Time Warner Cable’s decision to spend $11 billion to broadcast Los Angeles Lakers and Dodgers games at an estimated cost of $50-60 a year per subscriber is the subject of a class action lawsuit from fed up customers.

The plaintiffs are upset cable subscribers across Southern California will have to cover the cost of the 20-year deal with no option to opt-out of the sports channels because they are bundled into the most popular cable package.

The suit, filed this week in Superior Court alleges at least 60 percent of subscribers have no interest in the sports programming, but will collectively cover $6.6 billion of the deal and never watch a single game.

Time Warner Cable is also accused of forcing AT&T U-verse, Charter Cable, Cox Cable, DirecTV and Verizon FiOS to sign restrictive contracts that compel the companies to include the sports channels on the basic lineup.

Ironically, Time Warner Cable itself regularly complains about the increasing cost of programming and contract terms that force it to bundle expensive sports channels inside the basic tier instead of offering customers optional, added-cost sports programming packages.

Both sports teams are also named as defendants in the suit because they were aware that all subscribers would face rate increases as a result of the deal.

“TWC’s bundling results in Defendants making huge profits, much of which is extracted from unwilling consumers who have no opportunity to delete unwanted telecasts,” the complaint states.

The suit claims there is no legitimate reason Time Warner Cable and the sports teams could not have offered the new networks only to customers that wished to pay for them. The suit wants the bundling of the sports networks stopped and customers given refunds for the higher television bills that resulted.

Time Warner’s “Because We Can” One-Time Charge applies to new customers signing up for certain promotions.

Time Warner Cable has increased the monthly rental fee for its leased cable modem from $3.95 a month to $4.99 a month and has introduced a “one-time charge” of $19.99 applicable to certain Internet service new customer promotions.

CEO Glenn Britt earlier commented that Time Warner Cable had room to grow its modem lease fee:

“It was received with a minimum of push-back and we’re still actually charging less than Comcast ($7/month), so I think there is room to charge more going forward. People can buy their own if they want and a small percentage of customers have chosen to do that which is fine with us.”

For now, the increase only applies to new customers, but Stop the Cap! expects it will also eventually apply to current customers as part of the next round of rate increases. The Internet Modem with Free Home Wi-Fi, available to customers ordering 30/5 or 50/5Mbps service costs $14.99 a month.

Time Warner Cable has pulled back on customer promotions since the beginning of the year and has begun shifting its pricing for its most profitable service — broadband, to capture price-sensitive customers who have been unable to previously afford Internet-only service from the company.

Time Warner has introduced a new “Lite” tier offering 1Mbps service for $20 a month and has made the 3Mbps “Basic” service the staple of many of its bundled promotions.

Stop the Cap! strongly encourages Time Warner Cable customers to buy their own cable modems and avoid the rental fees. Customers can also bypass the rental fee by signing up for Earthlink service through Time Warner Cable.

Our top modem choice remains the Motorola SB6141, which can be found at the “Buy It Now” price on eBay as low as $77.99 with free shipping and no upfront sales tax for most buyers. This model does not include Wi-Fi, but most people don’t need it — a router generally provides Wi-Fi connectivity on its own.

We highly recommend purchasing DOCSIS 3-ready modems to avoid obsolescence issues.

The most recent list of “acceptable” modems that can be activated with your Time Warner Cable broadband service are:

With promotions from Time Warner Cable no longer being what they used to be, customers are struggling to get as much savings as possible from discount pricing and a $200 gift card offer available to those switching from a competing provider.

But expecting a $200 debit card and actually getting it are two different things, as some customers are learning.

Stop the Cap! regularly gets reader complaints from customers who signed up for Time Warner Cable promotions but are rejected for the rebate, primarily because they did not follow all the rules or waited too long.

Typically, Time Warner’s complicated rebates are only available to customers switching from another provider. New customers who don’t have active, equivalent service with another company do not qualify. If you don’t have cable television and watch shows online from Netflix or only have a cell phone for telephone service, you won’t qualify.

Other important rules:

• Customers have to stay with Time Warner for 90 days after installation with no past due balances to qualify to apply for the rebate;
• You must register your rebate on a special website within 30 days of installation;
• You must also upload a copy of the bill from your previous service provider issued within the last 90 days showing the service(s) you are cancelling.  Customer’s name and/or address on previous provider’s bill must match name and/or address on Time Warner Cable installation order;
• You will need a “redemption code” found on a postcard and/or email sent to you after installation that includes your rebate registration instructions to apply for the rebate.

With requirements like that, customers can easily be tripped up along the way and get rejected for the rebate.

We recommend customers create a folder to keep Time Warner Cable documentation in one easy-to-remember place. If you can’t find a rebate redemption code, don’t search the house. Call Time Warner Cable at 1-888-892-2253 and request one over the phone.

We also suggest you use a calendar to make note of deadlines and track your rebate so you don’t forget. Some people only discover they were rejected when they called to ask about a missing rebate card.

The biggest obstacle is usually finding and uploading a final bill showing services disconnected with the other provider. By the time some providers send your last bill, the rebate may have slipped your mind or the submission deadline has passed.

If your rebate request was denied and you made a good faith effort to follow the rules, don’t give up and say goodbye to $200.

1. Start by calling Time Warner Cable and complaining.
2. If your documentation was sent and the company claims it was not received, ask them to accept a copy.
3. If you are still rejected or if the company points you to the rebate processor who points you back to the company, file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau against the Time Warner Cable division nearest you. In reviewing several cases about rebate eligibility, it is clear Time Warner usually settles these complaints by applying a credit for the rebate card amount to your Time Warner Cable bill.

If and when your rebate card does arrive, it comes with a booklet of terms and conditions as well. Our best advice is to spend the money quickly, because after six months, the issuing bank starts deducting service fees. If you lose the card, it will cost just under $6 to get a new one.

Some suggested uses include buying gift cards with fewer restrictions (Amazon.com is a common choice) if you are worried you won’t use the card fast enough.

One of the best local places to quickly use rebate cards are in supermarkets. Keep track of your balance and when just a few dollars are left, ask the cashier to process it for the exact amount of the remaining funds on the card. The cashier can then accept another credit card, cash or a check for any remaining balance due. Do not use your reward card at a gas station, rental car company, hotel, restaurant or for bill payments. These establishments often place a temporary hold on  card funds in excess of the transaction amount or first process a test authorization on the card for a few dollars to make sure the card is valid and has adequate funds available. It can take several days before holds on those funds are released.

Werner

Cable operators are getting ready for competition from Google and other fiber providers with an upgrade to the cable broadband standard DOCSIS that will support up to 10/1Gbps service.

Comcast chief technology officer Tony Werner told attendees at the Washington, D.C. Cable Show that DOCSIS 3.1 will deliver about a 50% improvement in spectrum efficiency.

The new standard relies on orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM), a standard already used by the wireless industry to get tighter performance from existing wireless spectrum.

The cable industry’s weakness remains its broadband upstream capacity. Standards originally developed for cable broadband assume users will download far more content than upload, so the focus has always been on download speeds. Upload speeds have been anemic in comparison. Until recently, cable technicians worried they would have to dedicate considerably more bandwidth for faster upstream speeds, but with improved standards, that may no longer be true.

Time Warner Cable’s chief technology officer Mike LaJoie is convinced his company will not have to widen upstream bandwidth. Time Warner has been among the stingiest providers of broadband speed upgrades,  still offering residential customers in most service areas a maximum of 50/5Mbps service, even as Comcast has upgraded to 305Mbps in certain markets, mostly in the northeast. This week Comcast demonstrated 3Gbps broadband, primarily to prove the cable broadband platform will be able to compete with fiber technology.

LaJoie

The first trials of the new broadband standard are anticipated in 2014, with modems for sale later that year or early 2015. Comcast is expected to begin buying and deploying DOCSIS 3.1-capable modems “when it makes financial sense.”

Major speed increases will require cable companies to accelerate the transition to all-digital video platforms to free up available cable spectrum. The faster the offered speeds, the more channels must be dedicated to providing broadband. Operators don’t see a space crunch anytime soon, especially if they move towards an all-IP platform that would support all services through a giant broadband pipe.

Cox Cable, for example, is planning to move more of its analog channels to digital to free up capacity for faster broadband speeds.

But exactly when consumers will be able to use the faster speeds possible from DOCSIS 3.1 is up to your provider.

Time Warner Cable is not convinced customers even need or want 100Mbps speed, so expect some cable companies to not even attempt gigabit broadband for years to come.

LaJoie dismissed triple digit megabit speeds as a novelty that is not “very deeply penetrated” in the marketplace — marketspeak for “not attracting many customers.”

“There has not been a demonstrated appetite for it,” LaJoie said.

Insight is disappearing after Time Warner Cable bought the cable operator. It is in the process of converting subscribers to Time Warner’s own systems.

Some of more than 730,000 former Insight subscribers across Kentucky were without phone service after Time Warner Cable failed to successfully transfer them to a new platform.

Time Warner Cable had similar problems transitioning customers in Indiana, many unable to successfully navigate through a new online service agreement and e-mail address selection process.

Bob Mueller, a Florence-based financial planner, told Cincinnati.com it took nearly two days get his office line working again and his staff was still trying late Tuesday afternoon.

“We had massive problems with Insight before the changeover, and now we had problems with Time Warner,” Mueller told the newspaper. “This is not getting off to a very good start, but there aren’t a lot of other options. We’ve been at this for two days and no luck.”

Time Warner Cable denied there were any serious problems, but admitted call volumes were higher than usual. The company said it registered 40,000 new voice mail accounts throughout the state and migrated 200,000 phone customers since the weekend.

Internet customers will be moved to Time Warner Cable next week.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WDRB Louisville Long Waits at TWC 6-10-13.mp4[/flv]

WDRB in Louisville noted long hold times for new Time Warner Cable customers in excess of 30 minutes. (1 minute)