data cap and up to $1/GB overlimit fee,” says former Knology customer Sam. “I switched to U-verse, which is only mildly less criminal with their 250GB cap.”

Sam’s price represents standalone broadband service and includes Knology’s $5 monthly modem rental fee. If he purchased video service from the company, his broadband rate would be $10 lower.

Sunflower Broadband introduced one of the country’s first broadband Internet Overcharging schemes, limiting customers on the company’s lowest speed tier to 5GB of usage per month. The company later introduced devotees of unlimited, flat rate access to a reduced priority unlimited option for just shy of $60 a month, with no quoted speed or promise of performance.

Lawrence cable subscribers were hopeful the new owners would adopt pricing and service similar to what WOW offers elsewhere. WOW tells its other customers it does not impose usage limits or consumption-based billing of any kind. But that doesn’t hold true in Lawrence.

“They need to get rid of the current management which continues this ripoff scheme and bring in the same WOW mindset that gave them top ratings in magazines like Consumer Reports,” shares Stop the Cap! reader Sam.

WOW currently offers most customers broadband speeds of 2/1, 15/1, 30/3, and 50/5Mbps. Knology of Kansas offers service at speeds of 5/1, 18/2, and 50/5Mbps — all usage capped.

Pricing and packages for Lawrence, Kansas’ local cable company will remain the same… for now.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s cowardly lion act. The rhetoric rarely matched the results.

Washington insiders are predicting Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski will leave his position early in President Obama’s second term.

It cannot come soon enough, as far as we’re concerned.

One of the biggest disappointments of the Obama Administration has been the poor performance of a chairman that originally promised a departure from the rubber stamp-mentality that allowed Big Telecom providers to win near-instant approval of just about anything asked from the Republican-dominated FCC of the Bush Administration. If only to underline that point, former FCC Chairman Michael Powell joined Republican ex-commissioner Meredith Atwell-Baker on a trip through the D.C. revolving door, taking lucrative jobs with the same cable industry both used to oversee.

We had high hopes for Mr. Genachowski when he took the helm at the FCC — particularly over Net Neutrality, media consolidation, and predatory abuse of consumers at the hands of the comfortable cable-telco duopoly. Genachowski promised strong Net Neutrality protections, better broadband — especially in rural areas, an end to rubber stamping competition killing mergers and acquisitions, and more aggressive oversight of the broadband industry generally.

What we got was the reincarnation of the Cowardly Lion.

The Washington Post reviews Genachowski’s tenure during the first term of the Obama Administration and reports he has few unabashed supporters left. Telecom companies loathe Genachowski’s more cautious approach and consumer groups hate his penchant for caving in when lobbyists come calling. In short, another Democrat that talks tough and caves in at the first sign of trouble.

“His tenure has been nothing but a huge disappointment because he’s squandered an opportunity to give consumers the competitive communications market they deserve,” Derek Turner, head of policy analysis at public interest group Free Press told the Post. “If someone like him upholds compromise, it quickly leads to capitulation, which is what he’s done. He folds…to the pressure of big companies.”

Genachowski’s Record:

• Heavily promoted rural broadband and oversaw a review program measuring actual broadband speeds against those claimed by providers. But much of the money available for improving rural broadband has been separately awarded to “middle mile” and “institutional networks” that are not accessible to most consumers or businesses. Genachowki has heaped automatic praise on many of the phone companies winning broadband funding, despite the fact many of them are satisfied giving consumers no better than 4Mbps service;
• Reformed the outdated Universal Service Fund, which long outlived much of its usefulness, into a broadband expansion fund. But some unintended consequences have led to some rural providers suspending network upgrades because of funding uncertainties still unresolved;
• Approved a blockbuster merger deal between Comcast and NBC-Universal that included temporary “hard-won” concessions Comcast later admitted they were going to offer anyway – merger or not. The result is a new high bar for tolerating super-sized media consolidation with no serious consideration of the impact on consumers. The latest evidence: support for Rupert “Phone Hacker” Murdoch’s latest efforts to buy more newspapers in the United States;
• Rejected an AT&T/T-Mobile merger deal, but only after the Justice Dept. took the lead dismissing it as an anti-consumer, anti-competition nightmare. Within hours, Genachowski’s office issued a “me, too” press release condemning the deal he said little about earlier;
• Demanded a strong Net Neutrality framework to protect the open Internet, but utterly caved under pressure from politicians receiving hefty corporate contributions from AT&T and others. The resulting loophole-ridden “protections” do not apply to wireless, and the industry-approved compromise is now the subject of a lawsuit filed by some of the same companies that earlier applauded Genachowski’s flexibility;
• Genachowski handed out his direct phone numbers to the CEO’s of the top Big Telecom companies, and has been directly lobbied by those “super-citizens,” while ordinary consumers are stuck filing comments with the FCC’s arcane Electronic Comment Filing System. Genachowski also directed closed-door meetings be held on the subject of Net Neutrality with large telecom companies. These meetings were closed to the public with no consumer representatives on hand;
• Genachowski refused to reclassify broadband as a “telecommunications service,” which would give the agency clear-cut authority to oversee the service. Instead, he has stuck with former FCC Chairman Michael Powell’s odd interpretation of broadband as “an information service,” not subject to much review by the agency;
• Appropriately nixed Philip Falcone’s LightSquared venture, the biggest threat to GPS navigation around. But Genachowski’s controversial early boosting of the venture, including support for expedited special permission to launch the network without the usual scrutiny, resulted in an embarrassing about-face after long-standing critics’ fears of navigation interference were vindicated;
• In 2012, Genachowski’s cozy relationship with the industry reached whole new levels with unabashed support for Internet Overcharging schemes like usage caps and consumption billing, despite no evidence justifying them. The FCC has continued to ignore repeated requests for a review of these pricing schemes.

Cohen

Comcast’s chief lobbyist stalled plans to unveil cheaper Internet service for the financially disadvantaged to use as bait to win regulator approval of its 2009 merger with NBC-Universal.

The Washington Post today reports David Cohen’s influence at the cable operator as its chief of lobbying has helped the cable company achieve its status as America’s largest cable operator and entertainment conglomerate.

Cohen has friends in high places thanks to his status as a Democratic Party money bundler. A self-styled “consigliere” to the Roberts family that controls the company, Cohen has overseen a transformation of Comcast from one cable operator among many into a high-powered force not to reckoned with in Washington or Silicon Valley.

Comcast’s growth into a mega-corporation with $58 billion in annual revenues came, in part, from dealmaking that won regulator approval in D.C. Maintaining good relations with those regulators is a Cohen specialty. It did not take the Post too long to find former FCC officials giving Cohen high praise:

• “Every meeting with David is incredibly substantive,” Eddie Lazarus, former chief of staff to the FCC told the newspaper. “He always comes with a willingness to find solutions.”
• “David loves politics, he loves government and he has incredible situational awareness — a 360-degree view of business,” said Blair Levin, a former senior adviser to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. “He’s just so good at what he does.”

Under Cohen’s leadership, Comcast has spent lavishly on its corporate lobbying and legal team. Today, 20 full time lobbyists work under Cohen’s direction, with dozens of others available on retainer. The company spent $8.3 million of its subscribers’ money solely on lobbying. The Post reports that makes Comcast the ninth biggest K Street spender, above Verizon.

The poor and disadvantaged had to wait for Comcast to seal the deal on their $30 billion acquisition of NBC-Universal before affordable Internet could become reality for them.

In 2009, Comcast insiders were hard at work on a discount program for the disadvantaged who could not afford Comcast’s regular prices for broadband service. But the program was stalled at the direction of Cohen, who wanted it to be a chip with regulators to win approval of its acquisition of NBC-Universal. The program, sure to be popular among advocates of the digitally disadvantaged, was a key part of approving the $30 billion deal.

“I held back because I knew it may be the type of voluntary commitment that would be attractive to the chairman [of the FCC],” Cohen said in a recent interview.

Regulators promoted Comcast’s “concession” to offer the discounted Internet service as a win for consumers as part of the final approval of the deal. In reality, Comcast was planning to offer the service anyway and finally introduced it in 2011 — two years after first being proposed inside the company.

That fact is a slight embarrassment to current FCC chairman Julius Genachowski, who has told audiences the discounted Internet program was partly to his credit.

“This particular program came from our reviewing of the Comcast NBC-U transaction,” Genachowski said in a speech. “Comcast embraced it as good for the country, as well as good for business. And I’m fine with that.”

Cohen defends Comcast’s lobbying expense as part of the company’s effort to combat scrutiny and challenges to its all-or-nothing video business model, denying customers access to a-la-carte programming.

Comcast’s scope has now grown so large, it has become a force few companies are willing to challenge, and those that try are quick to run into a blockade of Comcast lawyers, lobbyists, and carefully constructed contracts that protect the company’s bottom line from would-be competitors.

Deep pockets like Verizon, Apple, Netflix and Google have all tried… and failed to recast the cable television experience with on-demand programming, a-la-carte channels, and cord-cutting technology.

In response, Comcast has kept competitors tied down to the same cable packages that require subscribers to pay for everything, even if they seek only a few channels. Comcast leverages its broadband network with usage limits that effectively curtail cord-cutting among consumers looking to skip the TV package. Anyone seeking a place in today’s entertainment industry ends up dealing with Comcast sooner or later.

“They are hugely important because they can singlehandedly sink or swim multiple businesses that rely on the Internet ecosystem by virtue of controlling the dissemination of information through their pipes and now by supplying so much of the content,” said Joel Kelsey, a policy director at consumer interest group Free Press. “So many companies have come to us and ask we fight their battles for them because they are afraid of retribution.”

Cohen is well-compensated for his effectiveness. His latest three-year contract makes him one of the highest paid corporate lobbyists in Washington, with a $15 million annual compensation package and $3 million in bonuses, not including his ample stock holdings in Comcast.

His influence extends to the highest levels of the Obama Administration. Last summer, the family hosted a $1.2 million campaign fundraiser for President Obama, and the Cohens have separately contributed $877,000 to various campaigns. Comcast itself has spent $3.3 million in campaign contributions so far this year.

A very frustrated employee of Frontier Communications working in one of their Ohio offices sent Stop the Cap! a detailed report on some of Frontier’s problems with customer service, unfair fees, and other horror stories. In this final part, a look at Frontier’s broadband service and how the company is still struggling to integrate ex-Verizon customers now a part of the Frontier family. “It is as if Dollar Tree bought out Wal-Mart.” 

Frontier recently began marketing faster Internet speeds to many of their customers who can finally sign up for something roughly equivalent to today’s standard speeds from cable operators. But even in its more advanced forms of bonded DSL, ADSL2+, and VDSL, all remain distance-sensitive. Customers may simply never get the speeds they were promised if they live too far from the phone company’s central office.

Frontier wants to see the end of speed test results like this.

We recently started pushing our premium speed broadband to customers who qualify for our new speeds, which run up to 25Mbps for residential customers. Customers who truly qualify for this service will actually get to receive decent speeds comparable to what Time Warner Cable and Comcast offers.

We were originally planning to market this as competitive with FiOS fiber optic speed, but I’m honestly not surprised they dropped that angle once they thought of how stupid it would sound to veteran DSL customers that a standard telephone line could reach those speeds. Even the majority of our Frontier FiOS customers are sometimes lucky to receive the speeds that cable offers, but for different reasons.

If a representative says you do qualify for faster Internet service, it is still an absolute crap-shoot whether or not you will actually get through a two-hour streamed Netflix movie in two hours instead of four thanks to buffering issues.

We are still in the early stages of rolling out these new speeds and there are still many issues in our internal systems to work out. For example, if our internal Salesforce/DPI system has not been updated, you are not going to get the faster speed service even if you can see the central office from your house. When it does show a customer is qualified, both the customer and I rejoice because I get a commission and the customer can now successfully access Facebook in less than three hours. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world and three of my orders for premium broadband Internet failed to complete despite the fact our system said they were qualified.

The cryptic reason? “Technology restraints do not allow this customer to reach any higher speeds.” That comes courtesy of our techs, who use it as a catch-all to cancel orders. Nobody can tell me why. I’ve asked dispatch, assignment, and tech managers and they have given me different explanations — none that seemed valid.

That leaves me calling back the customer, now excited they can finally use our broadband service to play online video games or Skype their son in college without being disconnected and let them know I was a big fat liar when I promised them something better, only to leave them stuck with what they had.

Next we need to update the information in those customers’ profiles so future reps do not lead them on. I have rechecked those accounts and to this day none of that information was updated. I just see my cancelled orders. So, there is even misinformation taking place within the company, preventing us from providing a risk free service.

Modem fees are a nuisance to a number of Frontier customers. The company is eliminating them for some customers.

Modem fees no longer apply to many Frontier broadband plans

Modem fees used to be an issue, however they are now increasingly included in the price of your broadband service. This can be especially good news in a competitive market where your broadband bill drops by nearly $7 a month, but those already using their own equipment will no longer see any savings from service credits applied to their monthly bills.

Are you really getting Frontier FiOS broadband speeds? Maybe not.

Speaking about misinformation, we have several Frontier FiOS customers that are actually only getting basic cable or DSL Internet speeds because their house was never actually wired with fiber. A street may have fiber optic cables all around, but if a customer is still using copper cable from the pole and inside their home, they are paying for services they are not getting. These customers are often noted in customer records we can access, but we are discouraged from sharing that information. This is not entirely our fault. This was a problem left over from the previous owner, Verizon Communications, which left us the mess to clean up. If you are only receiving half of the FiOS speed you are paying for, this may be why. If you complain, we will issue credit or create what we call a “SIFT Ticket” to send a tech to investigate a possible service upgrade.

Playing the Telephone Game with the telephone company

There have been countless times when I’ve been told five different things by five different people about how to handle a customer calling in for assistance. I understand that with millions of customers it is hard to predict what will happen on that next call, but simple things such as a consistent way to handle customer requests should be standard stuff. So, what can I do? Pick one of the five options and hope it is the right one for the customer.

Working for Frontier means dealing with short term goals that vary wildly day to day with no focus on any sort of objective. These loose operations and inconsistencies come straight from the top. This affects our long term goals as a company (whatever the hell those might be). These endlessly varying short term goals leave us with no foundation for long term goals because… again, there is no focus. That needed to be said twice.

Customers notice the rampant inconsistencies. A lot of customers candidly tell me, “you guys are spread too thin, and there is a severe lack of communication between all of your call centers.”

This is true, and much of it has to do with our purchase of former Verizon landline customers. It is as if Dollar Tree bought out Wal-Mart. I feel like we have bit off more than we can chew, despite the fact management dismissed these concerns as “speed bumps from the conversion.”

It is now 2012 and 2013 is coming closer every day and I am still dealing with the same issues that should no longer be happening as often as they should.

So, in closing, this has been my rant about the company I work for. I do enjoy my job (honestly, I do) and the people I work with are great. Even the customers who scream and yell at me, or the ones who commend me for my work, they’re all great in their own way. Nothing is as satisfying as actually calming someone down who has an issue with their bill, only to have them apologize and be grateful they got me on the phone. You have to truly be a people person to do this job, and not just do it for the money or it won’t work out for you. I’m not the most perfect representative, but I hope to strive to truly make every day I’m there in my cube less and less miserable and tedious.

Hopefully this crap can eventually be flushed and one day soon Frontier’s wheels will run smoothly.