Verizon is notifying some of its FiOS TV customers they will be paying $8 more a month “within 1-3 billing cycles” and a dollar more a month for the Regional Sports Network Fee, applicable in some areas.

(Courtesy: andrade6503)

Cable operators are increasingly breaking out high cost programming, including sports and local broadcast stations, from the basic cable tier and adding surcharges on the customer’s bill, often with no option to cancel the offending programming. Many operators also leave the price of their basic cable packages the same, creating a surcharge-driven, hidden rate increase.

Pay television providers have argued that some of the biggest rate increases occur after programmers raise prices during contract renewal talks. Breaking the fees out on the bill can re-target blame for rate increases on programmers instead of the cable, satellite, or telephone company, assuming customers scrutinize their bill.

It’s happy days at Comcast’s marketing and public relations department. How does a cable company pocket an extra $1.50 a month from 21.6 million cable TV customers without facing the wrath of the masses? Blame it on greedy broadcasters and quietly bank up to $32.4 million a month in new revenue.

Comcast wants to break out the cost of some of its programming disputes with local stations from your monthly cable bill and add an extra $1.50 monthly surcharge the company is calling a “Broadcast TV Fee” starting in the new year.

Comcast isn’t promising this $1.50 fee covers the total cost of licensing local stations for cable carriage, and they have no plans for similar surcharges for cable networks that have also been known to ask for a lot at contract renewal time. Customers may not realize that in some cases, the local NBC station just so happens to be owned by Comcast-NBC, offering easy opportunities to boost the asking price without too much trouble from co-workers at Comcast Cable.

Broadband Reports notes that isn’t the only new fee coming soon to a Comcast bill near you, starting Jan. 1. The company is also raising prices for cable television by $1-2 for many tiers, increasing the modem rental fee another dollar to an unprecedented $8 a month, and jacking up rates by $2 a month on almost all levels of broadband service.

AT&T this month signed up their 10 millionth customer to U-verse High Speed Internet service, surpassing Verizon FiOS as the nation’s biggest telephone company supplier of broadband, television, and telephone service. Coinciding with that success, AT&T is raising prices for U-verse, despite AT&T’s record earnings from the fiber to the neighborhood service, now accounting for $1 billion a month in revenue.

AT&T is protecting its broadband flank by convincing current DSL customers to switch to higher-speed U-verse broadband as the network upgrade reaches into more homes across AT&T’s service areas. In the last quarter U-verse picked up 655,000 new broadband customers nationwide, many upgraded from traditional DSL. Where AT&T has not invested in U-verse upgrades and cable competition exists, results are not as good. AT&T lost 26,000 DSL customers last quarter, most moving to cable broadband.

“This latest milestone shows how U-verse is helping transform AT&T into a premier IP broadband company,” said Lori Lee, senior executive vice president, AT&T Home Solutions. As of the third quarter of this year, total U-verse high-speed Internet subscribers represented about 60 percent of all wireline broadband subscribers, compared with 43 percent in the year-earlier quarter.

Verizon FiOS, in comparison, has signed up just 5.9 million customers FiOS Internet subscribers on its stalled fiber optic network. Most Verizon broadband customers with no FiOS in their future either stick with DSL service or, increasingly, switch to a cable competitor for faster speeds.

Some of AT&T’s strongest U-verse growth came from its TV package. At least 265,000 cable and satellite cord-cutters looking for a better deal switched to U-verse TV in the last three months, a gain from 198,000 at the same time last year. That’s the second-best quarterly gain ever. A total of 5.3 million AT&T customers subscribe to U-verse TV.

Much of the growth has come from AT&T’s investment in expanding U-verse to new areas. Project Velocity IP is a three-year, $14 billion plan to upgrade AT&T’s wireless and wired broadband networks. AT&T has added almost 2.5 million more homes to its broadband footprint so far this year and hopes to expand broadband availability to reach about 57 million customers by the end of 2015.

Although $14 billion is a significant investment, AT&T has spent considerably more on its shareholders. John Stephens, AT&T’s chief financial officer told Wall Street analysts AT&T has bought back 684 million shares of stock that will save the company more than $1.2 billion in future dividend payouts.  Combined with its dividend payout, AT&T has handed shareholders $18 billion so far this year and more than $40 billion since the beginning of 2012. AT&T expects to spend $20 billion on wireless and wireline network improvements in 2014.

AT&T’s speed upgrades have also not run as smoothly as AT&T claims. Efforts to increase speeds to 45Mbps in 79 markets has had mixed results with a significant number of customers complaining they cannot get qualified for the faster speeds because of infrastructure problems with AT&T’s network. The company still says it is on track to offer 75 and 100Mbps speed tiers in the future and is building a fiber to the home network in Austin to compete with Google.

Many customers who have been with AT&T for more than a year are learning better service does not come for free. AT&T has filed rate increases for its television service beginning Jan. 26, 2014 for customers not on a pricing promotion. The monthly price for the following U-verse TV service plans will increase $3, along with fee hikes for local stations and equipment, bringing AT&T at least $15 million in extra revenue each month:

• U-family to $62;
• U200 to $77;
• U200 Latino to $87;
• U300 to $92;
• U300 Latino to $102;
• U450 to $124;
• and U450 Latino to $134.
• Grandfathered plans also will increase $3: U100 to $64 or $69, depending on when first ordered; and U400 to $119.

• The monthly price of each non-DVR TV receiver will increase from $7 to $;
• Beginning on February 1, 2014, the Broadcast TV Surcharge will increase $1 to $2.99 per month to recover a portion of the amount local broadcasters charge AT&T to carry their channels.

Those customers who have a U-verse TV pricing promotion will continue to receive the promotional benefit until the applicable promotion ends or expires.  Customers are being notified of these changes via bill messaging occurring in November and December and a reminder in January and February 2014.  In addition, customers will be notified of these changes online at www.att.net/uversepricechange and att.com/uversesupport.

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AT&T is trying to get ahead of Google by advertising AT&T U-verse with GigaPower, a 1,000Mbps fiber to the home service promised in Austin sometime in the future. (0:30)

As Dr. John Malone positions his pieces on the cable industry’s chess board to win back the title of King of Big Cable, it is important to consider history.

Malone’s growing interest in a combined Charter-Time Warner Cable, under his effective control, is the first step towards re-envisioning Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI) — America’s largest cable operator in the 1980s and early 1990s. Although most of the original TCI Cable systems are now owned by Comcast, Malone’s notorious way of doing business may soon affect millions of Charter and Time Warner Cable subscribers in the not-too-distant future.

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How bad was life with TCI as your local cable company? Listen to Alan Garner, then-City Attorney for Jefferson City, Mo., who testified before Congress in March, 1990 about the uniquely abusive, allegedly criminal behavior of out of control TCI executives. (5:04)

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Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) was so stunned by the events in Jefferson City, he first asked if TCI’s threats were documented and on learning they were the basis of $35 million in court-ordered damages, the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee remarked, “you got thugs around there.” Under detailed questioning by Sen. John Danforth (R-Mo.) Garner talks about the “B-Movie” threats from TCI executives who warned city officials “we know where you live,” constant rate hikes, take-what-we-give-you service, and the fact TCI was willing to rip down cable lines and leave the city without cable service if they were denied a franchise renewal. (14:12)

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A befuddled Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) asked Garner why the city would still want to stay involved in the cable franchise process after the city’s horror story. Garner explained cable operators use public property to wire service to customers. Without local oversight, Garner believed TCI would still be scattering cable lines across neighbors’ backyards, across sidewalks, and draped over fences. TCI had a unique way of managing local service complaints, according to Garner. It threw service orders into a random cardboard box and let cable repair crews fish them out one by one. The ones furthest back in the box were the oldest, and the least likely to ever be chosen. TCI only listened to city officials when they had some oversight and enforcement powers. (3:13)

‘Disloyal Cablevision customers looking for discounts are dead to us.’

Cablevision is fed up with disloyal customers bouncing between the cable company and other providers when promotional discounts expire.

After losing 13,000 broadband, 18,000 voice, and 37,000 television customers, Cablevision CEO Jim Dolan said the company has stopped offering any further discounts to customers that received them once before.

“The customer that has been bouncing from one company to another on promotional/repetitive discounts has hit a dead-end with us,” Dolan told Wall Street analysts during a conference call.

All customers with promotions will now be tracked to prevent extensions or further discounts once the special rates expire. Dolan confirmed the ban will also extend to customer retention offers.

Customers who shop primarily on price in Cablevision’s service area have traditionally flipped between AT&T U-verse, Verizon FiOS and the cable company every few years, usually switching after a promotion expires or rates are increased. Because of fierce price competition, new customers can receive a triple play package of broadband, phone, and television service — including equipment, for less than $85 a month for at least one year. Regular prices are considerably higher.

Cablevision lost most of its departing New York and New Jersey customers to Verizon FiOS, but has been more successful fending off competition in Connecticut, where AT&T has the least capable broadband network among the three providers.

All three companies have attempted price increases over the last few years with mixed results. Cablevision’s eight percent rate hike on broadband this year may have been too much for some customers who shopped around and found a better deal with the phone company.

Despite the loss in customers, Dolan remains firmly committed to more rate hikes, especially for broadband service, noting its speed and features (including an extensive Wi-Fi network) deliver enough value to sustain further price increases.

Cablevision clearly hopes competitors follow its lead and end promotional rate double-dipping as well. If they do, customers will find themselves locked in with regular pricing regardless of the provider they choose.

Some analysts are skeptical Cablevision’s hard-line will last, especially if subscriber losses mount. Cable operators have attempted to restrict promotions in the past but tend to ease them if market share suffers. Despite the third quarter customer retreat, Cablevision’s rate hikes delivered $336 million in broadband revenue during the last three months, an increase from $308 million earned the same time last year.