The Triangle -- North Carolina

Just a few days after Gov. Bev Purdue declined to veto an anti-consumer, anti-community broadband bill sponsored by Time Warner Cable, the cable company announced the imminent availability of its Road Runner Extreme and Wideband products — made possible with an upgrade to DOCSIS 3 technology.

The newly available service is officially being rolled out across the Triangle, including the cities of Raleigh-Durham and Chapel Hill over the next several weeks.

“We are empowering our customers with pure online power to save time and boost productivity when multitasking with multiple devices,” said Christine Whitaker, area vice president of operations for Eastern North Carolina. “As customers expand their use of the Internet, our services are evolving to meet their needs.”

Time Warner noted it had spent $8.5 million to upgrade the region to DOCSIS 3 service, and has already rolled out the upgrade in the Charlotte area.  In the Triangle, the company also announced free speed upgrades for existing customers that took effect last week:

• Road Runner Turbo with PowerBoost 15 Mbps/1Mbps
• Road Runner Broadband with PowerBoost 10 Mbps/1 Mbps

North and South Carolina Time Warner Cable customers are among the last to get the speed upgrades Time Warner has completed in many of their service areas.  Some customers formerly received upstream speeds of 512kbps or less.  The cable company said recent fiber upgrades made the faster speeds possible, but DOCSIS 3 upgrades are responsible for allowing the cable company to offer its Extreme (30/5) and Wideband (50/5Mbps) products.

Despite the upgrades, Time Warner Cable still offers slower broadband service than many of its community-owned competitors, and the cable operator has made investments in broadband upgrades across most of its cable systems nationwide as a matter of course.

With Time Warner Cable’s broadband now running as high as $50 a month for standard, stand-alone service, getting the best deal possible can save you as much as $20 a month off those prices.  Time Warner Cable has been repricing their services to deliver the most value to customers who bundle all of the company’s products into a single package.  But if you don’t want television or telephone service from the cable company, you are going to pay a lot more than your service-bundled-neighbors for Road Runner High Speed Internet.

Stop the Cap! presents our strategy to help broadband-only customers get the best possible prices from Time Warner Cable:

Choose Earthlink

Customers paying Time Warner Cable’s regular prices for broadband service are paying too much.  Time Warner currently charges just short of $50 a month for Standard 10/1Mbps service (speeds are slower in some areas).  That’s up from years of charging $40 a month, slightly higher if you were a broadband-only customer.  But with the help of Earthlink, you can cut that broadband bill to $29.99 a month for the first six months.  Earthlink co-exists with Road Runner, Time Warner Cable’s own broadband service.  With just a few mouse clicks and a quick phone call, Time Warner can switch your regular price Road Runner to Earthlink without any equipment changes.  Billing and service will continue to be provided by Time Warner and the change literally takes less than five minutes by phone.

Earthlink’s broadband service is indistinguishable from Road Runner — same speeds, same level of service, with two exceptions:

• Earthlink does not benefit from PowerBoost, which delivers temporary speed increases during file downloads
• You will forfeit your rr.com e-mail address

We recommend you avoid using ISP-provided e-mail addresses when possible, because they help tie you down to an existing provider.  Instead, sign up for a free e-mail account from Google’s Gmail, or Yahoo! Mail, or any of the dozens of other web-based e-mail providers.  Or, purchase your own domain name from GoDaddy or 1and1, which includes e-mail, and either read it on those sites or forward it to a web-based e-mail provider.  Domain names can be had for under $10 a year and deliver maximum flexibility for those who want the freedom to change Internet providers.

After Six Months, Switch Back to Road Runner

When your Earthlink promotion expires at the end of six months, your price will increase to $41.95 per month.  Just before that happens, switch back to Time Warner Cable’s Road Runner service.  You qualify for new customer pricing promotions.  As of this week, Time Warner Cable in western New York is offering one year at $29.99 per month for 10/1Mbps service.  Other areas may have different pricing promotions.

After the year is up, you can start all over again, heading back to Earthlink for another six month promotional term.  Earthlink has offered its promotional plan for more than two years, and it shows no signs of ending anytime soon.

Promotional Half-Truths

Promotions come and go from Time Warner Cable, so it is wise to check with them often if the $29.99 deal is not currently running in your area.  Start by checking Time Warner Cable’s website, and remember if you are using Earthlink, you will want to select pricing for new customers.  If you find a good price on the website, you may be able to complete your order online.  Otherwise, call your local office and ask about currently running promotions.  Some common ones:

• Road Runner Turbo at 50% off for the first year;
• Road Runner Turbo free for six months;
• Road Runner with wireless router/modem free for six months to one year;
• Road Runner with free installation (especially useful if you want Road Runner Extreme/Wideband service, which carries a pricey installation fee);
• Road Runner for $29.99 for six months;
• Bundled promotions — $99 for all three services, $79 for broadband/cable or broadband/phone

Not every promotion delivers the best deal for customers, and some have been slightly deceptive, such as this speed comparison we found on the cable company’s website this morning:

Our View:

1. Time Warner Cable has been spanked before for their claims about running a “fiber network.”  In fact, their “Fiber Rich Network” is a marketing stretch.  All modern cable systems use fiber optics to help distribute their service into various communities, but coaxial copper cable delivers the signal through neighborhoods to your individual home.  Cable companies still cannot match the broadband speeds available on an all-fiber network.
2. “Powertasking” is a meaningless marketing claim.  Any high speed network will allow the entire family to effectively share a broadband connection.
3. We’re glad to know Time Warner Cable has “massive bandwidth” — more than enough to go around.  We’ll remember that if and when the company ever entertains bringing back their experimental Internet Overcharging scheme they claimed was necessary to pay for equipment upgrades to cope with broadband traffic growth.
4. It would be simpler to install Time Warner’s DOCSIS 3 upgrade if we could do it ourselves, but the cable company currently requires a mandatory service call ($67.98 fee) to install it.
5. Time Warner is being cute comparing their broadband speed with Verizon FiOS.  In fact, FiOS is faster because of what isn’t mentioned here — upstream speeds.  Time Warner tops out at 5Mbps, Verizon offers 20Mbps for uploads.  But Time Warner’s pricing is better at that download speed.  Verizon is more aggressively priced when they bundle services together.  For example, Time Warner’s $99 triple play bundle only offers 10/1Mbps service.  Verizon offers up to 25/25Mbps service for the same price.  Both include phone and television service.

Phillip "Not a Time Warner Cable Employee" Dampier

One of the most vociferous critics of the publicly-owned cable system serving the communities of Mooresville, Cornelius and Davidson, N.C. has been exposed as an employee of Time Warner Cable.

MI-Connection, the community-owned cable system, has been subjected to withering criticism since town leaders purchased it from bankrupt Adelphia Cable in 2007.  The efforts to rebuild the system to current standards has proved time-consuming and expensive, and ongoing expenses will require an investment of at least $17 million over the next three years to keep the cable system up and running.  Despite the fact Time Warner Cable has run into larger, more expensive headaches rebuilding similar rundown Adelphia systems they purchased in Ft. Worth, Texas and Los Angeles, critics of community cable have pounced on the costly rebuild to attack public involvement in private enterprise and suggest city officials have not competently run the operation.

Some of the loudest criticism has come in the comment sections of local newspapers and media sites.  Just as Fibrant has faced similar attacks in the comment section of the Salisbury Post, critics of MI-Connection have piled on in newspapers like the Davidson News and Hunterville’s Herald Weekly.  One of the loudest critics of all, Andy Stevens, even started a blog devoted to attacking what he calls “Government Cable.”

David Boraks, editor of the Davidson News, has reported extensively on MI-Connection, and he reads the comments that follow his articles published online, including those written by Stevens.

In a story written today by Boraks, the Davidson News revealed a fact that consumers, the media, and local officials deserved to know — Stevens works for Time Warner Cable.  That revelation comes despite repeated earlier denials from Stevens when asked by reporters and local officials if he worked for the cable company.

Mooresville, North Carolina

How did the newspaper find out about Mr. Stevens’ day job?

MI-Connection board chair John Venzon has gotten fed up reading unrelenting, and often fact-free attacks on the publicly owned cable system he oversees.  Venzon told the Herald Weekly he used to ignore the often anonymous critics of the local cable system, but he’s changing tactics.  Venzon and some other MI-Connection supporters have jumped into the online debate, correcting false information and taking on some of the cable system’s loudest critics, including Stevens.

As part of that effort, Venzon decided to publicly disclose a recent encounter with Stevens at a local shopping center.  Venzon was especially interested to find Stevens wearing a Time Warner Cable uniform, driving a Time Warner Cable truck.

Venzon went public on the Davidson News website Friday:

I would like to point out that today we confirmed that Andy Stevens, a frequent attendee at our board meetings and vocal community critic works for Time Warner Cable. He was greeted by one of our employees while in a TWC uniform and driving one of their logo-ed vehicles. He has been active in using our publicly available information to turn our potential customers against us and to stir up fear, uncertainty and doubt about MI-Connection while hiding his motives. He does not live in our town or service area, so he does not ‘have a dog in the fight’ unless you consider who signs his paycheck. Could I attend competitors’ regular board meetings to see what they are doing?

To make matters worse, he has used the Freedom of Information Act to gain access to every communication between the towns, the board and management. So Time Warner does in fact sit in our meetings … and we are required to provide the meeting notes.

In corporate America, this would constitute espionage. In our situation, it is free and legal. I find it deplorable. I hope you agree.

I believe we should be required to report information just as publicly traded companies do and would adhere to all such requirement. That system promotes transparency to shareholders on a quarterly basis. In addition, we would continue to attend town board meetings and community roundtables to disclose information to citizens.

In another setting, I would be happy to debate the merits of public ownership of a utility that promotes the well being of its citizens and businesses within their community. However, we are in the midst of executing a decision that was made several years ago and are responsible to grow the business.

I do not mind a fair fight, and we must win based on the value of our products and services. However, don’t unfairly give advantage to our competitors and put our citizens at greater risk.

Boraks

Boraks has gotten an admission from Stevens he does, in fact, work for Time Warner Cable, a pertinent detail omitted from Stevens’ anti-MI-Connection blog.  Before deleting about a dozen articles attacking the community cable system, Stevens even noted on the home page of his website, “As I have a full time job, this effort will be accomplished during my free time (evenings and weekends),” without bothering to disclose what that job was.  His “About” section didn’t make mention of his employer either.

The now-defunct blog of secret Time Warner Cable employee Andy Stevens

Now that Time Warner Cable, a regular critic of community-owned broadband, has been put in the embarrassing position of having an employee indirectly do its dirty work, a company spokesman was reduced to telling Boraks they cannot control what their employees do.

But apparently behind closed doors, all is not sweetness and light between Stevens and his employer.  Stevens’ highly active blog suddenly was deprived of all its content after revelations about his employer made the newspaper.  Bing’s cache of Stevens’ site (which Stop the Cap! has captured) shows he had plenty to say about the cable system — none of it good.  That all changed today.

Boraks opined in his piece in the News that Stevens ongoing denials of involvement with Time Warner Cable and his lack of disclosure left him concerned.

Indeed, Stevens’ efforts to hide his employer’s identity and his subsequent decision to bring his blog down after the cat was let out of the bag suggests there is nothing for Stevens or Time Warner Cable to be proud of in their relentless, often sneaky efforts to bring community-owned competition to its knees.  When it comes to protecting duopoly profits of local cable and phone companies in North Carolina, it’s total war on all fronts.

Charter Cable, one of America’s worst-rated cable companies, wants out of greater Los Angeles.  Its cable system, serving parts of LA, has been rumored for sale for years.  Now the cable company has gotten serious, hiring Goldman Sachs and Citibank to run an auction to sell off the system.

The most logical buyer, Time Warner Cable, has been engaged in on-again, off-again talks with Charter about Los Angeles for sometime, according to several sources in the cable investment community.  Charter proposed a swap, trading its Los Angeles system to Time Warner if they could acquire Time Warner’s subscribers in Wisconsin.

Time Warner Cable currently serves 560,000 subscribers in Green Bay, Milwaukee and Appleton.  Charter serves much of the rest of the state.  Thankfully for many Wisconsin customers, Time Warner Cable told Charter they were not interested.  Time Warner gets significantly higher customer ratings than Charter does.

Now that Goldman Sachs and Citibank will be running an auction, Time Warner Cable could still ultimately acquire the Charter systems in Los Angeles, if they are willing to pony up an estimated $2 billion asking price.  If Time Warner won’t bid that high, speculation is that Comcast, Cox, or Cablevision will.

A surprise bonus for buyers are rumors Charter will throw in its cable system in Fort Worth, Tex.  That move would also seem to benefit a Time Warner Cable takeover, considering the nation’s second largest cable operator already has an enormous presence in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex.  But Multichannel News points out that part of Texas brings bad memories for Time Warner, when it had to effectively commit to an expensive rebuild of the nearby ailing system acquired from bankrupt Adelphia Cable in 2006.

Time Warner Cable is still rumored to be the logical buyer of Insight Cable’s systems, also for sale, in Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio, although the cable company is still balking at an asking price of up to $4 billion.

Creative Redefinition of Today's Problems Into Tomorrow's Solutions

At around 7:00pm ET, Republicans in the North Carolina State Senate are expected to ram through H.129, Rep. Marilyn Avila’s (R-Time Warner Cable) anti-consumer, anti-community broadband bill.

You can listen to the Evening of Infamy right here: North Carolina Senate Audio.

With the cooperation of most of the state’s Republicans, and a handful of Democrats taking cable’s money, North Carolina intends to solve their state’s broadband availability problems in a novel way: by redefining those without broadband service as having broadband after all.

Through an amendment, H.129 will essentially declare the service as widely available if even a single resident in a particular census block has access to something resembling broadband.  That could be 768kbps DSL from CenturyLink.  If one person has the service, the thinking goes, everyone can get it, even if they can’t.

The Senate intends to deal with North Carolina’s broadband crisis by changing the definition of the word ‘crisis‘ into ‘accomplishment.’ Instead of allowing communities to provide service in unserved areas, simply declare all areas as being served, thereby negating the need for community broadband.  Another victory for the free market, and it was dirt cheap not to provide the service, too!

So when broadband-deprived North Carolina consumers call Time Warner, CenturyLink, or AT&T, they can be told:

“No, it’s not that we don’t have any broadband service to sell you, we’re simply providing it in a unique new way — by delivering it to someone else!  (Can’t you move in with them?)”

Problem solved.

As one legislator said earlier, “[TWC and CenturyLink] are calling all the shots.”