All Arcadia, N.Y. town supervisor Dick Colacino wanted was for Time Warner Cable to consider using some of their profits to expand their cable system by one or two roads a year to offer service where it has earlier refused to go.

Time Warner Cable’s response? No.

But Time Warner might turn that “no” into “yes” if customers offer to cover the cable company’s estimated cost of $22,000 per overhead mile to extend cable service down ignored rural roads. Underground wiring costs much more.

Every year, elected officials in just about every small town and village get an earful of complaints from bypassed residents who cannot get cable broadband service.

Arcadia (pop. 14,900) is a small community in Wayne County, east of Rochester. Time Warner Cable dominates western and central New York, with cable service from Albany west to Buffalo. In Wayne County alone, Time Warner is the only cable provider in the 23 largest municipalities. But the company has routinely skipped over potential service areas it considers not worth a wiring investment. That leaves bypassed residents with one choice for broadband — Verizon Communications, which has not expanded DSL service in the area for some time.

The New York Public Service Commission has mandated that cable service must be available to any area where 35 homes per mile are located within 150 feet of the road.

Time Warner representative Chris Mueller says the cable operator has already cut that benchmark to 20 miles per home, but areas remain that do not meet even that reduced standard. Without an appropriate return on investment within a certain time frame, Time Warner Cable won’t wire those areas for service.

Colacino told Mueller he was very unhappy with that decision and intended to pursue the matter at franchise renewal time, possibly in coordination with other communities that also have a number of bypassed residents. A community can negotiate for changes during franchise renewal talks, but in almost every case, the incumbent cable operator holds the strongest position, knowing a community looking for another provider will be unlikely to find one willing to serve.

Colacino has battled with the cable company since at least 2010 because of complaints from area residents and businesses who cannot get service.

That year, a Time Warner Cable government affairs representative offered Colacino a novel solution to the problem — agree to refund collected franchise fees to Time Warner Cable, after which the company would consider using the money to expand service to more roads in Arcadia.

The only problem with that solution is that it is illegal.

“You can’t do that,” town attorney David Saracino responded. “It’s an unconstitutional gift of public monies.”

“I will be dead in the ground before Verizon gets around to restoring my phone line, and I have been their customer for 72 years,” says Irene, 95, one irate now-ex Verizon customer in New Jersey.

She, like many others, lost her Verizon landline during Hurricane Sandy and has waited for its return ever since.

“She has the patience of a saint, but if Verizon was in charge of admitting people beyond the Pearly Gates, there would be a line stretching endlessly across the heavenly clouds,” shares Irene’s daughter Agnes.

Irene and her late husband had their telephone hooked up by Verizon’s predecessor three days before Pearl Harbor. For the non-history initiated, that was Dec. 4, 1941.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt called Dec. 7, 1941 a Day of Infamy. Irene’s family calls Oct. 29, 2012 “The Day After Infamy” after Hurricane Sandy slammed ashore in the northeast and wiped out phone service up and down the tri-state coastal area. She is still waiting for her dial tone to return on her 1972 rotary dial phone.

“Everyday I pick it up just to see if there is anyone there, and of course there isn’t,” Irene tells Stop the Cap! “I used to worry about the cat knocking the phone receiver on the floor, but it does not make much difference anymore.”

Irene cannot understand why Verizon is allowed to get away with such shoddy service.

“Just a few years ago, if your phone was out for three days you would have a supervisor apologizing and sending repairmen out even if their supper was waiting on the table getting cold,” Irene remembers. “Those days are over I suppose.”

Irene lives with her daughter in a home that escaped the worst of the storm, but unfortunately her phone service was not so lucky. Verizon has not provided fiber optics in her part of New Jersey yet either, so FiOS is not an option.

“You call Verizon and they are very apologetic on the phone and keep writing up service calls, but unfortunately nobody ever comes and nobody will tell us anything,” Agnes said. “We even tried praying, but Verizon answers to a different God.”

Irene’s great-grandchildren visit with cell phones in hand and cannot understand why Irene still bothers with her home phone, and the family purchased her a cell phone for Christmas to use in the interim but Irene has thrown it in a drawer.

“My phone has been with me since Richard Nixon was in the White House and it is all I have ever needed or wanted,” Irene says. “Agnes will answer the cell phone and hand it to me but the sound on it is terrible, like everyone is in the shower when they are calling.”

Agnes also dials outgoing calls for Irene, and her grandchildren helped her compose the e-mail sent to Stop the Cap! asking if we could help.

“My kids told me Verizon has installed these wireless boxes and screwing them into the wall and I don’t want that,” Irene insisted. “I just want them to fix the phone line and leave it be.”

Irene adds she has paid The Phone Company more than her fair share during the last seven decades.

But during a recent emergency family meeting, a decision was made to deal with a half-year of the “Verizon Problem” once and for all. After corresponding with us, they are signing up for Comcast phone service instead.

“The man at Comcast said I could keep my current phone and I don’t have to have an ugly box screwed into my wall, which suits me fine, but they should know I don’t care for their prices or all of that nonsense they put on the television.”

Comcast installed the family’s phone service yesterday and all is well, at least until the cat knocked the phone off the hook again.

Irene asked her last name be omitted for privacy.

Verizon Wireless: You are being watched.

Would it bother you if the advertiser on that big billboard you just drove past could find out if you later visited that business in response? Should a store like Best Buy or Sears be able to know if you are only using their showrooms to see a product you will eventually buy online? Should your phone company be able to store your complete travel history for years and then create new products and services to pitch aggregated travel observations to anyone willing to pay?

Verizon Wireless does not think you will have a problem with any of this, because it has quietly begun selling this information through its Precision Market Insights (PMI) service.

AT&T is likely not too far behind with a similar service of its own, potentially earning millions from a comprehensive data trove tracking customer locations, travel history, and web browsing habits for an undetermined length of time.

The Wall Street Journal reports shareholder demand for higher profits is pushing cell phone companies to find new revenue streams, even at the potential risk of alienating customers and privacy advocates.

PMI clients may find out more about you than you realize, even though phone companies promise they will not sell personally identifiable information about their customers.

The Phoenix Suns are PMI clients, and by tracking game attendees, Verizon Wireless was able to tell the sports team:

• 22% of game attendees are from out-of-town;
• Most spectators had children at home, ranged in age from 25-54 and earned more than $50,000 a year;
• 13% of baseball spring training attendees in the Phoenix area also went to Suns games;
• Area fast food restaurants running Suns promotions saw an 8.4% uptick in business from Verizon Wireless customers.

Such information can let the sports team target advertisers and offer evidence-based statistics that any campaign will increase sales, and by how much. Malls can use PMI to find certain types of customers that have a history of lingering in mall stores. Billboard owners can see if their ad messages resulted in higher in-store visits.

Customers using a phone under a commercial or government account are exempt from the tracking program. All residential customers are automatically opted in to take part, unless they specifically opt out.

Privacy advocates are concerned carriers are storing personal customer usage data for an undetermined amount of time, and in a form that could be personally identifiable, even if the provider decides not to sell data with that granularity to third parties. That could make cell phone companies prime targets for government/law enforcement subpoenas.

Last year, Verizon sent a notice to customers opting them in to the program unless they specifically opted out. Stop the Cap! covered the story back then, helping customers wishing to opt out.

[flv width=”504″ height=”300″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WSJ Cell Companies Track Customers 5-22-13.flv[/flv]

The Wall Street Journal reports wireless carriers were at first slow to sell data on their customers’ usage habits, but not anymore. Shareholders want new sources of revenue, and wireless companies are packaging and selling customer information to get it.  (2 minutes)

Despite efforts to improve their reputation, cable companies are hated so much the industry now scores lower than any other according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).

The only reason the industry’s average score or 68 out of 100 ticked higher are some new competitors, especially Verizon’s FiOS fiber optic network, which scores higher than any other provider.

The cable companies you grew up with still stink, ACSI reports, with Comcast (63) and Time Warner Cable (60) near the bottom of the barrel.

At fault for the dreadful ratings are constant rate increases and poor customer service. As a whole, consumers reported highest satisfaction with fiber optic providers, closely followed by satellite television services. Cable television scored the worst. Despite the poor ratings, every cable operator measured except Time Warner Cable managed to gain a slight increase in more satisfied customers. Time Warner Cable’s score for television service dropped five percent.

Customers are even less happy with broadband service. Verizon FiOS again scored the highest with a 71% approval rating. Time Warner Cable (63) and Comcast (62) scored the lowest. Customers complained about overpriced service plans, speed and reliability issues. Customers were unhappy with their plan options as well, including the fact many providers now place arbitrary usage limits on their access.

The best word to describe customer feelings about their broadband options: frustration, according to ACSI chair Claes Fornell. “In a market even less competitive than subscription TV, there is little incentive for companies to improve.”

Verizon Voice Link: The company’s landline replacement, works over Verizon Wireless.

The New York Public Service Commission has granted limited approval for a Verizon Communications plan to replace traditional landline service on the western half of Fire Island with a wireless voice service some users complain is unstable and unreliable.

Verizon claims its landline network on Fire Island has been damaged irreparably in places, and argued it needed to immediately deploy a wireless alternative before the arrival of thousands of tourists on the island, a popular summer destination.

On May 3, Verizon asked the commission to approve the use of Voice Link, which provides fixed wireless phone service, anywhere in the state if the company can prove there is an equal competitor or if existing copper-based facilities are damaged or too costly to upgrade.

Stop the Cap! reminded local politicians, union representatives, and consumer advocates Verizon’s CEO earlier promised it would decommission its copper wire networks in rural areas in favor of wireless, mostly for financial reasons. The New York State Attorney General’s office took careful note of McAdam’s commitment to abandon copper in their objection letter to the commission.

Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam in 2012:

The vision that I have is we are going into the copper plant areas and every place we have FiOS, we are going to kill the copper. We are going to just take it out of service and we are going to move those services onto FiOS. We have got parallel networks in way too many places now, so that is a pot of gold in my view. And then in other areas that are more rural and more sparsely populated, we have got LTE built that will handle all of those services and so we are going to cut the copper off there. We are going to do it over wireless.

Verizon’s efforts to rush a tariff change without adequate public notice or formal hearings brought complaints from affected customers, unions, and area politicians.

The Communications Workers of America called Verizon’s emergency “self-made.” The company could have begun repair work on Fire Island as early as last November, but instead only came to regulators earlier this month with its Voice Link proposal, while much of the western half of the island remains out of service.

CWA officials are concerned Verizon is using Hurricane Sandy as an excuse to carry out its broader agenda of abandoning rural New York’s landline infrastructure in favor of wireless service.

“Playing on sympathy for the plight of customers whom it has left without service for more than six months, Verizon proposes to implement broad, generic rules that go to the core of its obligation to serve,” said CWA vice president Chris Shelton.

The union considers Verizon’s wireless alternative less adequate than the wireline facilities Verizon wants to abandon. The CWA wants the PSC to study Voice Link’s performance during times of peak cellular usage times, power outages, adverse weather, and inadequate reception.

Thomas Barraga, a legislator in Suffolk County, says his constituents with Voice Link service are already unhappy with its performance and reliability.

“Residents and business owners who had Voice Link installed after Sandy say the connection is unstable and unreliable, and doesn’t provide for DSL Internet or fax service,” Barraga wrote in a letter to the PSC.

“Internet service is so much a part of everyday life it should be consider a basic service and they should be mandated to provide this as well,” writes Fire Island resident Robert Gonzalez. “They should provide this for the same fees and usage rates as they had previously been charging.  As of today they are price gouging.  Prior to Sandy we paid approximately $50 per month for unlimited Internet access.  Now they are putting low limits on our usage for the same $50 per month with severe penalties for going over.  You can opt for higher usage plans at a much greater cost and they are not offering an unlimited plan.”

Stop the Cap! also continues to hear from Fire Island residents about their dissatisfaction with the service. Among the newest complaints we have received:

• “It doesn’t work with collect calls and you cannot dial “0” for operator assistance;”
• “I have to dial 10 digits for all calls, seven digit dialing no longer works even though it did before;”
• “Call Waiting and Caller ID often do not work, and my unit does not ring for incoming calls about 30% of the time and people have to keep calling me back;”
• “When you attempt to take a call when on the line with someone, you cannot get them back after answering a new call;”
• “I cannot use this with my home alarm system at all and the monitoring company keeps notifying police because they think my phone line was cut;”
• “If we had a major storm with three days of power being out, Verizon’s claim Voice Link will work for two hours without power means I would have to feed it up to 72 ‘AA’ batteries, costing more than what the phone line costs me every month;”
• “What does this do to our future? It makes us second class citizens without access to the Internet except through very expensive wireless capped usage plans that cost much more.”

The PSC ruled that allowing Verizon to deploy Voice Link on Fire Island during the peak tourist season will make sure adequate phone service is up and running as quickly as possible. But the commission also made it clear it is unwilling to approve Verizon’s request to extend the service further into rural New York without a thorough review of its performance and customer reaction.