Time Warner Cable is blaming an increase in pole attachment fees in upstate New York for increasing the cost of doing business, despite the fact those increases will not apply to the cable company.

National Grid, which also does business as Niagara-Mohawk, is raising rates for third-party companies to attach new lines to the poles the electric utility owns.  The power company says it is the first rate increase since 2007, and covers the cost of engineering, safety reviews, and ongoing infrastructure costs.

The Albany Times-Union quotes Time Warner Cable spokeswoman Lara Pritchard’s reflexive complaints about the rate increases.

“Inevitably, any price increase to poles will impact our costs to bring service,” Time Warner spokesman Lara Pritchard said Monday. “At this time, we have no plans to adjust fees. We periodically assess all of our associated costs to do business, as any company would, and this would factor into that assessment.”

If so, it should be by a factor of zero because the pole attachment fee increases apply only to companies seeking to place new lines on utility poles, not those maintaining or replacing existing cables.

The New York Public Service Commission approved the utility’s request for a change in their “Make Ready” rates, which cover costs associated with new projects. Existing companies, including Time Warner Cable will continue to pay a locked-in rate of $11.13 per pole, which represents no change.

Verizon acknowledged as much, noting the company’s existing fiber and copper wire lines are exempt from the rate hike.

But not every company is being held harmless from the rate increases.

Major projects to extend fiber broadband service to rural Franklin and St. Lawrence counties in upstate New York could be at risk because Niagara Mohawk, the dominant power provider in the region, is raising the rates to place fiber on some 22,000 poles required for the network.

Slic Network Solutions, the Development Authority of the North Country and Ion HoldCo LLC are facing at least $3.5 million in higher pole attachment expenses the utility said nothing about when they reached an agreement with National Grid in December.

Taxpayer grant money is backing the projects, including Slic’s 136-mile network covering parts of Franklin County and another 660-mile project in St. Lawrence County.  Ion operates a fiber optic broadband backbone that extends throughout upstate New York.

Keith J. Roland, an attorney with the Herzog Law Firm representing the three companies, has filed a formal complaint with the N.Y. State Public Service Commission, calling the rate increase “unjust, unreasonable, excessive, and unlawful.”

Roland says the increased costs, which he calls “arbitrary,” could threaten the viability of the projects.

“Without access to those poles, SLIC, DANC and Ion and almost any other telecommunications, cable TV and Internet provider in rural area of Niagara Mohawk’s territory would be driven out of business or effectively be precluded from doing business,” the complaint states.

In an upstate New York match-up, the Rochester/Finger Lakes region scored dead last in broadband speed and value, according to data from Broadband.com.

Why are broadband speeds so much lower in the Flower City?  Blame Frontier Communications, which continues to pitch its decade-old DSL product, delivering an average speed of 4.45Mbps, while other upstate cities enjoy access and competition from Verizon’s fiber to the home network FiOS.  Frontier DSL actually often costs more, after taxes and fees, than Time Warner Cable’s much-faster cable broadband product, Road Runner, which rates an average download speed of 12.77Mbps in Rochester.  Frontier does manage to pull one win — higher upload speed DSL providers can often achieve in cities where cable operators keep upstream speeds as low as possible.

Time Warner Cable has dragged its feet upgrading broadband service in the area to its DOCSIS 3 platform other upstate cities have had since last year.  DOCSIS 3 should arrive within the next 4-8 weeks, which should boost broadband speeds, but may not deliver lower broadband prices because of Frontier’s uncompetitiveness in the area.

(Source: Broadband.com)

The top city in upstate New York for download speed is the state capital, Albany.  But Buffalo wins the contest for upload speed thanks to aggressive competition for Time Warner from Verizon in the Queen City.  Buffalo also pays the least for service — nearly $5 less per month than residents in Rochester pay on average.  Syracuse scores in the middle — but closer in terms of speed and value to other Verizon-served cities.

Slow and expensive broadband service can hamper economic development and costs consumers more.  Unfortunately, there are no signs Frontier Communications has plans to do anything differently in its largest service area — a classic driver of the accelerating number of customers calling to pull the plug on their landline service.

Time Warner Cable's Road Runner vs. Frontier Communications' DSL (Speeds are downstream/upstream; Source: Broadband.com)

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)

No significant expansion for FiOS in 2011, say company officials.

A Verizon spokesman has confirmed Verizon will not be expanding its FiOS fiber to the home service into new areas in 2011, except in those communities where the company already signed franchise agreements.

It’s the second year of Verizon’s hold on fiber expansion, instituted because of objections by Wall Street, a difficult economy, and a less optimistic view by Verizon’s new management that fiber has the capacity to quickly return on investment.

For upstate New York, the end-effect of Verizon’s decision is an odd patchwork of partially-built FiOS-capable communities, mostly in suburbs amenable to Verizon’s franchise terms. Some suburbs have access to FiOS broadband and phone service, but not television.  Others have access to all three services, while many other areas have nothing but Verizon’s ordinary copper phone lines.

“If you are big on fiber, there are some outlying towns with real estate agents that list whether or not their properties have Verizon FiOS, and whether that includes television service,” says Lysander, N.Y. resident Jeff, who reads Stop the Cap! “Our town was just glad Verizon picked us for upgrades and we didn’t ask too much of the phone company, quickly agreeing to a TV franchise agreement.”

But residents in the city of Syracuse are less happy — they won’t get competitive video from Verizon and are stuck with a Time Warner Cable wired monopoly because the city “dragged its feet” on franchise negotiations.

“When it comes to bigger cities, they see Verizon’s knock on the door as an opportunity to cash in on freebies from the phone company, like upgrading their video studios for government access channels, paying substantial franchise fees, and agreeing to carry channels the city government wants on Verizon’s cable system,” Jeff says.  “When the first cable systems came to town, it was the same story; some communities dragged their feet for years trying to extract more.”

Of course, cities don’t have to wait for Verizon to take care of their growing broadband needs.  They can build their own fiber networks and deliver world class service themselves, or open the new networks up to private competitors to deliver bigger bang for your broadband buck.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WSYR Syracuse FiOS availability not planned for Syracuse during 2011 1-6-11.flv[/flv]

WSYR-TV in Syracuse reports it will be a long wait for many in central New York waiting for fiber to the home television service. (Warning: Loud Volume) (1 minute)

Time Warner Cable has begun notifying western New York cable subscribers their rates are going up, effective in about three weeks.

The cable company includes the notification in customer bills arriving throughout December and early January in the Rochester and Finger Lakes region of upstate New York.

The new prices are the result of higher programming costs, the development of new innovative features, and continued investment in our infrastructure and investment.

Rates for Road Runner, Time Warner’s broadband service, are increasing as much as five dollars per month.  This represents the third increase in broadband rates for Time Warner customers in the last 13 months, and should finally bury any notion the cable operator needs to implement Internet Overcharging schemes to recoup usage costs.  Time Warner Cable’s Road Runner Turbo package was priced at just under $50 a month two years ago.  Today, the same service costs $64.90 per month for standalone customers — a $14.90 increase.

2011 Pricing: Turbo - up to $64.90, Standard - up to $54.95, Basic - up to $37.95, Lite - $25.99

Customers on bundled service packages will see rate increases of around $5 for a digital cable-only package, $7 for a cable-broadband package, $6 for a cable-phone package, and $9 for “All the Best” which delivers cable, phone, and Internet service.  Those with multiple televisions will see a doubling of rates for each additional TV hooked up to digital cable (was $0.50, now $1.00), a $0.16 decrease in the monthly rental cost of a traditional cable box, and a $0.04 increase in the cost for the remote control.

A rate increase for the Rochester, N.Y. area

Existing and new customers might find a year of savings with the company’s current Triple Play $99 promotional offer, which some report to be good for existing subscribers adding additional services.  For one year, subscribers will pay $33.33 each for broadband, video, and phone service (you must take all three).  For a subscriber with cable and broadband, adding the phone service actually will cost you nearly $20 less per month, even if you never bothered to use it:

Choose the speed that's right for you at the price that's not.

2011 Rates

• Watch N Surf: $118.99 per month
• Triple Play Promotion: $99 per month

Customers are reminded Time Warner’s retention agents are authorized to provide discounts and better offers to those threatening to take their business elsewhere.  If your rates are increasing, it might be a good time to threaten to walk and see what kind of offers the cable company provides to get you to stay.

Share your views and retention offers in our Comment section.