Big Apple Day

Thousands of New Yorkers impacted by last week’s tornado outbreak face indefinite wait times for restoration of cable and broadband service from the area’s two biggest providers — Time Warner Cable and Cablevision.

Last week’s storms have left debris from thousands of downed trees and utility poles still in the streets in some parts of the impacted areas, leading to criticism of city officials and cable providers for slow cleanup efforts.

In particular, calls to Time Warner Cable have been a frustrating experience, reports the NY Post.  Cable subscribers cannot get through to the cable company, and when they do, they receive little or no information about when exactly their service will be restored.  The company added a recorded message to help get customers off the phone, telling subscribers “technicians are doing everything they can” to restore service and that actual representatives can’t provide any other information.

Jayant, one of our readers in the hard-hit Flushing area in Queens made sure to request service credit for his cable outage, knowing many providers won’t provide service outage credits if they are not specifically requested.

“Considering the enormous amount of damage here, I can understand being without service over this past weekend — restoring power should and does come first, but since Tuesday Verizon and ConEd cleared out of this area after finishing repairs and some of us are still waiting for the cable company to show up,” he writes.  “Forget about calling them — it’s busy signals or ‘extended hold times’ that I suspect run into days at this point.”

He’s using Virgin Wireless’ unlimited mobile broadband service he read about on Stop the Cap! for now.

Another Queens resident shared her frustration with the Post:

Big Apple Day

New York City officials are sick and tired of taking complaints about missed cable appointments and other service problems on its 311 city help line.  Nearly 1,200 calls about cable have been made so far this year alone, with fed up New Yorkers annoyed they took a day off work to wait for a cable technician that never arrived, or one who never solved the problem they were called to fix.

Now city officials are forcing the area’s two incumbent cable operators — Time Warner Cable and Cablevision, to pay for their mistakes.

As part of franchise renewal negotiations, both cable companies have agreed to credit subscribers the full amount of that month’s cable bill if the cable guy arrives late, or not at all.

The penalty decreases to $25 after 2012, when Verizon FiOS service is expected to blanket most of the city.

But consumer reforms extend beyond financial penalties for missed appointments.

Customers will soon be able to request notification by e-mail, phone or text message when a technician is heading to their home.  And calls to either cable company should be answered by a real person no more than 30 seconds after dialing.

Many of these reforms are already a part of the franchise agreement New York City’s Office of Information Technology & Telecommunications worked out with Verizon, allowing the phone company to provide cable television in the city.

Time Warner Cable spokesman Alex Dudley didn’t miss the opportunity to turn the challenging new requirements into an opportunity.  He told area reporters Time Warner welcomes the new customer service standards and appreciates the opportunity to compete for customers in the metropolitan New York area.

As Robert Porto, 38, a Time Warner Cable customer in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, told the New York Times, the new contract will be “the ultimate revenge for the little guy.”

Importantly, none of these consumer-focused reforms would have been possible had New York adopted the kind of “reform” companies like AT&T and Verizon have advocated in other states — statewide video franchising.

Brodsky

New York’s legislature has rejected previous attempts to eliminate local cable and video franchise agreements, citing the loss of control by local municipalities to deal with provider issues that would sail over the heads of a statewide committee in Albany.  New York has been generally hostile to Big Telecom’s deregulation agenda.  One state assemblyman, Richard Brodsky (D-Westchester), even introduced a bill requiring phone companies like Verizon to split the proceeds of asset sales with ratepayers.

Other provisions of the franchise agreements include:

• The right to terminate franchise agreements with Time Warner Cable and Cablevision Systems if broadband-delivered video significantly erodes cable TV revenue over the next 10 years;
• Time Warner Cable and Cablevision are required to invest about $10 million to install Wi-Fi access in 32 public parks in all five boroughs, to be operated and maintained by the companies until 2020;
• At least five new Public, Educational and Government (PEG) community access channels will be added, up from the four that currently exist, by 2012.  At least one must be in HD.  The operators also agree to pay a combined total of more than $9 million, payable in annual installments, plus an additional $2 million of “in-kind” services to pay for equipment and operation expenses;
• More than $20 million to help finance the upgrade of CityNet, the city government-dedicated network;
• Time Warner Cable will establish four community broadband access centers per year (40 total), in collaboration with nonprofits, over life of franchise;
• Time Warner Cable will install 20 miles of fiber per year in underserved commercial/industrial areas over franchise term; and will build-out Brooklyn Navy Yard. Cablevision already serves the commercial blocks in its service areas. Companies will commit to expend $1.8 million per year to bring fiber to commercial buildings of city’s choice.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WABC New York New Yorkers could get money if cable guy stands them up 9-15-10.mp4[/flv]

WABC-TV covers the introduction of pro-consumer cable service reforms for metropolitan New York residents.  (2 minutes)

Big Apple Day

Residents on Long Island are learning what Cablevision subscribers in Bronx, Brooklyn, and Connecticut have known for a few years now — if you want to watch Cablevision’s TV lineup, be prepared to shell out almost $7 a month for every television in your home.

It’s part of Cablevision’s march to an all-digital, encrypted cable lineup.  If you want cable TV, you’ll need to lease one of Cablevision’s digital set top boxes or CableCARD devices.

Cablevision says it will provide customers with free boxes for their televisions for the first year, available in limited quantities at Optimum stores or shipped free to your door by UPS.  But after 12 months, customers with several TV’s will find steep increases to their monthly bills, just to cover boxes many don’t want in the first place.

“It’s just more gouging from Cablevision,” writes our reader Stephanie who lives in Lindenhurst, N.Y.  “We used to watch television box-free at the kitchen table or on the computer with our Slingbox, but now our home will need three more boxes when we already pay them $14 for the two we already have.”

Cablevision's Conversion Schedule for Western Long Island

For customers like Stephanie, that adds up to nearly $35 a month just in equipment fees.

“Our bill is already $170 a month and next year it will probably run over $200 with the boxes we don’t want and whatever their next rate increase turns out to be,” she writes.

Cablevision claims they are not doing anything their competition isn’t.

“In fact, every other TV service provider in the New York metropolitan area already requires digital boxes for each TV,” a Cablevision spokesman stressed.

Those upset with the change are considering making some changes themselves — some by switching to a promotional package from satellite TV or Verizon’s FiOS.

“I am well aware they both want you to use boxes on those services as well, but for a year or two, we could probably knock $30 or more a month off our current cable bill with a promotional deal,” Stephanie says.

What about after the deal expires?

“We’ll just switch back to Cablevision on one of their promotional deals,” she says.  “For this family, it’s about the ‘total amount due’ at the bottom of the bill.”

Cablevision’s ongoing transition to digital caused panic when it blanked out broadcast basic cable service for more than 500 residents of a Coney Island complex housing numerous senior citizens, almost all watching local television signals delivered in analog.  When Cablevision made the digital switch in August, every local channel suddenly disappeared.  The NY Post explained what happened next:

Cablevision also announced this week it had upgraded its set top boxes to support several new applications and services on the way.  Multichannel News covered the story:

Cablevision Systems has now deployed Zodiac Interactive’s interactive TV platform — including support for the industry’s EBIF specification — across the MSO’s entire New York-area footprint serving 2.9 million digital cable subscribers.

The operator is using Zodiac’s PowerUp framework software, running on Cisco Systems’ native set-top box environment, to run several interactive applications and services. These include iO TV Shortcuts, search, an enhanced program guide, video-on-demand navigation and dedicated ITV channels.

The companies also are working together on Cablevision’s remote-storage DVR — which the operator has been planning to launch this year — and the MSO is using Zodiac’s PowerUp Advanced Messaging Solution (AMS) software to integrate Web and mobile applications with set-top boxes.

Some other families are considering a different change.

“Maybe we just should stop watching TV in the kitchen,” Dominick Galletta of East Northport, N.Y., told WNBC-TV.

[flv width=”597″ height=”356″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WNBC New York No Cable Box No TV for You on Long Island 9-16-10.flv[/flv]

WNBC-TV covers frustrated Cablevision customers on Long Island now forced to obtain digital cable boxes for every television in their home.  (2 minutes)

Epix, the pay-TV channel from Viacom, Lions Gate and MGM, will -not- be coming to Time Warner Cable lineups anytime soon.

Why? Because the network ‘cheapened themselves’ when they agreed to get in bed with Netflix, which will offer online video streaming of the three studios’ movies just 90 days after appearing on the channel.

Time Warner Cable Chief Financial Officer Rob Marcus said the network did itself no favors with that deal.  He told attendees at the Bank of America/Merrill Lynch Media, Communications & Entertainment Conference that Epix’s online video deal “devalued the channel.”

Epix may have irritated the cable company for another reason — it streams much of its content online for its subscribers to watch anytime they like, outside of the industry’s TV Everywhere project.

Indeed, the majority of cable operators seem to share Time Warner’s sentiment, as the new HD pay channel faces a virtual embargo from the industry’s big players, including Comcast and DirecTV.  In fact, Epix’s four million subscribers come primarily from just three companies — Verizon FiOS, DISH Network, and Cox Cable.

[flv width=”480″ height=”292″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Introduction to Epix.flv[/flv]

A short introduction to Epix.  (1 minute)

Dolan

Cablevision Systems CEO James Dolan warned cable executives the combination of rate increases and the poor economy could spark a consumer revolt, driving a legislative agenda that could force a-la-carte pricing on cable companies.

“At some point you reach a point where the consumer rebels,” Dolan said. “You’re likely to see that in a reaction in Washington on the government side because it will become a politically easy issue for politicians to jump on and a-la-carte [pricing] is an obvious answer. But the impact of a-la-carte on the programming industry would be devastating. It behooves all the participants to exercise restraint.”

Dolan pointed to high unemployment and a deterioration in earnings among those still employed combined with continuing rate increases as a potentially dangerous combination.  Dolan was especially concerned about payments for local broadcasters and major broadcast networks which have sparked high-profile carriage battles.  Earlier this year, Cablevision briefly dropped programming from ABC and Scripps Networks’ HGTV and Food Network.

Dolan was speaking at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Media, Communications & Entertainment conference in Newport Beach, Calif.

His comments come at the same time Cablevision is preparing for yet another carriage battle, this time with News Corporation.

On October 15th, Cablevision’s contract to carry FOX’s television stations in New York (WWNY 5 and WWOR 9) and Philadelphia (WTXF 29) will expire. Unless Cablevision renews its agreement with FOX, Cablevision may no longer carry the three over-the-air stations. Also impacted are several FOX Networks’ cable channels: FOX Sports en Español, Nat Geo WILD and FOX Business Network.

News Corporation’s website, KeepFoxOn, turned its attention to the dispute, urging viewers to contact Cablevision.  Viewers are being warned of the potential loss of the channels through advertising messages that began last weekend.

The issue of a-la-carte pricing, which allows cable customers to pick and choose individual channels, has been the nightmare scenario for cable systems and programmers, who fear it would force most niche channels out of business and dramatically cut earnings for cable systems.  The industry also warns it would force every cable subscriber to rent set top boxes to manage channel lineups for every television in the home.

But as programming costs continue to exceed the rate of inflation, relentless rate increases and restrictive contracts that keep most networks out of specialty programming tiers makes cable television a service many Americans are contemplating doing without.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Keep Fox On.flv[/flv]

FOX has begun informing Cablevision viewers they could lose access to their local FOX stations and several FOX-owned cable networks.  (30 seconds)