A Short History of Wireless Cable

Spectrum offered Chicago competition to larger ON-TV, selling commercial-free movies and sports on scrambled UHF channel 66 (today WGBO-TV).

Long before many Americans had access to cable television, watching premium commercial-free entertainment in the 1970s was only possible in a handful of large cities, where television stations gave up a significant chunk of their broadcast day to services like ON-TV, Spectrum, SelecTV, Prism, Starcase, Preview, VEU, and SuperTV. For around $20 a month, subscribers received a decoder box to watch the encrypted UHF broadcast programming, which consisted of sports, popular movies and adult entertainment. The channels were relatively expensive to receive, suffered from the same reception problems other UHF stations often had in large metropolitan areas, and were frequently pirated by non-paying customers with modified decoder boxes.

With the spread of cable television into large cities, the single channel over-the-air services were doomed, and between 1983-1985,virtually all of their operations closed down, converting to all-free-viewing, usually as an independent or ethnic language television outlet.

But the desire for competition for cable television persisted, and in the mid-1980s the Federal Communications Commission allocated two blocks of frequencies for entertainment video delivery. The FCC earlier allocated part of this channel space to Instructional Television Fixed Services (ITFS) for programming from schools, hospitals, and religious groups, which could use the capacity to transmit programming to different buildings and potentially to viewers at home with the necessary equipment.

Home Box Office got its start broadcasting on microwave frequencies before moving to satellite.

In practice, ITFS channels allocated during the 1970s were underutilized, because running such an operation was often beyond the budgets and technical expertise of many educational institutions. Premium movie entertainment once again drove the technology forward. After signing off at the end of the school day, Home Box Office, Showtime, and The Movie Channel signed on, using microwave technology to distribute their services to area cable systems and some subscribers. As those premium services migrated to satellite distribution beginning in 1975, reallocation for a new kind of “wireless cable TV” became a reality.

Wireless cable (technically known as “multichannel multipoint distribution service”) began in earnest in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with a package of around 32 channels — typically over the air stations, popular cable networks, and one or two premium movie channels. Some operations in smaller cities sought to beam just a channel or two of premium movies or adult entertainment to paying subscribers, the latter at a substantial price premium. Installation costs paid by providers were more affordable than traditional cable television — around $350 for wireless vs. $1,000 for cable television. That made wireless attractive in rural areas where installation costs for cable television could run even higher.

However, it was not too long before wireless cable operators ran into problems with their business models. Obtaining affordable programming was always difficult. Some cable networks, then-owned by large cable systems, either refused to do business with their wireless competitors or charged discriminatory rates to carry their networks. By the time legislative relief arrived, the wireless industry realized they now had a capacity problem. As cable television systems were being upgraded in the 1990s, the number of channels cable customers received quickly grew to 60 or more (with many more to come with the advent of “digital cable”). Wireless cable was stuck with just 32 channels and a then-analog platform. Satellite television was also becoming a larger competitive threat in rural areas, with DirecTV and Dish delivering hundreds of channels.

American Telecasting gave up its wireless cable ventures, under such names as People’s Wireless TV and SuperView in 1997, selling out to companies including Sprint and BellSouth (today AT&T). BellSouth pulled the plug on the services in February, 2001.

Wireless providers simply could not compete with their smaller packages, and most closed down or sold their operations, often to phone companies. The few remaining systems, mostly in rural areas, have typically combined their wireless frequencies with satellite provider partners to deliver television, slow broadband, and IP-based telephone service.

Rebooting Wireless Cable for the 21st Century

By the early-2000’s the Federal Communications Commission proposed a new allocation for a “Multichannel Video and Data Distribution Service” (MVDDS). Designed to share the 12.2-12.7GHz band with Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) services DirecTV and Dish, MVDDS was partly envisioned as a potential way to deliver local stations to satellite subscribers over ground-based transmitters. But things have evolved well beyond that concept, especially after both satellite providers began using “spot beams” to deliver local stations to different regions from their existing fleet of orbiting satellites.

MVDDS was ultimately opened up to be either a competing cable television-like service or for wireless broadband, or both. Michael Powell, then-chairman of the FCC during the first term of George W. Bush, said the technology was free to develop as providers saw fit:

What is MVDDS? The short answer is that we do not know.  Its name, Multichannel Video Distribution and Data Service, seems to suggest everything is possible – and perhaps it is.

But the service rules the Commission has adopted do not require MVDDS to provide any particular kind of service – it could be a multichannel video, or data, or digital radio service, or any other permutation on spectrum use.

The Commission was once in the business of requiring spectrum holders to provide a certain type of service.  That approach failed because government is a very bad predictor of technology and markets – both of which move a lot faster than government.  Over the past decade or so, the Commission has adopted more flexible service rules that bound a service based largely on interference limitations and its allocation (fixed or mobile, terrestrial or satellite).  In this Order, we follow that flexible model for MVDDS.

In 2004 and 2005, licenses to operate MVDDS services were opened up for auction, and a handful of companies won the bulk of them: MDS America, which built a 700-channel wireless cable system in the United Arab Emirates, DTV Norwich, an affiliate of cable operator Cablevision, and South.com, which is really satellite provider Dish Network. Another significant winner was Mr. Bruce E. Fox, who wants to partner with other providers to finance and operate MVDDS services.

Cablevision and Fox are the two most active license recipients at the moment.

A Look at Today’s MVDDS Wireless Players

Fox launched Go Long Wireless in Baltimore as a demonstration project. Go Long transmits its signal from the roof of the World Trade Center at the Baltimore Inner Harbor to the Emerging Technology Center, a business incubator site a few miles away. Fox believes the technology is especially suited to multi-dwelling units like apartment complexes and condos. He plans to work with other service providers who will market and bill the service under their own brand names. Fox does not seem to be interested in challenging the marketplace status quo. He does not believe in using MVDDS to provide television service, for example. In Fox’s view, the real money is in broadband and Voice over IP telephone service.

Cablevision’s involvement is more direct-to-consumer. Its Clearband service– now operating under the new brand ‘OMGFAST’ — is now selling up to 50/3Mbps wireless broadband service in the Deerfield Beach, Fla. area. The company has had nothing to say about whether this service is slated to expand, and if it does, Cablevision will not be permitted to operate it in areas where they already provide cable service, due to the FCC’s cross-ownership rules.

OMGFAST originally bundled voice service in its broadband packages, which it sold at different price points: 12Mbps for $39.95 a month, 25Mbps for $59.95 a month, and 50Mbps at $79.95. The company also tested a 50Mbps promotion priced at $29.95 a month for three months, $59.95 ongoing. Today it offers a better deal: $29.95 a month for 50Mbps service as an ongoing rate. (Expect to pay $10 a month more for mandatory equipment rental, and $14.95 a month if you also want voice service.)

[flv width=”640″ height=”450″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Clearband FAST 50 Mbps Internet.flv[/flv]

Here is a promotional video explaining how Clearband (now OMGFAST) wireless broadband works. (3 minutes)

MVDDS currently delivers broadband with similar constraints cable systems operate under — namely, download speeds are much faster than upload speeds. That is because upstream bandwidth relies on another transmission technology, often WiMAX, in the 3.65 GHz or 5 GHz bands.

The wireless technology is also very “line of sight,” meaning the tower must be within six miles of the subscriber and not blocked by any obstructions. Hills, buildings, even heavy foliage can all block MVDDS signals the same way satellite signals can be blocked (they share the same frequencies).

Most customers end up with an antenna that very much resembles a traditional satellite dish from DirecTV or Dish, mounted on a roof. To maximize available bandwidth, MVDDS uses a configuration similar to cellular systems, with up to 900Mbps of total bandwidth available to each 90-degree narrow beam sector.

Cablevision has MVDDS licenses to serve most large cities in the United States.

The question is, how will license holders ultimately use the technology. Although originally proposed as a competitor to traditional cable or satellite TV, deregulation has left the fate of MVDDS in the hands of the operators.

Some are considering not selling the service to consumers at all, but rather making a market out of providing backhaul connectivity for cell towers. Dish may be interested in using its licenses to offer customers a triple play package of broadband and phone service with its satellite TV package. Nobody seems particularly interested in providing television service over MVDDS, primarily because programmers’ demands for higher carriage payments would cut into revenue.

Even Cablevision isn’t completely sure what it wants to do. Although it currently is trialing broadband and phone service in Florida, the company earlier petitioned the FCC for increased power to establish a more suitable wireless backhaul service it can sell to mobile phone companies.

For the moment, reviews seem relatively positive for the Florida market test. Of course, as more customers pile on a wireless service, the less speed becomes available to each customer. OMGFAST does not appear to be currently concerned, noting it has no usage caps on its service.

Want to know which provider may be coming to your area? See below the jump for a list of the top-three bid winners and the cities they are now licensed to serve, in order of market size.

… Continue Reading

AT&T lost 649,000 DSL customers in three months.

AT&T’s broadband customers are taking their business elsewhere as second quarter results show the phone company lost 649,000 DSL customers in the last three months, while only picking up 553,000 new U-verse Internet users to replace those leaving. The result was a net loss of nearly 100,000 broadband customers in a single quarter. The company also only managed to attract 155,000 new U-verse television customers away from satellite or cable operators during the quarter.

AT&T blames the losses on “seasonality” — code language for part-time residents, college students, and other fluctuations that occur as customers come and go. Total broadband connections dropped 0.2% for AT&T, with 16.43 million remaining customers.

Landline customers also continue to depart AT&T in droves. More than one million home phone customers pulled the plug on AT&T this quarter. AT&T has lost nearly 11 percent of their landline customers over the past year.

For those remaining, a combination of rate increases, cost cutting and fierce marketing of bundled packages of services are keeping revenue growing on both the residential and business side.

AT&T is getting closer to announcing a “rural landline solution,” which some analysts predict will be the company’s exit from the rural landline business.

Executives continue to hint the company is reviewing its future in the rural landline business. AT&T lobbyists have shepherded new laws in several states that would allow them to abandon rural landline customers where the company is no longer required to be “the carrier of last resort.”

AT&T U-verse is turning out to be not much of a threat to cable and satellite operators, only achieving a 17.3% penetration rate in areas where the service is available.

The real money for AT&T is being made in the wireless sector, where increasing prices, changes to service packages, and data usage-based billing are all paying off  — revenue for wireless data alone is up 18.8% to $1 billion during the second quarter. AT&T earned $14.3 billion from its wireless business in just the second quarter alone.

At the same time, the company is slashing investments in parts of its network and cutting employees.

Capital expenditures in the second quarter amounted to $4.48 billion, down 15% from the $5.27 billion AT&T spent a year ago. AT&T also cut its workforce by 6.4% since June 2011, with a reported 242,380 total remaining employees.

Despite the company’s talking points, AT&T’s upgrade fee is designed to slow down customers considering upgrading their smartphones.

In other highlights:

• Wall Street analysts are praising AT&T’s stricter upgrade policies and device upgrade fees. In fact, at least one analyst wants to see AT&T raise the fee to $50 for every phone upgrade. The fees discourage customers from upgrading their phones, which dramatically reduces AT&T’s costs. AT&T subsidizes phones for customers. The longer customers hold off from upgrading, the more revenue AT&T keeps for themselves and shareholders. AT&T has made it clear it will continue to “introduce discipline”  in the handset market to enforce “rational pricing,” which means customers will continue to see further reductions in device subsidies and face higher prices when upgrading phones.
• Much of AT&T’s investment will be in its LTE 4G network. AT&T’s spending on wireline services including U-verse is on the decline.
• AT&T admitted its policy of monetizing data usage for profit is well underway: “[We are getting] ourselves set up for revenues that are going to be tied to usage, which will then be tied to our capital requirements and a really profitable situation.”
• AT&T is aggressively pushing customers to upgrade to smartphones so they can earn additional revenue. “Smartphone subscribers now number 43 million and make [up] 62% of our total postpaid base. But smartphones accounted for 77% of postpaid sales during the quarter, showing continuing opportunity for growth. And when you look at our total smartphone base, we’ve added 9 million high-value smartphone customers in just the last 12 months.”

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AT&T spins its 2nd Quarter results for shareholders in the best possible light. Although revenues are up, the number of customers leaving AT&T for other providers may challenge future growth and earnings. (4 minutes)

Nearly 100 Frontier employees may be visiting Idaho’s unemployment offices by September.

On the second anniversary of Frontier Communications assuming control of landline operations in Idaho formerly owned by Verizon Communications, Frontier has announced plans to close its Coeur d’Alene call center this summer, putting nearly half of Frontier’s workers in Idaho out of work.

“There’s nothing wrong with the employees or the work they’re doing. It’s more about efficiencies,” Frontier’s senior vice president Steve Crosby told CDA Press. “What we’re trying to do is work through efficiencies, consolidations, really moving people around, having work groups working closer together.”

Those hoping to remain with Frontier will need to move to another state and accept a large pay cut if they want to keep their jobs. Other Frontier call centers around the country will assume the responsibilities of the 100 Idaho-based employees who face termination by Sept. 18, including one opening near Myrtle Beach, S.C., that will pay substantially lower salaries.

The closure will reduce Frontier’s workforce in Idaho almost in half. Crosby said Frontier had roughly 260 employees in the state as of last week.

Two years ago, Frontier was telling Idaho a very different story about its takeover of Verizon landlines.

“I think we’ll have better service for customers,” David Haggerty, then a Verizon manager staying with Frontier, told the Bonner County Daily Bee. “Frontier brings with it a small-town mentality. It used to be you were able to pay bills in town and make human contact. That was taken away by Verizon.”

In 2010, Haggerty promised the transition would have no impact on former Verizon workers now heading to work at Frontier.

“We focus on putting the customer first,” said Frontier’s regional manager Vickie Bullard said. “That’s one of the 11 value statements we have at Frontier.”

Some of Frontier’s customers in Idaho wonder if Frontier’s “value statements” are also being downsized.

“I just switched from Frontier to Time Warner Cable for my Internet,” says Scott Mead. “Frontier started out great in the beginning, but shortly after went downhill as issue after issue started.”

Mead reports his calls to Frontier’s national 800 customer support number, which promises 100 percent of the company’s workers are American-based, often left him flummoxed dealing with foreign-accented employees with poor English language skills.

The last one out can turn off the lights.

Another Coeur d’Alene customer endured bad service from Frontier before finally leaving, with the phone company’s collection agency chasing him not far behind:

“As far as I’m concerned Frontier can take a long walk off a short pier. When they first took over from Verizon, from whom we had good service, they sent out a service guy to get us back online. He installed the wrong equipment so another serviceman came out and replaced the wrong one with a bigger, better, and faster wrong one. Over the next 6 weeks we were down all but 12 days and we heard one excuse after another with nothing getting resolved.

So a month later, after switching companies, not only did we get a bill from Frontier for the entire 6 weeks but they charged us for several wrong pieces of equipment. When we tried to resolve the issues they simply sent us to collection and refused to talk. Se we ended up paying for over 4 weeks of service they did not provide and for 4 Internet boxes that the servicemen could not get to work.

I can only hope that Frontier has an office at the bottom of a honey bucket at a chili feed. Flippin crooks.”

One former Verizon/Frontier employee suggests the “efficiencies” Crosby is concerned with is paying call center workers less, and offering fewer benefits:

“Frontier closed a center in Elk Grove, Calif. back in June leaving 50+ people unemployed there,” he writes. “When Verizon sold their landlines and DSL to Frontier back in 2009 they only guaranteed the acquired employees jobs for two years. July 1, 2012 was the second anniversary of that acquisition. This does not surprise me at all. The leadership of both Verizon and Frontier is like any other large corporation. Bottom line is the new call center in South Carolina is cheaper to operate. Why pay people over 50K (this is including 401k, stock & medical benefits) when you can pay half that in a center that has no union.”

Another Idaho employee is bitter about the extra work Frontier employees managed for the company during its great billing and systems transition away from Verizon.

“We will be out of a job, after working massive amounts of overtime to transition this company to get them through the largest conversion in telecommunications history,” the worker shared. “They needed us to get them through it and now they don’t.”

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WMBF Myrtle Beach New Frontier Call Center 5-11-12.mp4[/flv]

Race to the bottom. Frontier Communications closes an “unneeded” 100-worker call center in Idaho that reportedly paid workers over $50,000 a year in salary and benefits while announcing a new, “much-needed” call center with 110 workers near Myrtle Beach, S.C. that will pay workers only $30,000 a year. WMBF in Myrtle Beach calls the new South Carolina call center a “success” for Horry County’s efforts to recruit new business to the area. Frontier applauded South Carolina’s “excellent business environment.” But that success comes at a cost to other workers in other states.  (2 minutes)

Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart expressed his views about the ongoing dispute between DirecTV and Viacom into his first show back from vacation. He was not charitable to his ultimate boss Viacom, asking company executives, “What are you, China?” Viacom quietly restored streaming access to its programming earlier today. (Clip viewable only within the United States) (5 minutes)

Customers sitting down to watch the local news in Louisville, Ky. on Time Warner Cable (formerly Insight) now get to see stories about ongoing bankruptcy woes at Eastman Kodak, house fires in Irondequoit, road work in Greece, and Scott Hetsko’s local forecast… for Rochester, N.Y.

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WLKY in Louisville is no longer seen on former Insight cable systems (now owned by Time Warner Cable). In its place, Louisville viewers are watching WROC-TV in Rochester, N.Y.  Here is why. (3 minutes)

No, it is not some weird sunspot reception and nobody transported you from Kentucky to western New York while you were sleeping. It’s simply another epic battle waged in:

RETRANSMISSION CARRIAGE CONSENT WARS: 2012

“Not getting the channels you are paying for does not necessarily entitle you to a refund, but does require you to pay more when a deal is eventually struck.”

WESH-TV in Daytona Beach/Orlando, Fla. is one of the Hearst-owned stations affected in the dispute with Insight/Time Warner Cable/Bright House Networks.

These skirmishes used to be commonplace around the end of the year, when carriage agreements between cable, satellite, and telephone companies with cable networks and local stations came up for renewal. When the programmer passed a figure written on a folded up piece of paper across the table to your pay television provider, the shock and awe of that number, occasionally 100-300 percent more than the year before, was the opening shot in a battle that now increasingly leads to favorite local stations or cable channels being stripped from your lineup.

In Louisville, that is precisely what happened to WLKY-TV, one of 15 stations owned by Hearst Television, taken off the lineup when Time Warner Cable/Insight/Bright House Networks could not successfully negotiate a renewal agreement. Time Warner complained Hearst wanted 300% more for each of the affected stations, an increase sure to be passed along to cable customers already long weary of endless annual rate increases. That was the same story told in other cities affected by what is now a week-long blackout. In Greensboro/Winston-Salem, N.C., Time Warner customers are doing without WXII-TV. Kansas City customers lost two local stations owned by Hearst — KMBC and KCWE. Two stations are also missing from Bright House’s lineup in Orlando: WESH and WKCF.

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Hearst Television’s general manager and president of WLKY has stopped referring to those watching the station simply as “viewers.” Glenn Haygood now calls them “subscribers.” Haygood talks with WHAS Radio about the dispute and what he thinks about Insight/Time Warner Cable. (10 minutes)

Insight/Time Warner Cable customers in Louisville, Ky. are now watching CBS shows on WROC-TV from Rochester, N.Y.

But why are Louisville viewers now watching the boating forecast for Lake Ontario, several hundred miles away? Because Time Warner Cable thinks it has a signed contract with Nexstar Broadcasting Group that lets them turn several Nexstar-owned stations into “superstations,” importing them in cities where contract disputes have knocked the local station off the cable lineup. In Louisville, WLKY, a CBS affiliate, has been replaced by WROC, the CBS affiliate in Rochester. In Greensboro and several other cities, WXII, an NBC affiliate, has been replaced with WBRE in Wilkes Barre, Penn. Some other Time Warner customers are instead watching WTWO out of Terre Haute, Ind., for NBC shows.

It represents a half-measure that Time Warner Cable’s Jeff Simmermon tells Stop the Cap! is “making the best of a tough situation.”

Viewers are naturally outraged.

“I’ve always wanted to know the weather and news in Rochester, Buffalo, Ontario and Caribou,” Kelly Grether teased. “Louisville did make [WROC’s weather] map believe it or not.”

Others are simply confused and engaged in must-flee TV.

“I saw the news coming on,” Greensboro resident Mona Wright told the News & Record. “It didn’t take me but one minute to figure out that these counties were nowhere around us; I changed the channel.”

Some Louisville viewers are even assuming the sales and discounts being advertised on WROC are good in Kentucky as well (often, they are not).

For now, it is difficult for Kentucky viewers to know what WROC is airing because the local on-screen program guide has not been updated to include listings for the Rochester station. Time Warner is pushing a lot of viewers to WROC’s website for program information.

Viewers hoping to practice their Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune skills during the dinner hour lost that opportunity altogether in some cities, while in the Triad of North Carolina, viewers discovered the two shows on two different channels at the same time.

For now, WROC has completely ignored its new Kentucky audience, but WBRE’s morning anchors now regularly acknowledge and welcome their viewers from several states away.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WFTV Orlando WESH Disappears from Bright House 7-10-12.flv[/flv]

WFTV in Orlando reports on Bright House Networks’ customers being shut out of WESH-TV in Daytona Beach after the cable operator failed to meet Hearst Television’s demands for an increase in carriage payments.  (2 minutes)

The dispute has since enlarged to bring in side players who are unimpressed with Time Warner’s creative problem-solving:

• Impacted stations now off Time Warner’s lineup think the “new” stations on the lineup are about as honorable as employing scab workers during a union strike;
• Nexstar, for the second time, declares Time Warner is illegally importing their stations to unauthorized places. They are threatening to complain to the FCC and possibly sue to stop the practice. Nexstar earlier complained about a similar dispute in upstate New York which left viewers in northern New York watching WBRE in Wilkes-Barre. But the carriage dispute was settled quickly enough for WBRE to go back to being  viewable only in Pennsylvania, ending the dispute;
• Syndicated program owners sell shows like Wheel of Fortune on a “market exclusive” basis, which means competing local stations already paying for syndicated shows do not want out of area stations also carrying those shows to local audiences, diluting their audience.
• Advertisers on stations now off the lineup paid ad rates based on tens of thousands of cable viewers who are now probably watching another station. Some are demanding “make goods” or outright refunds to get the value for money they were originally promised.

But nobody is more caught in the middle than consumers, especially those paying for channels they are no longer getting.

“I want my money back,” says Orlando Bright House customer Luis Fernandez. “I have lost two stations on my lineup and my bill should be going down to compensate, but Bright House is refusing to credit me.”

Time Warner Cable does not usually give refunds either, arguing that its customers pay for a package of channels and the technology that delivers those networks to customers. Giving a refund for the loss of one or two stations would be tantamount to the industry’s worst nightmare: getting customers used to the idea of paying individually for every channel.

One customer willing to make himself a major nuisance in Wauwatosa, near Milwaukee, Wis., finally wore Time Warner down and secured a $5 a month discount on his bill for the length of the dispute that knocked Milwaukee’s WISN off his lineup.

“[I called] Time Warner to voice my disgust in them putting me (the paying customer) in the middle of their negotiation failures, and after reaching a ‘supervisor,’ I was able to get a discount on my monthly bill,” the reader told the Journal-Sentinel. “It wasn’t easy, but I did it.”

Hearst is encouraging viewers to drop Time Warner like a hot potato and switch to AT&T U-verse or a satellite provider like DirecTV. Negotiations seem to be continuing on a sporadic basis, but one week later, customers heading for the door have already left or are simply watching the local news on another channel.

Satellite Showdown — DirecTV vs. Viacom: Playing Down and Dirty With Everyone

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Viacom turns the tables on DirecTV’s clever ads to lambaste the satellite provider for cutting off more than two dozen cable channels owned by Viacom.  (1 minute)

If a customer took Hearst’s advice, they might find themselves out of the frying pan and into the fire. Newly arriving DirecTV customers can join the Anger Party 20 million satellite customers are now throwing over a much larger, higher profile dispute between the satellite provider and Viacom. Collateral damage: the loss of networks including Palladia, Centric, Tr3s, CMT, Logo, NickToons, VH1 Classic, TeenNick, Nick Jr., Nick@Nite, Spike, BET, VH1, TV Land, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and MTV.

Some financial analysts are calling the dispute the mother-of-all-program-fee-battles, and as they watch both sides dig in, some warn it could mean DirecTV customers won’t be watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart until August.

DirecTV says Viacom wants a 30% rate increase to renew its contract to carry the company’s networks. That is comparatively cheap contrasted with the prices Hearst wants Time Warner Cable to now pay. Analysts expect DirecTV and Viacom will eventually settle their dispute by agreeing to a 27% rate increase, but nobody knows how long the two will battle it out before an inevitable agreement is reached.

Regardless of the timing, customers will likely pay the price. Nomura analyst Michael Nathanson informed his Wall Street clients DirecTV will end up paying Viacom $2.85 per subscriber — about 60 cents more per month than it pays today. That’s tough for DirecTV to swallow, and probably even harder to pass along to customers. Satellite TV providers have some of the country’s most-frugal pay television customers who are especially resistant to rate increases.

The dispute is so high profile, both companies are bringing out high-powered executives and show talent to argue their respective cases.

Millions of dollars are at stake, and both Viacom and DirecTV are willing to fight to the death, even leaving customers on the battlefield.

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Not so fast, says DirecTV CEO Michael White, seen here presenting DirecTV’s position in the Viacom dispute for the benefit of concerned customers.  (1 minute)

“All we are trying to get is a fair deal for our customers and I’m sorry our customers are being forced into the middle of this,” DirecTV’s Michael White said. “We just think we pay a half a billion dollars a year and a billion dollar increase over five years, over 30 percent, is not justified by the marketplace or fair relative to our largest competitors or by their ratings.”

Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman counters, “In the last seven years since we did the last DirecTV deal, we have successfully and peacefully concluded affiliate agreements with every major distributor in the U.S. We are prepared to move forward. It’s unfortunate consumers for the first time are not able to enjoy our channels,” said Dauman, adding, “I don’t want to negotiate in public.”

DirecTV was telling its customers it can watch many of the missing shows for free online, until Viacom reportedly began removing that direct viewing option last week. That hardball tactic could impact everyone trying to stream Viacom’s shows — DirecTV customer or not.

“We’ve temporarily slimmed down our offerings, as DirecTV markets them as an alternative to having our networks,” a Viacom spokesman told CNNMoney. “The online content is intended to serve as a complimentary marketing tool for our partners.”

“At least they were honest about the reasons why they pulled this,” said Stop the Cap! reader Dick Armlo, a DirecTV customer in Idaho. “But fortunately, you can still find a lot of the shows on Amazon’s video on demand and Hulu.”

Customers threatening to switch providers often discover the new neighborhood they move to is just as bad as the one they left.

Dish Network customers are currently enduring a long-standing dispute with Cablevision-owned AMC Networks. The result is no AMC, IFC, Sundance Channel and WeTV on Dish. AMC is telling Dish customers to turn their dish into a birdbath and head elsewhere… perhaps to AT&T U-verse which just recently averted its own blackout with AMC over the same channels. AT&T customers can expect part of their next rate increase to cover the negotiated rate hike AMC won for itself — the one AT&T agreed to on your behalf. After all, it’s your money at stake, not theirs.

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CNBC talks with Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman to get his views about the dispute with one of his best customers — DirecTV.  (2 minutes)