The 500 channel universe has arrived for around 23,000 households around the state capital as Verizon officially unveiled its FiOS television service last week.

The company added television to its broadband service offering after securing video franchise agreements in suburban Bethlehem, Colonie, Guilderland, and Scotia.  It also expects to win approval to provide television service to the nearby city of Schenectady and the town of Colonie shortly.

The arrival of Verizon’s triple-play package begins with a $100 monthly promotional package (go to Verizon’s FiOS website and the online price can be lower) including phone, Internet, and television service for a year, rivaling a similar $99 promotion on offer for new customers from incumbent Time Warner Cable. But Verizon delivers faster broadband service and more HD channels than its cable rival, and will deliver up to 535 channels to subscribers — 130 in High Definition.

“Consumers and small businesses in these communities at long last have a better choice for TV,” said Tracey Edwards, president and general manager for Verizon’s Upstate New York region. “We’ve had great success in many other parts of the state. Now it’s time to bring FiOS TV to this part of northeastern New York and provide customers in the region a choice that is truly different from the cable TV company.”

Verizon officials also claimed the introduction of FiOS TV would result in lower prices for local residents, a claim that does not necessarily hold up when examining the rates for each company.  Both deliver triple-play promotions and retention offers that come within a few dollars of each other.

Time Warner Cable says Verizon’s service does not come with the same local commitment to the region the cable operator has provided with its local news channel YNN, and features that allow customers to start programs over from the beginning or watch live streams of 32 channels on the company’s iPad application.

But the fact a new choice is now available has delighted some of our readers.

Jeff in Guilderland says a number of Albany residents were upset when Time Warner Cable unveiled its $99 promotion which turned out not to be available to existing customers.

“They only give the best prices to their least loyal customers who are ready to cancel their service or sign up as new customers,” Jeff says.  “We’ve had cable from these guys for over a decade and when we sought a temporary price break, they wanted to give us a $20 credit — thanks for nothing.”

Now Jeff says with Verizon around, Time Warner better offer more than that.

Verizon put expansion of its Verizon FiOS fiber-to-the-home service on hold more than a year ago, stopping new cities from winning new options made possible with fiber optics.  But Verizon is still continuing to meet its commitments to communities where the network has already broken ground.  Where communities have not given Verizon video franchise agreements, Verizon markets its broadband and phone options.  But delivering video completes the triple play package many consumers want.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Albany Gets FiOS TV 3-26-11.flv[/flv]

WNYT and WXXA-TV reports some Albany-area residents can now get FiOS TV, showing Verizon is still expanding its FiOS product line in areas where fiber has already been laid.  (3 minutes)

Invest or die.  That succinctly explains the current state of the landline telephone business and the companies providing service to a decreasing number of Americans.  Some companies, like AT&T and Verizon have heavily diversified their business into wireless, fiber, IPTV and broadband.  Others, like Frontier are hoping their presence in uncompetitive rural markets will keep them in business, as long as their dividends keep stockholders happy.

CenturyLink, which is in the process of absorbing the last remaining Baby Bell — Qwest, has decided to invest in their business to stay competitive with their biggest nemesis — the cable company.  CenturyLink is still hanging on to ADSL broadband service in many rural areas, but the company sees the promise of future relevance with bonded DSL, which is delivering 25/2Mbps broadband service to an increasing number of their customers.  Where distances allow, CenturyLink is at least temporarily providing the fastest residential broadband service available in areas like southwest Florida.  They are holding their own against local cable competitors like Comcast.

Now the company is following AT&T in introducing a new IPTV service to many of its customers.  Dubbed Prism, the U-verse like service delivers a true triple play package to customers who thought they would be stuck with their local cable company or satellite dish provider for TV programming.

Prism offers more than 200 channels, a multi-room DVR capable of recording up to four shows at the same time, and an interactive program guide that doesn’t need an instruction manual to navigate.

[flv width=”640″ height=”390″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Introducing CenturyLink Prism.flv[/flv]

This promotional video introduces CenturyLink’s Prism service and its television features.  (4 minutes)

Prism has been introduced in larger CenturyLink areas ranging from southern Nevada, southwestern Florida, and North Carolina, where EMBARQ used to provide telephone service.

The service works through a hybrid fiber-copper wire IPTV network.  Fiber optic cable reduces the distance data needs to travel over ordinary copper phone wires.  The less copper, the faster the potential speed.  With a 25-30Mbps broadband platform, Prism can divide up available bandwidth to support television, phone, and up to 10Mbps broadband service.  It’s all delivered over the same digital network.  While not as advanced as Verizon FiOS and other fiber to the home networks, IPTV services like Prism and U-verse are cheaper to provide, and that can mean faster deployment in areas not well served by competition.

Reaction to Prism has been generally positive among Stop the Cap! readers who have shared their stories with us.  Among the positives:

• The interactive program guide is light years ahead of Comcast, Cox, and Time Warner Cable;
• Broadband speeds are generally better than the original DSL service CenturyLink used to provide;
• The picture quality is excellent where the telephone network has been upgraded the most;
• Competitive introductory and retention offers mean consumers can pay less for service, at least initially.

But there are some problems, too:

• Bandwidth varies depending on how far away you are from the nearest fiber node.  This affects what you can do with the service.  If you are further out, you can only watch one HD television channel at a time, and may not be able to record more than one HD channel at the same time;
• The DVR box has issues — readers report shows disappear, don’t get recorded, or show poor results when line quality drops;
• Broadband speeds with Prism officially max out at 10Mbps;
• If you are watching a number of televisions at the same time, your broadband speeds could drop;
• Variability in service quality comes largely as a result of inferior copper wire phone networks CenturyLink chose to stick with.  If your phone line is prone to static or hum, or deliver poor results when the weather is bad, Prism might not work well for you.

Some subscribers found they initially loved the service, but when bad weather arrived, it all fell apart.

“Our phone lines are decades old, so this comes as no surprise,” says Manny who writes from Naples, Fla.  “I was also disappointed some of the channels in HD I had with Comcast are not available from Prism.”

In parts of Raleigh, N.C., Prism just launched a few weeks ago.  But some of our readers are sticking with Time Warner Cable.

“After looking over their pricing and packages, Time Warner has more HD channels and doesn’t charge $12 a month extra for them,” writes Ralph.  “CenturyLink also only bundles 3Mbps broadband service with most of their packages, and you have to pay extra for 10Mbps service.”

Ralph thinks Road Runner from the cable company will provide a more consistent broadband experience for his family.

“There is only so much you can push through a phone line at the same time; I like the fact they are competing, but they will not be able to keep up if they rely on copper phone wiring forever,” Ralph says.

Cox faces new competition in southern Nevada

Despite some of the negatives, CenturyLink may deliver formidable competition where cable companies haven’t kept up.  Some other markets where Prism will offer service: Jefferson City, and Columbia, Mo., and La Crosse, Wis.  Cox Cable in southern Nevada is now competing with Prism, and believes it has the superior network.

“The way our system is constructed, we have services equally distributed everywhere in the valley,” Juergen Barbusca, Cox manager of communications, public and government affairs in Las Vegas said. “Everybody in our footprint can get our highest advertised speeds.”

Cable broadband is less susceptible to distance degradation that can make Prism a no-go in neighborhoods at the far end of a phone company’s central office.

Also equally distributed is the price.  Outside of new customer promotions, nobody will save any money here.  Cox and CenturyLink are both selling their respective triple-play packages of TV, Internet, and phone for exactly the same price: $143 a month.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KTNV Las Vegas CenturyLink Prism 2-8-11 WFTX Cape Coral CenturyLink in SW Florida 12-7-10.flv[/flv]

KTNV-TV in Las Vegas introduces viewers to CenturyLink’s Prism service and WFTX-TV in Cape Coral, Florida talks with CenturyLink about their new 25Mbps broadband service in two exceptionally company-friendly pieces from the stations’ respective news shows.  (13 minutes)

Haggling for a better deal from your telecommunications provider is beginning to resemble buying a car.

Less than a day after writing up our experiences with the Customer Retention Department of Time Warner Cable, there have been new developments.

Because our account was configured for a disconnect, a Time Warner retention specialist called us, this time from Albany, N.Y.  His role — to win us back as a Time Warner customer.  His office formerly called customers who turned in their equipment and canceled service, but now that the company is losing more cable-TV customers than it adds, they are now trying to stop disconnects at all costs.

Incredibly, this high-level office was authorized to provide deals even Time Warner’s regional office could not touch.

The best deal we could negotiate with the Buffalo office included the company’s triple play package, Road Runner Turbo, one DVR box and one digital set top box for $132 a month.

That was until we received a call this morning with an offer that blew that out of the water — $79.95 a month for the company’s triple-play package including a year of free DVR service. Putting the two packages together to compare pricing, Albany’s Time Warner office was willing offer that same package for $106.90, plus tax.

That’s a difference of $25 a month.

That’s quite a difference.

But then, on cue, Time Warner proved our earlier point about confusing and conflicting information being thrown at customers.

Minutes after agreeing to that offer, which would have cut some additional red tape from the earlier deal, we were called back and told the deal fell apart, at least temporarily.

It seems customers who agree to an earlier offer end up locking themselves out from something even better.  Because we worked with another retention specialist who partially entered an order into the system, and despite the fact the company called us with something better, they reneged on the better offer.

“I can’t even begin the order,” we were told.  “As long as a pending order is in place, there is nothing we can do.”

We found it odd the company would call us with an offer we couldn’t get.  We were then told that office is authorized to make offers to customers who:

• downgrade to one service;
• have a pending disconnect order;
• actually disconnect service.

We asked if we pulled out of our earlier retention deal, would we then be qualified to proceed with his?  He repeated the three conditions and said he’d love to offer us something but until one of those conditions were in place, he could not.

Hint. Hint.

It’s remarkable Time Warner would offer customers one deal they insist was the best available price, only to have another employee cut $25 off the top without breaking a sweat.  It’s quickly reminding me of my last car buying experience — always a major headache.  So many tricks, traps, and games.

We’ll be bringing this whole matter up with the company shortly.

In the meantime, we’re going to modify our advice to customers searching for a better deal.  Call and schedule a disconnect or downgrade of your service two weeks out, tell the agent you are not prepared to discuss a retention deal, and then wait for them to call you a few days later.  Ours originated from the Time Warner Sales Center at 1-877-726-0712, for those who check caller ID.

Ask about the triple play $79 offer that includes a year of free DVR service.

Oh, and about the free “DVR service.”  We learned Time Warner no longer considers the “service” the same as the “box.”  This word salad means customers pay about $8 and change for the DVR hardware, but get the “service” that let’s you record shows on the equipment for free — a $3 value.

We told you it was confusing.

[Updated: 1:02pm ET — We just spoke with Time Warner Cable, who apologized for the confusion over pricing and the follow-up retention call we received.  Time Warner Cable will honor any offers made by any of their agents, so with the assistance of a supervisor, we were able to take advantage of this offer after all.  They even threw in free Turbo service for a year, free Showtime, and gave us a “whole house DVR” at a special rate, bringing the total out of the door price to around $116 a month, including all equipment.  When Road Runner Extreme (30/5Mbps) service arrives, that will run an additional $10 per month.  The entire ordeal netted us almost $60 a month in savings, more if we didn’t upgrade to the “whole house DVR.”]

Time Warner's Wheel of Retention Deals

[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

Still paying for channels no longer on Time Warner's lineup?

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.

When Time Warner won't deal, one Buffalo resident called Verizon instead.

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

Time Warner broadband-only customers might be able to secure this deal, or pay Earthlink even less.

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.