If you are a Comcast/Xfinity customer, are you still paying for anti-virus and security tools?  If so, Comcast may be able to save you some money, assuming you value the services they bundle with your broadband subscription.

Some customers first become aware of Comcast’s Constant Guard security protection suite after receiving e-mails warning they may have been infected by a bot or other malware.  Comcast has actually been providing some form of this service to customers since 2009, but many are completely unaware of the service, which includes free anti-virus software from Norton.

Comcast’s security alert e-mails usually don’t directly identify a misbehaving computer.  Instead, the company obtains lists of compromised IP addresses from third party security vendors who track botnets and other illicit computer crime.  When a Comcast IP address can be tracked back to a customer, Comcast can send an e-mail to that customer alerting them to the possibility they are running a compromised PC.

One major problem is that recipients of these e-mail messages often suspect they are phishing messages not actually sent by the cable company, and a number of them forwarded to Gmail e-mail accounts end up in the spam folder.  But, in most cases, they are actually legitimate Comcast e-mails.

Comcast advises customers to download their Constant Guard security suite to identify and remove potential threats from their computers.  The suite is free for Comcast customers and includes:

• Norton Security Suite: Provides protection that helps guard against identity theft, viruses, hackers, spam, phishing and more. It also includes parental controls to help keep your kids safe online.
• Secure Backup & Share: Securely backup and share your valuable files, like photos. (2 GB storage included at no additional charge.  Remember the 250GB monthly usage cap!)
• Desktop Applications: The Comcast Toolbar includes anti-spyware, network-embedded anti-spam and anti-virus technologies brought to you through partnerships with Bizanga, Cloudmark®, Goodmail CertifiedEmail™, and Return Path. In addition, Comcast uses up-to-date blocklists from Spamhaus and TrendMicro to help reduce and guard against unwanted spam.
• Proactive Bot Notification: As a new feature of the Constant Guard service, Comcast may email a “Service Notice” to your Comcast email address if they believe one or more of your computers may be infected with a type of virus called a Bot. A Bot is a malicious form of software that could use your computer to send spam, host a phishing site, or steal your identity by monitoring your keystrokes.

Considering it’s free, it may be worth a try.  Comcast customers can obtain the software and additional information from the Constant Guard website.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Comcast Constant Guard.flv[/flv]

Comcast demonstrates Constant Guard’s password and credit card-saving features.  (4 minutes)

Last Tuesday, Bright House Networks suffered the worst outage in the company’s history, knocking out cable, broadband, and telephone service for over one million Tampa Bay-area customers.

Bright House customers from the beachfront to Lakeland to Spring Hill were forced to rely on cellphones for much of the day.  The company’s own 24-hour news channel, Bay News 9, couldn’t keep their Florida viewers informed about the outage, because that channel went dark as well.

Company officials blamed a software glitch for the series of progressive failures which began after 10:30am and were not repaired until later that evening.

Although Pinellas County’s 911 system remained in operation, Bright House customers couldn’t call the number from their Bright House “digital phone” line.

While customers without broadband or cable TV service were left bored during the outage, Bright House’s business customers without telephone service incurred real losses, unable to process credit card transactions or receive business calls.

Bright House has no plans to issue automatic refunds for the day without service, but WTSP-TV reports customers can directly request three days’ credit for the outage:

1. Send an e-mail to Bright House Networks using their online form.
2. Cut and paste the following into the “Describe your issue or concern” box: I am writing to request credit for Tuesday’s (9/6/11) service outage affecting phone, Internet, and cable-TV.  As seen on WTSP-TV and Facebook, I am requesting three days’ credit that Bright House representatives have offered other customers. Please credit my account.
3. Hit submit.  A credit should be issued within 48 hours, to appear on your next billing statement.  The amount of the credit will vary, depending on the number of services you receive.

[flv width=”540″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Bright House Outage 9-6-11.flv[/flv]

Bright House Networks’ worst-outage-in-history was a major news story in the Tampa Bay-St. Petersburg area.  Watch a selection of stories from WFTS, WTVT, WFLA, and WTSP-TV.  (9 minutes)

Cable, satellite and telco-TV subscribers around the country can now watch most of the hit shows on Turner’s TBS and TNT Networks for free, assuming two things are true:

1. You pay for a package of television channels from Comcast, DirecTV, Dish Network, Cox Communications, Cablevision Systems, Suddenlink Communications, Verizon FiOS, or AT&T U-verse.
2. You are not a Time Warner Cable subscriber.

The new TV Everywhere app, available for phones and tablets, comes free of charge.  Once authenticated as a legitimate pay television subscriber, users can watch hit series and some older shows from both networks.

Once again, Time Warner customers are on the outside, looking in.  The nation’s second biggest cable operator has not been a TV Everywhere team player, preferring to launch its own live streaming iPad application and steering clear, so far, from on-demand, online viewing from most of its partner networks, including HBO.  Time Warner Cable executives have, in the past, alluded to licensing fees and user authentication complications for not launching TV Everywhere on-demand viewing for its customers, but the company has not explained why it has not signed on for Turner’s app.

TV Everywhere, a concept on the drawing board for almost two years, is an attempt by the pay television industry to lock down online video programming for paying customers, in an effort to slow down “cord cutting” by consumers trying to save money on their cable TV bill.  The concept delivers unlimited access to popular cable programming, but only to those who already pay to subscribe.

Many TV Everywhere projects have been soft-launched without much publicity, but that is not true for Turner’s app.  The network has commissioned several clever advertisements featuring various network stars promoting the app, and now Turner wants to educate consumers about how to use it to watch shows online.

The most complicated part of the process is getting “authenticated” by the application for authorized viewing.  Some cable companies like Time Warner want customers to launch access to TV Everywhere programming from the cable company’s website, where customers have already been authenticated when they sign up for an online account.  Other companies are using customer account numbers, PIN codes, or passwords printed on monthly bills to let customers register directly for access.  When the application matches a customer account number or PIN code, the content becomes accessible.  It is typically a one-time-only hassle, but there have been cases where customers have had to grab a recent bill more than once to re-authenticate themselves.

Not every show will be made available for online viewing.  Many rerun off-network shows shown on TNT and TBS don’t currently include streaming rights.  So while users can watch past episodes of Conan O’Brien, they’re out of luck if they want to watch Friends.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Turner App.flv[/flv]

Watch a selection of spots from the new advertising campaign for Turner’s ‘TV Everywhere’ app.  (4 minutes)

Canada’s transition to digital television was supposed to be a non-event for cable and satellite customers, because those providers will continue to service analog televisions for sometime to come.  But Shaw Communications found a way to squeeze a few more dollars out of some of their subscribers anyway.

While Canadian broadcasters were discontinuing analog over-the-air television, many Shaw Cable service areas were also dumping an increasing number of analog channels in favor of digital.  In Kamloops, B.C., Cheryl Whiting discovered that conversion was going to cost her plenty.  Although Shaw provides one digital set top box for free, each additional box rents for $2.95 per month, and Whiting will need four of them if she wants to continue watching cable stations above channel 13 throughout her home.

“I may as well sign my paycheque over to them,” Whiting told The Daily News.

Shaw’s ongoing “digital upgrade” is clearing away much of the analog cable dial to make room for additional digital television signals and faster broadband, but that transition comes at a price to customers who now need a set top box on most of their televisions.

Many customers were upgraded during the month of August, with most of the rest scheduled for conversion during September.

[flv width=”540″ height=”416″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Shaw Digital Network Upgrade – Analog Customers.flv[/flv]

Shaw tells customers it is moving all of their cable channels above “broadcast basic” to a digital platform, requiring customers to place digital set top boxes on all of their televisions.  (1 minute)

Bartz

The CEO of the Yahoo! has been shown the door, but unlike many recently-unemployed workers who get the bad news during an exit interview, Carol Bartz learned she was out in a humiliating phone call from the board of directors.

That left Bartz telling employees she’d been fired in an internal memo sent from her iPad.

Investors were happy to see the back of Bartz, sending Yahoo! shares higher on the news.  Bartz faced a growing number of critics in the past few years, almost immediately after arriving as CEO in early 2009.  Much like Yahoo! itself, her critics accused her of being out of touch with Internet culture and the realities of today’s high-tech businesses.

Bartz was no friend of coordinating expanded and improved broadband projects through the government.  She opposed the National Broadband Plan and Net Neutrality policies, dismissing both as government interference.  That put her in direct opposition to Google, which has spent millions in the public policy arena to influence expanded broadband in the United States.

Despite the lackluster results Yahoo! managed under her leadership, Bartz remained well-compensated, earning $60 million over the past two years.

Yahoo! has remained a challenged endeavor as a first generation Internet superstar long-faded after the dot.com crash in 2000.  Various efforts to relaunch Yahoo!’s flagging advertising revenue business, long dominated by Google, have not been very successful.  Yahoo!’s biggest problem has been its lack of innovation, creating new reasons for web visitors to return to a company that used to be a household name.

Now some believe the only hope Yahoo! has left is to sell itself to someone else.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CNBC Broadband Regulation 3-2-10 .flv[/flv]

Free Press’ policy director Ben Scott held his own, despite being hopelessly outnumbered, in a business-friendly CNBC ‘Power Lunch’ debate over broadband public policy held in March 2010.  Scott faced Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz, Larry Clinton from the “Internet Security Alliance,” which receives substantial support — not disclosed by CNBC — from AT&T and Verizon, and CNBC’s clueless Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, who insisted 99 percent of America already subscribes to broadband.  All of the industry talking points were on hand, which isn’t too surprising when they come from industry front groups like the ‘ISA.’ (3/3/2010 — 5 minutes)