Verizon Wireless today launched LTE Advanced technology to bring up to 50% faster peak wireless data speeds to almost its entire national 4G LTE service area.

LTE-A allows Verizon to better balance its data traffic by combining disparate mobile data channels on different frequency bands to increase bandwidth and speed for mobile data traffic. The technology, known as carrier aggregation, helps mobile providers more efficiently deliver data over multiple frequency bands at the same time. Verizon controls space in the 700 MHz, AWS and PCS spectrum bands giving the company the possibility of combining two or three bandwidth channels together into a single channel, boosting speeds.

There is a catch. Only customers with the latest devices supporting LTE-A will experience dramatic speed boosts. Verizon currently supports 39 LTE Advanced-capable phones and tablets on its network, including the latest Samsung Galaxy and Apple iPhone models. If you own one of these devices, the speed improvements are automatic and no plan change is required.

Verizon’s original LTE network was shown to deliver more than 100Mbps in peak speeds when it was in the lab or during early beta tests. But once actual customers got on the network, speeds began to slow. Most customers today get LTE speeds of 5-12Mbps from Verizon Wireless. Verizon’s press release touts “peak download speeds of up to 225Mbps” using two channel aggregation and over 300Mbps when testing three channel aggregation. But customers may find speeds considerably slower than that as the number of LTE-A capable devices grows in the months and years ahead.

Verizon Wireless is not shy about its boasts for better wireless speed.

“Our customers just received a major network enhancement for no additional cost,” said Tami Erwin, head of operations for Verizon’s wireless unit. “Verizon LTE Advanced works like a turbocharger on an engine. Speed boosts kick in when you need it most, with big data use. That’s when you get the big peak boost of Verizon LTE Advanced.”

“Verizon LTE Advanced means your data session moves more quickly over the best network,” said Nicki Palmer, Verizon’s chief wireless network engineer. “Imagine a road with multiple lanes in which, once you pick a lane, that’s the lane you drive in. That describes our award-winning 4G LTE network. Continuing the metaphor, Verizon LTE Advanced allows cars to change lanes efficiently and flawlessly, balancing the flow of traffic and getting drivers to their destinations more efficiently. That means blindingly fast data transmissions when you need it most.”

A Los Angeles man has reached the boiling point after two years of telemarketing calls from Charter Communications that turn out to be the result of a wrong number.

William L. McCarthy filed a complaint on Aug. 12 with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California alleging Charter Communications of California LLC has harassed him with telemarketing calls intended for someone else.

McCarthy’s complaint states Charter has calling his phone number to talk to Monique Smith, someone McCarthy doesn’t know. Despite requesting at least 12 times that Charter remove his phone number from their telemarketing lists, the calls just kept on coming with the help of an automatic dialer, in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

McCarthy wants a jury trial, seeks statutory damages, legal fees, and whatever other relief the court finds reasonable.

Charter has an expansive history of aggravating customers with relentless telemarketing calls:

2013: “I have never been more harassed by spam telemarketing/calling in my life than from Charter Communications and they already have my business! It’s unbelievable to me how many times they call per week (average of 8 times), never leaving a message, and they only call to “promote an upgrade of my services” every time. They continue to call even after I have asked them multiple times to stop calling me and that I don’t want to upgrade, period. They literally take telemarketing spam to a whole new level. All seven of their numbers that they have tried calling me on (including “unknown”/blocked numbers), I have saved to my phone as “Charter Spam” so I know it’s them calling me and don’t pick up. Only problem is, if you don’t pick up with one number, they’ll continue to call you but from their other 100 numbers.”

From a blog: “As a Charter customer, it’s very annoying to be constantly bombarded by telemarketing calls. Charter is relentless. No matter how much you ask them not to call you, they will continue and the reps are very aggressive. They are exempt from the National Do Not Call Registry because there is a business/customer relationship. At one point, I was contacted 16 times within two weeks from their 909-259-XXXX number. They do change the number that appears on the caller ID. Sometimes I have gotten the 404 area code.”

2014: “I don’t even have their services yet and I have received 19 calls in 5 days. NINETEEN! And, those are only the ones I haven’t answered!”

In late 2015, Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster filed a lawsuit in federal court against Charter Communications for violating federal and state telemarketing and No-Call laws. Unwanted telemarketing calls and harassing treatment by telemarketers annually rank highest on the list of complaints received by the Attorney General’s Office. 

His office alone received 350 No-Call complaints about harassing practices by Charter’s telemarketers. Many consumers complained about daily calls from Charter, and some consumers received up to three calls a day. The calls were an attempt to sell Charter’s cable, internet and phone services.

Time Warner Cable Arena is no more.

After Charter Communications completed its acquisition of TWC, it discovered it had work to do rebranding all-things-TWC, including the Charlotte, N.C., sports arena that is home to the Charlotte Hornets.

Charter will be spending its time and resources rechristening the arena “Spectrum Center” in time for the new NBA season starting in late October. Charter’s suite of products is branded “Spectrum,” much the same way Comcast calls many of its products “XFINITY.”

The Charlotte-arena originally opened in 2005 and Time Warner Cable acquired the naming rights back in 2008.

Maxx is dead.

Charter Communications executives told Wall Street analysts that Time Warner Cable’s upgrade program has been suspended, to be replaced with Charter’s own previously announced plan of upgrades and “simplified pricing” sometime in 2017.

Time Warner Cable was responsible for a lot of the capital expenditures underway at the combined Charter-TWC-Bright House venture just before the merger deal closed in May. Christopher L. Winfrey, Charter’s chief financial officer and executive vice president, told investors Time Warner was on a small spending binge, rushing in orders for new cable broadband technology to hurry Maxx upgrades to customers before Charter took over operations.

Winfrey eased Wall Street’s concerns about Time Warner Cable spending 21% of revenue on capital expenditures during the last quarter, promising the more modest upgrades forthcoming from Charter will allow for future spending reductions. More immediately, Winfrey reassured investors the days of Time Warner Cable’s aggressive Maxx upgrade effort was over.

“There is, obviously, the significant amount of all-digital activity that was continuing at TWC,” Winfrey told analysts. “And that will be largely put on hold as we put in the Charter all-digital strategy the beginning of next year.”

Charter plans to cancel upgrades that would have established multiple Time Warner Cable speed tiers ranging from 50-300Mbps. Instead, Charter will roll out two speed tiers to Time Warner Cable customers — 60Mbps for around $60 a month and 100Mbps for around $100 a month for broadband-only customers.

Rutledge

“In the fall, we will begin to rebrand Time Warner Cable and Bright House and launch our Spectrum pricing and packaging in a number of key markets totaling over 40% of our acquired passings with the remainder in the first half of 2017,” said Charter CEO Thomas Rutledge.

Customers in certain states — notably New York — will be able to keep their current Time Warner Cable package for several years. Customers in other states will be pushed harder to transition into Charter’s simplified tiers.

“In 2017, the all-digital project at Time Warner Cable and Bright House markets will use the Charter all-digital strategy, which uses fully functioning two-way set-top boxes with video on demand and advanced guide functionality on every TV outlet,” said Rutledge. “We expect the project to be completed by 2018. We will also extend our practice of performing electronic connections instead of physical truck rolls as we go all-digital, allowing us to fully scale our self-installation and self-service practices.”

Charter only advertises 60Mbps internet access to most customers on its website.

“Our plan is to have Spectrum Guide available in most Legacy Charter markets by the end of this year,” added Rutledge, referring to the on-screen channel guide. “We will launch Spectrum Guide in TWC’s larger markets by the middle of 2017 and other TWC and Bright House markets following through the year and likely continuing through 2018 as we complete the all-digital project.”

Rutledge was critical of Time Warner Cable and Bright House’s myriad of service tiers and prices.

“Through different metrics and stages of development, we can see that TWC and more recently, Bright House had both become reliant on rate increases and retention offers, each of which has various short and long-term effects including encouraging customers to initiate more transactions,” Rutledge said. “We’ve addressed these types of issues at Legacy Charter and we’ll do so at TWC and Bright House during the Spectrum pricing and packaging migration.”

That means Charter intends to dramatically cut the number of service and pricing options and convince customers to stop switching to promotional offers that they eventually abandon when the promotion ends. Charter prefers stable prices for services and reducing the amount of customer retention packages they have to offer to price-sensitive customers. As prices reset and increase, increased call volumes results as customers negotiate for a better deal. Removing the incentive to negotiate is seen as a cost saving maneuver and keeps customers on Charter’s regular price packages longer.

Charter Communications is promising its Southern California customers it won’t bungle the transition from Time Warner Cable to Charter Communications like Frontier Communications did with former Verizon customers.

“We purchased all of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks. With this transaction we acquired everything,” company spokesman Justin Venech said. “We’re able to take more time in the integration process and not rush to make changes.”

Charter will take up to 18 months to make its presence fully known in areas formerly served by Time Warner Cable, and then primarily under its brand name known as Spectrum.

Time Warner Cable customers will be able to keep their current service and packages even after the transition, at least for a while.

But not all customers are happy about Charter’s slow transition plans. Customers waiting for Time Warner Cable Maxx upgrades, some already in progress, may be out of luck. Charter’s new management team put an indefinite hold on Time Warner’s more aggressive upgrade plans in favor of Charter’s much more modest commitment to offer customers two broadband speed tiers – 60 and 100Mbps over the next 18 months. Customers in the northeast and midwest have been told there are no longer any definitive dates for the introduction of Maxx, which offers free speed upgrades up to 300Mbps.

Almost all of Time Warner Cable’s executive management has been escorted out of the company’s Manhattan headquarters, severance pay and benefits in hand. In fact, Charter plans to abandon Time Warner Cable’s Manhattan headquarters altogether and shift top management to its plush Connecticut office. Most workers will be reassigned to other locations yet to be announced, some possibly upstate.

Charter has already begun repricing service and packages that will resemble Spectrum offerings, at least for new customers across Time Warner Cable and Bright House territories. The packages will not carry the Spectrum brand just yet, however.