AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner Cable and the cable industry’s chief lobbying group spent $42.8 million during the 2013-2014 election cycle to weigh in on issues including burying Net Neutrality, outlawing community broadband competition, winning tax breaks for themselves, and avoiding consumer protection regulations.

A Common Cause analysis of data from the Center for Responsive Politics and the Institute for Money in State Politics shows that the usual suspects poured money into political coffers on the state and federal level to influence lawmakers.

On the federal level, murky party committees received the largest individual checks: a total of $862,223 for House and Senate Republicans and $552,605 for Democrats. Individual members of Congress also received their own contributions, including Republican House Speaker John Boehner ($98,175 from Comcast) and Democratic Senator Mark Pryor ($88,650 from Comcast, TWC, and National Cable and Telecom. Assn.) Pryor will need to spend his contributions quickly. He was de-elected by Arkansas voters last Tuesday.

Net Neutrality is a major topic on the minds of the cable and telco companies, as is ongoing deregulation and decommissioning rural landline service, and pushback on revelations AT&T and Verizon were only too happy to turn over your phone records to the federal government.

In the states, the bigger the issues coming up in the legislature, the bigger the campaign checks. In Florida, AT&T is the state’s single largest source of political donations, giving $1.53 million to state lawmakers in the past year and another $660,000 to Gov. Rick Scott (R) and his appointed heads of state agencies. AT&T is lobbying for eliminating Florida’s telecommunications tax, win the right to place cell towers wherever they wish without much interference from local officials, and further deregulation. Most of AT&T’s money goes into the hands of the state’s Republicans.

In New York and California, Democrats got a major chunk of money from Comcast and Time Warner Cable — New York Governor Andrew Cuomo received $60,800 each from both Comcast and Time Warner Cable (totaling $121,600). California Governor Jerry Brown received $54,400 from Time Warner Cable and $27,200 from Comcast. Both states are reviewing the merger of the two companies this year. AT&T and Verizon are also major donors – AT&T wants to dismantle the rural telephone network in California and Verizon is trying to convince the New York legislature to approve its own rural landline replacement – Voice Link. It also wants reduced scrutiny of its landline performance in New York and more access to New York City buildings where it faces resistance from property owners who want compensation from Verizon to install FiOS.

Stop the Cap! has learned the New York State Public Service Commission has again delayed its final decision on the merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable.

The latest deadline the PSC will pass is Nov. 19, and the new deadline, accepted by both cable operators, is Dec. 31, 2014.

Sources tell us the multiple delays come as a result of regulators underestimating the complexity of the transaction and its potential impact on New York residents.

There is also an ongoing legal dispute over the possible public release of information both cable companies argue is proprietary and confidential. Public interest groups argue otherwise and consider details about current broadband subscriptions, future expansion plans, and the possible fate of Time Warner Cable’s $14.99 low price Internet plan worth sharing with New York residents.

America’s least-connected live in much of upstate New York, including the cities of Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse and a large percentage of the state of Ohio, including the cities of Cleveland, Dayton, Akron, Cincinnati, and Toledo.

The data comes from the 2013 U.S. Census American Community Survey, which now gathers information on household Internet connections. Out of 176 major American cities with 50,000 or more residential households, the Redistributing the Future blog team was able to crunch the numbers and score which American cities are most likely to lack home Internet access of any kind, including dial-up and mobile Internet (smartphone) and those that lack wired broadband of any kind, including cable, DSL, fiber, or satellite Internet.

The most common reasons homes lack Internet access are: cost (ie. consumers cannot afford the price of the service), availability (one cannot subscribe because the service is not offered), or disinterest (typically older Americans are the most likely to claim they don’t need Internet access).

The worst-scoring include economically challenged communities like Detroit, Mich., and those with extremely large ethnic populations, including Laredo, Tex., and Hialeah, Fla.

Laredo has a 30 percent rate of poverty. Laredo households with children under the age of eighteen headed by women have a 51 percent poverty rate. More than 95% of the population self-identify as Latinos. Hialeah has the highest percentage of Cuban and Cuban-American residents of any city in the United States, at 74% of the population.

It is too early to tell why regions in upstate New York and much of Ohio score particularly badly. Time Warner Cable is by far the most dominant player in upstate New York, winning much higher market share than competitors Verizon and Frontier. In Ohio, rankings for the city of Cleveland are particularly dismal: 51% of Cleveland’s households still didn’t have “fixed” broadband accounts (i.e. cable modem, DSL, satellite, etc.) in 2013. Even counting mobile devices, 45% of the city’s households didn’t have broadband Internet accounts. The economy is likely to have something to do with that. At least 61% of Cleveland households had incomes below $35,000 in 2013.

Data and charts courtesy: Bill Callahan

Arris DCX 3600 enhanced DVR for Time Warner Cable Maxx customers

Time Warner Cable’s enhanced DVR is here, at an enhanced price starting at $26/month.

Time Warner customers have long waited for an upgraded DVR capable of storing and recording more shows, and the Arris DCX 3600 is the result.

Available soon in Los Angeles and New York (and later in other TWC Maxx-upgraded markets), the enhanced DVR includes six tuners and 1TB of storage, enough to keep around 150 hours of HD programming.

The DVR includes QAM/RF-capability and a DOCSIS 3 modem built into the box. Time Warner Cable has set the monthly price for the box at $15.99 for single room DVR service, $19.99 a month for whole-house DVR service. An additional equipment rental fee also applies: $10.25/mo for the box and remote control, $11.75/mo if you are subject to Time Warner’s “additional outlet service fee.” That means customers will pay up to $31.74 a month for the DVR alone. Customers who subscribe to a bundled service package will likely pay significantly lower rates for the enhanced DVR.

Time Warner arrives very late to the DVR competition wars. Its current boxes can usually record only up to two shows at once and storage space, usually enough for 80 hours, may require customers to clear out older shows to make room for new ones.

Time Warner’s competitors are still able to beat Time Warner’s new DVR:

• AT&T U-verse comes closest to Time Warner, offering a four tuner DVR that can store up to 422 hours of SD programming, 155 hours in HD;
• Comcast is testing its new X1 video platform that can record 15 programs at the same time by linking together multiple HD-DVRs;
• Dish Network’s Hopper HD-DVR can record eight shows at once, and DirecTV’s Genie can manage five recordings at the same time;
• Verizon FiOS Quantum TV customers can record a maximum of 12 shows at once and its DVR package offers 2TB of storage.

The new equipment should be available in New York and Los Angeles by the end of this month and will gradually be introduced in other TWC Maxx cities planned for upgrades: Charlotte, N.C., Dallas, Tex., Hawaii, Raleigh, N.C., San Antonio, Tex., and San Diego. No word on when the new boxes will be available in Austin, Tex., where upgrades are already underway.

Customers in other Time Warner Cable cities will have to make do with older DVRs until either Time Warner schedules Maxx upgrades or Comcast succeeds in buying Time Warner.