Time Warner Cable TV customers will soon be able to access on demand, full length episodes of popular TV shows aired on cable networks like Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and VH1 at no additional charge thanks to a new agreement signed with Viacom.

Currently Time Warner’s “authenticated” cable TV customers can live stream Viacom networks over the cable company’s TWC TV app, but soon will also be able to view on-demand content using a Time Warner user ID and password on Viacom websites.

Time Warner has been among the slowest cable operators to embrace the industry’s TV Everywhere project — allowing only paying cable television subscribers to access popular cable shows on the web. The new agreement will help Time Warner sell customers on keeping cable TV subscriptions to enjoy extra online features, while protecting the company from would-be cord cutters finding ways to watch favorite television shows for free online.

YNN provides 24/7 local news coverage on individual channels in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Albany.

Time Warner Cable has placed its owned and operated news channels – including YNN, NY1 News, NY1 Noticias, and News 14 Carolina – behind a TV Everywhere pay wall, requiring a video subscription with the cable operator to access anything beyond the latest news headlines:

The expanded video content includes a new web-only weather forecast, plus expanded long-form news interviews and extended on-location footage. In the future, Time Warner Cable TV subscribers will also be able to comment on our articles and receive e-mail alerts for top news stories.

In order to access our full, enhanced site, Time Warner Cable customers must sign in to YNN.com using their Time Warner Cable username and password – the same ID used to access TWC’s online bill pay service, stream TV shows from WatchESPN and HBO GO, access the TWC TV mobile apps, and use Remote DVR manager, Phone Manager and other TWC services.

This ID is free of charge to all TWC TV subscribers, and there is no additional charge for the enhanced website content. However, TWC subscribers with only high-speed data or phone service will need to upgrade to a video subscription to be able to fully access the upgraded site.

Customers can find their current account number on their latest Time Warner Cable paper or online bill. Viewing first requires an online account (available on TWC’s Registration Page by entering your e-mail address and following the registration instructions.)

YNN and other Time Warner Cable news sites used to offer video content for all site visitors. The change is part of Time Warner’s TV Everywhere project, designed to enhance the value of cable television subscriptions by offering accompanying enhanced web content — streamed video, live access, and on-demand video — over the company’s broadband service.

New Yorkers know the end of summer is upon us when the New York State Fair opens every year at the end of August in centrally-located Syracuse. But at this year’s fair, Time Warner Cable has also made it clear the season for its 4G mobile broadband service has also come to at least a temporary end.

Fierce Cable’s Steve Donohue noticed big changes at the cable company exhibit:

When I attended the New York State Fair outside of Syracuse last year, the Intelligo mobile hotspot–which Time Warner Cable offered to subscribers through a partnership with Clearwire –was one of the hottest pieces of technology that it had on display. Time Warner Cable said that it tripled the number of 4G wireless hotspots that it sold at the fair in 2011 compared to 2010. Here in Central New York, where subscribers don’t have access to the Wi-Fi networks that Time Warner Cable, Comcast and Cablevision offer in the New York area, apparently there was a significant demand for mobile hotspots.

‘Intelligone’

This year, the mobile broadband technology is all gone. Both Time Warner Cable and Comcast are no longer selling access to Clearwire’s 4G WiMAX service marketed under each cable company’s brand. Once it became clear they were partnering up with Verizon Wireless to sell each other’s products, the days of Clearwire were numbered.

Both cable companies are still supporting existing Clearwire mobile broadband customers, but for how long nobody is certain. Verizon Wireless’ products have not yet appeared on the western or central New York regional Time Warner Cable websites, but may be forthcoming soon.

Meanwhile, Time Warner’s push this year is on home automation and security. The company has been test marketing its IntelligentHome service in Rochester for quite awhile and has now expanded to other upstate areas. The service offers a respectable suite of traditional security products apps ranging from watching your pets over webcams to controlling your home’s heating and cooling system from remote locations.

In 2010, Time Warner Cable featured celebrity Mike O’Malley at the Fair to shake hands and sign autographs. This year, they have a player and “spokesmodel” from the Syracuse Crunch, a minor league pro hockey team. Time Warner Cable also hired a juggler on a unicycle to attract crowds to their pavilion.

Despite glowing media reports about Time Warner Cable’s announcement it is investing $25 million to expand its fiber optic network in parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan, in fact the fiber expansion is part of a previously-reached franchise agreement with New York City officials and will only be available to large business customers that can afford the asking price.

Time Warner Cable’s press release, which generated favorable media coverage in The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News, focused considerable attention on fiber upgrades for the Brooklyn Navy Yard, since reborn as a modern tech-friendly business park.

TWCBC also announced that the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation, a 501(c)(3) organization, will receive a state-of-the-art Time Warner Cable Learning Lab in its Employment Center, located inside the massive complex and accessible to the public.

“We are very pleased to work with the City of New York to make significant investments to ensure that this city has the technology infrastructure to successfully compete in a worldwide marketplace,” said Ken Fitzpatrick, President of Time Warner Cable Business Class, East Region. “Our fiber optic network provides dedicated Internet access at incredible speeds and high-bandwidth capabilities to serve the communications needs of any business.”

Time Warner Cable was required to make its investment in the Brooklyn Navy Yard as part of its franchise agreement with NYC officials.

Time Warner Cable did not, however, provide this investment out of the goodness of their heart. They were required to under the terms of the current franchise agreement the company signed with city officials:

[Time Warner Cable] will install, at its own expense, the fiber optic and coaxial cables and related facilities and equipment needed to provide its service to the buildings and occupants throughout the Brooklyn Navy Yard facility.

Time Warner Cable is also extending its network to more commercial establishments throughout the city, in keeping with its previously-announced interest in expanding services to business customers. Nothing new to see here either.

That did not stop Bloomberg News from comparing Time Warner’s network expansion with Google’s gigabit network in Kansas City:

Time Warner Cable Inc. will expand fiber-optic lines to businesses in New York, a move that boosts Internet speeds as much as 20 times and provides an East Coast counterpoint to Google’s ultrafast network in Kansas City.

The company faces a threat from Google more than 1,000 miles away in Kansas City, where the Internet-search giant is building a fiber-optic network as a test project. Time Warner Cable is the main broadband provider for the area, which spans parts of Missouri and Kansas. While Google’s network will be available to both companies and households, Time Warner Cable’s New York fiber network is focused on businesses.

Google’s network initially will only be sold to residential customers, which are the primary targets for the service. Time Warner Cable’s fiber backbone network primarily works in tandem with its coaxial cable network and does not provide a fiber to the premises connection except for the company’s largest corporate customers.

Time Warner Cable Business Class sells different speeds and services to commercial clients. Most choose speeds considerably lower than 1,000Mbps because of the cost.

What was missing from the coverage is the fact ordinary residential Time Warner Cable customers in New York City will not benefit from these fiber upgrades — they are targeted only to commercial clients. Residential customers will continue to receive the same hybrid fiber-coax service they always have from the cable company.

If New York customers want fiber service, they will have to buy it from Verizon, assuming FiOS has made its way to your borough and neighborhood.

While Time Warner Cable will pull local channels off its cable lineup when contract negotiations fail, the company was less aggressive fighting demands from Fox News Channel parent company News Corp., and caved in to higher fees for the cable news network.

People familiar with the talks said News Corp. won a major rate increase from the cable operator for its Fox News Channel which could reset the bar when other cable companies negotiate renewal contracts.

Sources told the Los Angeles Times Fox News Channel will now cost each cable subscriber more than $1 a month, up from 89 cents. Time Warner Cable will likely bundle that increase into the next round of customer rate hikes. Fox News Channel’s new price puts them among top tier cable networks like TNT and USA.

Last year,  News Corp. President Chase Carey told Wall Street contract renewals for the channel “will take subscription fees to a whole new level.”

The only concession Time Warner Cable seemed to win was a more limited renewal agreement that only covered the Fox News Channel, Fox Movie Channel, and the barely-watched Fox Business Network. Time Warner Cable officials refused to renegotiate earlier, yet to expire deals with less popular Fox-owned cable networks.

The Times noted Fox News Channel did not want to lose more than 10 million cable subscribers at the height of election season, and the cable company did not want to deal with loyal Fox News viewers likely to complain or leave over the loss of the network.

With the renewal, every Time Warner Cable subscriber will pay even more for the channels whether they watch them or not.