[Update: See our updated piece with important new details about how to great the best possible deal from Time Warner Cable.]

Your cable bill now exceeds your electric and landline phone bill combined.  You’ve dropped the multiple premium channels, dumped the extra add-ons like Road Runner Turbo and even considered turning in your DVR box.  But your bill after the 2011 rate increase is still sky high.

Stop the Cap! has spent the last week working with several Time Warner Cable customers looking for a better deal from the nation’s second largest cable company.  It was a learning experience for all of us, with different “best offers” extended to different customers, deals some employees insisted simply weren’t available… until they were, and confusion galore as employees had to navigate their way around corporate roadblocks.

The good news: The quality of customer service from most Time Warner employees we worked with was generally excellent — professional, generally helpful, and even irritated when they couldn’t get some of the best deals in place for customers.  The bad news: As Time Warner moves more towards a regional corporate bureaucracy, new rules and pre-conditions frustrate all concerned.

When it comes to this cable company, the less business you give them, the better the offers.

As Scott, our reader in Brighton, N.Y., tweeted to Time Warner: “It would be nice to toss your longtime customers a bone now and again.”

Step One: Review Your Bill

The first way to save is to scrutinize your current bill.  Know what you are paying and consider dropping services you no longer use.  Most Time Warner customers purchase a bundle of two or three services, usually cable-TV and broadband.  The Watch N Surf bundle in the Rochester area now runs $118.99 per month.  Below the bundle (shown in bold on the bill) are breakdowns of equipment charges — set top boxes and remote controls, and add-ons such as movie channels or Road Runner Turbo.

Before Time Warner Cable will authorize a lower price, expect them to question any add-ons, such as premium movie channels or Turbo.  They’ll attempt to get you to drop services before they’ll extend a deal.  We found it more difficult to convince the company to give price breaks to customers who subscribe to a number of extra services and want to keep them.

Be prepared to temporarily drop services if you want the best possible deal.  You can always add them back later.

Step Two: Prune Your Package

Think carefully about the services you are getting.  Are you still watching premium movie channels these days or downloading your movies from Netflix or other services?  A few years ago, Time Warner only charged $7 a month for each additional premium channel.  Now that price has nearly doubled in many areas.  Are you really watching them enough to make the price worthwhile?  At upwards of $13.95 per month — $167 a year, it may be time to ditch them.

Time Warner told us subscribers routinely confuse the “Digital HD Tier” with the cable company’s standard HD channels.  The package, priced at $4.99 in most areas, is on many customers’ bills because it used to include HDNet and HDNet Movies, two of the earliest HD channels a number of early HDTV set owners craved.  The company dropped both networks more than a year ago, replacing them with Smithsonian and the improbable RFD-TV.  The latter channel has no business in a premium-priced package — it’s like charging you extra to receive C-SPAN 3.  If you can do without those channels as well as MGM HD and Universal HD — you just saved $60 a year.  Time Warner does not charge extra for other HD channels.

Some Time Warner customers also have several set top boxes they originally got for free or at a discount.  Today those boxes run $7 per month.  If you have cable in a bedroom or kitchen and can manage with channels 2-99, you can turn in the set top box and save $84 a year per box.

Broadband customers with Road Runner Turbo, now $9.99 per month, may find little value from that add-on in areas where speeds increased in the past year.  In Rochester, for example, Road Runner Turbo turns 10/1Mbps service into 15/1Mbps service — hardly much of an improvement and certainly not worth the price.  Save the $120 a year for something else.

Step Three: Negotiating a Better Deal

Now that you’ve reviewed your services and pruned your package where necessary, it’s time for Time Warner to do their part and meet you halfway.

Getting the cable company to approve the best possible deal depends on a number of factors:

1. How long you have been a customer and how well you pay your bill;
2. How serious you are about canceling service;
3. How many services you have;
4. Who you talk to.

The fewer services you have, the better the deal you can get from Time Warner’s retention department.  For example, a recently-ended promotion offered a year of free DVR service — but only for customers who don’t have a DVR box already.  If you already have phone, broadband, and cable service from Time Warner, scoring the most aggressive Triple Play promotion was a lot harder than it was for a customer with a single service.  But not always.  More often than not, deals that were not available from one customer service representative were available from another.

Let’s get started.

Call your local Time Warner Cable office and request to cancel your service.  You want to be transferred to a Retentions Specialist, authorized to extend special deals to departing customers.  Ordinary customer service representatives won’t have access to the best deals.

There is no reason to beat around the bush with the representative.  Just tell them “it costs too much” when they ask why you want to cancel.  You don’t need a sob story.  When you focus the representative on the money issue, you won’t have to navigate around their arguments about how bad satellite TV is or why the phone company offer isn’t as good.

The best savings and least red tape are won by new customers.  Judging from a few “shopping deal” websites we explored, it isn’t unprecedented for customers to cancel service and sign up under a family member’s name as a new customer.  But that method can be a major hassle.  Orders cannot be taken until an existing customer schedules a date to disconnect service.  Customers will also have to pay installation costs in some areas, and will lose their current Road Runner e-mail accounts.  We often found taking this drastic measure was not necessary — some existing customers managed to win deals just one or two dollars greater than a new customer would pay.

Time Warner’s most aggressive current offer is their triple play/$99 month offer, including cable-TV, phone, and Internet service.  Equipment costs extra, and that price comes before taxes and fees.  Virtually any customer currently taking broadband and cable-TV service can manage to score the $99 price when threatening to cancel service.  It also costs nearly $20 less per month than Time Warner’s price for just cable and broadband.  If you disconnect your landline, you will save another $20-50 a month and get unlimited long distance calling across North America.

Tweet Your Way to Savings.

Our reader Scott grabbed the $99 offer, and all it really took was a tweet to @TWCableHelp:

@twcablehelp Getting ready to cancel my #timewarnercable and take my $ elsewhere if they want new customers more than old.

After exchanging phone numbers, Scott was talking to a retention agent near Buffalo, N.Y., who secured a deal for him in about 10 minutes.

Time Warner says the national retention team has the keys to some of the best retention deals around — deals the local agents can’t always offer.

We did things the hard way — by phone, talking to multiple representatives, each who pitched us different deals, and rejected or accepted our counteroffers.  The diversity in responsiveness surprised us.

We spent time with Gennifer near Buffalo who ended up with a stubborn representative who refused to deal, and the call ended with a scheduled disconnect.

“I am not paying their higher rates,” Gennifer tells us.  “I’m switching to Verizon FiOS after this.”

Time Warner insisted she downgrade her add-on services before they would extend a deal her way.

“I am not going to have a cable company tell me what channels and services I should get, especially when the ‘other guy’ is cheaper,” she told us. “They obviously don’t want to keep me as a customer after years with them, so goodbye.”

Just an hour later, we were back on the phone with Time Warner easily scoring the $99 triple play promotion Gennifer couldn’t get, this time for a relative in Rochester, no questions asked.

“It is a great deal and we’re happy to extend it to you,” the representative told us.  (Gennifer eventually got that same offer talking to a different representative, but she’s still headed to Verizon FiOS regardless.)

Time Warner’s recently finished “12 months of free DVR service” promotion was much harder to get.  Representatives repeatedly told us the offer was not available to customers with existing DVR service, right up until they told us it “sort of was,” with some creative effort and the approval of the right supervisor.  Instead of that particular deal, another was offered worth nearly as much, with a one time credit making up the difference.  That works for us.

A particularly excellent representative, Tim, has gone all-out working on our account over the past three days trying to keep us happy.  Apologizing not less than two dozen times for various frustrations he encountered along the way, he’s still manning the wheel as he navigates around headaches thanks to a somehow-corrupted account and an obstinate Frontier Communications who is stubbornly trying to block the request to switch providers.  He continues to impress us as that journey continues, even offering a year of Showtime gratis to make up for all of the inconvenience.  Our “out the door” price will be around $132, including Turbo, a DVR box, a HD set-top box, Showtime, and a one time credit of around $25.  We were paying around $40 a month more, and will also save another $35 a month dropping our landline from Frontier Communications.

Seeing the back of Frontier Communications.

Time Warner’s willingness to deal gives us the chance to see the back of Frontier Communications, dumping their landline service.  In the process, we actually expanded the number of services we are buying from the cable company, and earning the chance to say goodbye to a phone company that has done little for this community in recent years.

When Frontier asked us why we possibly would want to cancel, we unloaded:

• The company’s insistence on Internet Overcharging schemes;
• The fact Frontier’s DSL service is at least a decade behind Time Warner’s broadband speeds;
• Frontier has done nothing for the Rochester area except provide slow and lousy DSL service — satellite TV as a triple-play afterthought doesn’t cut it;
• They charge too much and stick customers on term contracts that are expensive to cancel;
• We don’t have much confidence in Frontier’s long-term future with the ongoing exodus of customers.

Other Deals and Promotions

Not every customer will want a triple-play deal from Time Warner.  For those who want cheaper standalone broadband service, we recommend Earthlink’s six month promotion (available on Earthlink’s website), which is billed directly by Time Warner with no equipment changes:

• Standard: (equivalent speed to Road Runner Standard, without PowerBoost): $29.95/month for six months, $41.95/month thereafter;
• Turbo: (equivalent speed to Road Runner Turbo, without PowerBoost): $39.90/month for six months, $51.90/month thereafter.

After six months, switch back to Road Runner.  It should run $34.95 a month for the first year on a commonly-seen promotion.

We found a lot less savings for customers trying to lower the price of cable and broadband, without phone.  In fact, we found it was actually cheaper to take the bundled offer with phone service than finding a retention deal without it.  You are not obligated to use the phone service, of course.  They can assign you a new number you may or may not care to use.

Some other promotions to ask about:

• DVR Service: Rent one box at the regular price, get one free.  For homes who want two DVR boxes, ask if you can get the second one for free for the first year;
• Road Runner Turbo: This $9.99 add-on can be had for free for one year in some areas.  Ask the representative what they can do for you;
• Starz! $25 mail in rebate: Starz! is running a $25 mail-in rebate for new customers who keep the movie channel active for three months;
• Free Showtime: Although not promoted any longer, a year of free Showtime might still be available to those who ask and sign up for the $99 offer;
• Installation/Start Up Costs: Ask for free installation, if you are a new phone customer.  You will probably still pay the one-time $20 fee phone customers are charged, but let the cable company install the service for you for free.

If you are uncomfortable with the agent or the offers you are getting, tell them you still want to go ahead and schedule a disconnect.  Suggest a date a week in advance.  Then, a day later, call back Time Warner and again request to “cancel” service, telling the representative you want to confirm your disconnect date.  Often, they are amenable to reopening negotiations at that point.  Yesterday’s “no” may turn into today’s “yes.”

Don’t be intimidated if a representative tells you he’s unlikely to get a supervisor to approve a counteroffer you make in response to theirs.  Go ahead and tell them to check anyway.  More often than not, the supervisor will “surprisingly” approve your request or provide a better offer.  If you live in an area with “price protection agreements” and think something better might come along in the next year or two, fight to stay off of one -and- get the retention deal price anyway.

Step Four: Gratitude Expressed

If you got what you called for, be sure to thank the representative and get their name.  You might want to drop a message to the president of your local Time Warner Cable office to thank the company and mention the representative that helped you remain a customer.  Good employees deserve recognition and in the future, these are the people you will want to talk to when you call about something else.

In the end, it was a hassle to spin the “Wheel of Retention Deals” to see where it landed.  It sometimes took multiple calls to get the best deal, and we agree with Scott’s assessment that treating your best customers to the worst deals is not a great way to win customer loyalty.  Calling and asking for discounts is a necessary annoyance these days but we’d rather never have to do it.  The next step is outright cancellation of services like cable-TV, so Time Warner gets something out of the process as well.  We just wished the representatives were given the tools to be more consistent.

As we’ve always said here — we have no complaints about the quality of the local employees who manage and maintain the service we’ve subscribed to for well over a decade.  Our beef has been and probably always will be with the corporate decision-makers who conjure up the rate increases, experiments of Internet Overcharging schemes, and other annoyances.

Time Warner Cable customers in the Albany, N.Y. area are complaining about the cable company’s latest rate increase which will cost most bundled customers at least $7 a month more in 2011.

Time Warner blamed the rate increases on investment and upgrades to their facilities and increased programming costs.

The company’s heavily marketed $99 promotion is also coming under fire in the area, because many customers don’t qualify for it.

The Albany Times-Union reports many area residents were invited to call the company “to see how they could lower their bill.”  Time Warner has marketed a one year promotional offer providing the company’s triple-play bundle of phone, Internet and cable-TV service for around $33 for each service, or $99 a month.  But when customers called the company, they were told they don’t qualify for the promotion.

Michael Malachowski, a Delmar resident, learned the hard way that winning a promotional offer from the cable company wasn’t going to be as easy as he thought.

Malachowski currently has a bundle of services with the company and spends around $140 a month.  But he learned he can’t qualify for Time Warner’s $99 offer  — it is available only to new customers or those with a single service.

Other area customers shared similar stories with the newspaper.

One way around the roadblock is to threaten to cancel.

Albany customers are getting some additional powers to negotiate with the imminent arrival of Verizon FiOS TV, coming to Bethlehem, Scotia, and Colonie.  A similar bundle of services from Verizon is a lot cheaper than Time Warner’s $140 a month.  The fiber to the home network offers an online promotion for all three services for $84.99 a month for at least the first year.

Even if FiOS is not an option, Time Warner bends the rules when customers are on the verge of cutting their cord.

Outrage over enormous price increases for Frontier’s fiber optic television service in Indiana are being met with little more than a shrug of the shoulders by one company executive, who seemed to dismiss as an afterthought the state-of-the-art FiOS network it acquired from Verizon.

Frontier Communications’ president of its Midwest division, Don Banowetz, has been making the rounds with Fort Wayne-area reporters over news the phone company intends to boost prices for its FiOS TV service by $30 a month for most customers.

But Banowetz has done little to defend the price increases or the fiber network the company acquired with its purchase of landlines from Verizon.

“Look, we bought the whole company, right? All the assets. The FiOS part was part of that, so it was part of the deal,” said Banowetz.  “We couldn’t ride the previous arrangement. So in essence, it was what it was.”

WANE-TV reporter Aishah Hasnie seemed stunned with Banowetz’s response, finally asking what customers should do if they can’t afford the rate increases.

“Get DirecTV,” came the reply.

Starting February 18th, customers who subscribe to a FiOS TV basic package will see their rates go by up $12 per month. Customers who subscribe to other FiOS TV packages will see a $30 increase. The increase does not affect customers under a price protection plan.

That kind of price increase would normally provoke blanched faces in a corporate boardroom over fears of a mass exodus of customers.  But not Frontier.

“The FiOS TV part of our business is actually a very small part of our business. It’s about three percent of our revenues,” said Banowetz.

But Frontier’s satellite package, pitched as an alternative, brings plenty of tricks, traps and other hidden fees inside the box.  In addition to signing a two-year service commitment with DirecTV, customers also have to sign a three-year “price protection agreement” with the phone company, which is another way of saying “contract.”  The total price adds up:

• Customers opting for Frontier’s “free TV” promotion will face a three-year contract term with a $400 early cancellation fee;
• Frontier’s satellite TV promotion has a three-year contract term with a $300 early cancellation fee;
• “Care and handling” fees amounting to $69.99 apply to the “free TV” offer;
• A $34.99 Frontier “video setup fee” applies to customers getting satellite service from the phone company;
• DirecTV requires customers to pass a credit check and sign a contract with a 24 month commitment;
• If you change any aspect of your programming package, you may forfeit the “free service” offered as part of the promotion.

In northwest Washington state, Frontier’s rate increases are alienating the company with one member of the state’s congressional delegation.

U.S. Representative Rick Larsen (D-Wash.) sent a letter to Frontier complaining about the huge rate hikes, telling the company it needs to find better alternatives for many of his constituents who cannot install a satellite dish.

“Folks in Northwest Washington are concerned about the future of cable service offered through Frontier Communications, and rightly so,” said Rep. Larsen. “I am calling on Frontier to offer consumers better and more affordable options for cable service in the region.”

Rep. Larsen’s letter to Frontier Communications:

Dear Mr. Mason:

I am writing to express concerns that I share with many of my constituents in Northwest Washington about Frontier’s plans for cable service in our region. The Everett Herald recently published an article, “Switch to a Dish or pay more, Frontier tells FIOS customers,” that highlights some of the problems that people in Northwest Washington have with Frontier’s announcement that it will alter the existing framework of its fiber-optic television service. Specifically, Frontier’s decision to offer its customers a choice between continuing with their current FIOS television service—with a rate increase of 46 percent or switching their cable television service to the satellite provider DirecTV.

I am concerned with Frontier’s decision to substantially raise its cable television rates for its existing customers in the Pacific Northwest. Last September, Frontier Communications Chief Executive Maggie Wilderotter was quoted in The Oregonian newspaper stating that Frontier would distinguish itself from larger cable companies by holding down prices for its customers. I find it troubling that less than six months later Frontier is dramatically raising its cable television rates.

Additionally, it is problematic that Frontier has not offered an adequate alternative to those customers who live in apartment complexes where the installation of satellite dishes is prohibited and therefore cannot take advantage of the option to switch their cable service to DirecTV. — Rick Larsen, United States Representative, Washington State, 2nd District

Stop the Cap! reader John says he has sent a letter to CEO Maggie Wilderotter protesting the rate hikes and imploring the company to find a programming co-op to join.  Smaller providers need not pay “rack prices” for cable programming.  Municipal providers, family owned companies, and small independent cable operators have enjoyed substantial programming discounts through group buying power.  Frontier apparently is trying to negotiate for video programming on its own, a fatal mistake that has brought on this month’s rate hike.

If you want to help educate Frontier about how to run their business properly, here is their contact information:

Frontier Communications Corporation
3 High Ridge Park
Stamford, CT 06905-1390
Phone: 203-614-5600
Fax: 203-614-4602
[email protected]

When writing or calling, don’t forget to tell them to abandon their Internet Overcharging schemes — no usage caps or limits on Frontier broadband, or you will take your business somewhere else.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WANE Fort Wayne Frontier Frustration 1-24-11.flv[/flv]

WANE-TV in Fort Wayne delves into Frontier Frustration as angry customers react to news of enormous rate increases.  (2 minutes)

While Time Warner Cable trumpets upgraded broadband services in many of the states it provides service, South Carolina and some other southeastern areas are the exception.

Stop the Cap! reader Brett writes Time Warner’s broadband experience in South Carolina is so four years ago.

“Check out the paltry speeds that Time Warner Cable offers in Columbia. As far as I can tell we are the slowest region around.  The very best package they offer, with PowerBoost, is 10Mbps for downloads, 512kbps for uploads,” Brett writes.  “How sad.”

Most Columbia customers get less than that.  The standard Road Runner package has been stuck at 7Mbps down and 384kbps for some time.

While broadband speeds have not changed, the rates have.  Time Warner Cable announced rate increases throughout the Carolinas in December, boosting prices for many services.

Time Warner Cable spokeswoman Rose Dangerfield said needed upgrades were part of the reason for the rate increase.

“The company spent $380 million in the past year to upgrade equipment in South Carolina and North Carolina,” she said.

A review of Time Warner Cable’s speeds in the Carolinas and the states of Virginia and Alabama makes one wonder where the money went, because Brett shares company with other customers across most of the region.

When is a rate increase not just a rate increase?  When it’s also “an attractive offer.”

Frontier Communications is getting heat from consumers in Fort Wayne, Ind., with news their Frontier FiOS TV bill will skyrocket $12-30 higher in the coming month.

To distract from the disaster-in-the-making, Frontier representatives are waving shiny keys to customers preparing to depart, trying to “upgrade” Indiana residents back to satellite TV.

Don Banowetz, president of Frontier’s Midwest division, told Fort Wayne customers he was personally excited by the satellite offer, because customers can get free programming services for the remainder of 2011, a $700 value according to Banowetz.

“It’s not just a price increase, it’s an offer — a quite attractive offer,” Banowetz told INC Now.

Frontier is also pitching a free 32-inch “web-capable” digital television for customers signing an extended length contract.

Frontier says these televisions are going to revolutionize the way Americans watch TV over the next five years, and they believe their offer will be well-received by customers.

Not so much.

“I’ll bet their letter will leave out the part about how Frontier rations the Internet to their customers,” writes Fort Wayne resident Irv, who has been closely following Frontier’s Internet Overcharging antics in the Sacramento area.  “Will the coin slot be on the top or side of their television, because after you start watching, you’ll have to start paying.”

Frontier has sent letters to customers in Minnesota and California demanding up to $250 a month for residential broadband access because they used the company’s DSL service “too much.”

“Who wants to sign a two or three contract with Frontier, raise your hands,” Irv asks.  “They have just destroyed their FiOS TV service in Indiana — my fingers couldn’t dial the cable company fast enough as I take my business somewhere else.”

Another Fort Wayne resident — Nick Behm, has been following Stop the Cap! ever since Verizon announced it was selling Ft. Wayne’s phone lines to Frontier.

“You guys had this company nailed — Indiana’s regulators should hire you folks and some other actual consumers to review these deals before they get rubber-stamped, because Frontier is going to put themselves out of business and risk landline service throughout our area,” Behm writes.  “How can you ruin a fiber service that sells itself?  Let Frontier run it.”

Neither Behm or Irv will be taking up Frontier’s offer, although Behm still has a term contract of his own — with Verizon.

“I am protected from Frontier’s cash grab for several more months, so at least I have time to prepare for the forthcoming cancellation — bye, bye Frontier.”

[flv width=”432″ height=”260″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/INC Now Ft Wayne New Charges for Frontier Customers 1-18-11.mp4[/flv]

INC Now delivers the bad (and according to Frontier – good) news to Fort Wayne, Ind., FiOS TV customers — your rates are going up as much as $30 a month.  (1 minute)