Archive: Opinions

Last Friday brought good news to Tompkins County -- Comcast announced they were abandoning a widely opposed attempt to purchase Time Warner Cable (TWC).  This was good news on many fronts -- while cable television and Internet providers routinely land at the bottom of customer satisfaction surveys, TWC actually looked pretty good when compared to Comcast, especially where the issue of Net Neutrality and Internet access throttling are concerned.

But don't celebrate yet.  Charter Communications, which rated even worse than Comcast in a 2012 Business Insider analysis of the 15 most disliked companies in America has its eye on Time Warner Cable.  And yes, Charter has the same issues as Comcast that will make what customers already consider less than great service much worse.

I suffered the Comcast experience personally in March.  I had read numerous horror stories about people trying to cancel Comcast service over the course of several days, and even a story in which a couple who had moved to Philadelphia was stood up eight times by Comcast installers.  After two months with no cable they reached out to a local journalist who contacted the Comcast's CEO's mother to tell on him for providing such horrendous service.  They got hooked up, but you have to admit the reason they did was pretty extreme.

But let's be honest -- people speak up when they are angry, not when they are satisfied.  So can all the horror stories be credited?  Still, what are the chances that my one and only experience with Comcast would be similarly horrific?

I happened to be visiting my family in Florida in March.  My son had just moved into a new apartment and was trying to get his cable account transferred.  All he wanted was Internet, and he had a pretty good deal at his old place.  To make a long story obnoxious, he was lied to by at least five Comcast employees.  He was unable to get any kind of a straight story over the phone, so he finally went to a Comcast store where he picked up what turned out to be a faulty TV set-top box and got an installation appointment.  They refused to let him keep his deal, although he was a customer in good standing, forcing him to pay more and get TV in order to get the Internet speed he wanted.

On Thursday an installer was supposed to come while my son was at work, but that was OK since all the work was suposed to be outside.  At the end of the day he called my son to tell him his cable was working.  It wasn't.  Friday I volunteered to wait for a Comcast repairman while my son went to work.  He went outside to check the connection, and when he came back he had a puzzled look on his face.  There was no Comcast connection anywhere in the building, despite the fact that a half dozen other employees insisted there was, and the installer from the day before said it was hooked up and working.  Friday Guy took me outside and walked me around the building.  The only connection was electricity.  The previous tenants evidently had a satellite hookup, not cable.  Not Comcast.

He couldn't do an installation, but he got me an appointment for the next day, and got his supervisor to waive part of the installation fee.  Saturday an installer came and got it all working, but not before replacing the TV cable box twice -- the first two didn't work.  My son later told me they charged him more than they had promised, but at least he was finally hooked up.  Thank heavens he doesn't live in Philadelphia!

Again, if the horror stories were the exception to the rule, what are the chances that the only time I was ever exposed to Comcast this would happen?  On top of this, when Comcast thinks you are using too much of the Internet bandwidth you are paying for they slow it down.  This is called throttling.  And the comany's public and actual stand on Net Neutrality is contradictory at best.  It was Comcast that forced Netflix to pay to get its content to Comcast customers without slowing the connection.  That is the opposite of Net Neutrality.

Is it surprising that Comcast has 'won' two 'Golden Poo' awards in Consumerist.com's annual 'Worst Company In America' poll?  It also took second place twice and third place twice.

If you Google 'Charter Communications Customer Satisfaction' you see a similar story.  Charter's own Web site admits they throttle Internet connections when they feel customers are using too much of -- and I can't stress this enough -- what they are paying for.

If you wondered about that monopoly thing and why Americans don't like monopolies, this is why.  High prices, terrible service.  Cable companies notoriously have monopolies even though they will shout to the heavens that they do not.  A Temkin Group customer satisfaction survey of around 10,000 American consumers in 2013 found that pay TV companies account for the six of the seven worst-rated companies in the United States.   In this survey Charter Communications, TWC, Cox Communications and Cablevision rated less than 30% satisfaction. Comcast and Verizon’s pay TV services both had ratings of exactly 30%.

Charter seems to be sending the same mixed message on Net Neutrality as Comcast.  In response to new FCC regulations designed to keep the Internet free and open to everyone, Charter issued a statement in which they claimed to be for Net Neutrality while opposing the regulations.

"Charter supports net neutrality because our subscribers expect nothing less than a free and open Internet. This means that Charter does not block, slow down or prioritize Internet traffic. However, the rules adopted today will add fees to customer bills, create regulatory uncertainty and lead to years of litigation that, together, will slow the progress and development of faster broadband for our subscribers. Rather than operate within this outdated and overly broad regulatory regime, Charter looks forward to working with Congress to pass a new open Internet law that protects consumers, provides certainty for investors and freedom for innovators."

If Charter Communications gets its way it will be something like an ant eating a hamster.  In 2013 the company served more than 5.9 million customers.  Time Warner, the second largest cable company after Comcast, served about 15 million customers.  Charter made an unfriendly bid for Time Warner Cable before the Comcast hoo-haa, but the two companies are reportedly on much more agreeable terms now.  Charter has already said it continues to be interested in acquiring TWC.  A meeting is reportedly already being scheduled for next week, according to a CNBC report.

What will this mean for us here in Tompkins County?  It's not as if TWC has better customer service ratings than these other cable companies.  Is this a case of preferring the devil we know to the devil we don't know?

Speaking anecdotally, I have had mixed experiences with TWC's TV support, but have not had a bad experience with their Internet support.  My admittedly sparse experience with their Business Class service has been awful, but their consumer unit seems to be OK.

This may have changed, but when I checked a year or so ago TWC was one of the few cable ISPs not throttling customer's Internet connections.  And while I believe cable is way more expensive than it is worth, I have found that satellite TV is approximately comparable, while less reliable for TV and seriously worse for Internet.  Every year when I get mad at TWC I check out the satellite deals, and after the come-on offers for the first year or so they're really not much better than cable.  So I call TWC and insist I will cancel unless they give me a better deal.  They usually do, though they always make me work for it.

The fact is, the only thing that is going to improve prices and customer service in the cable industry is apples to apples competition.  Let Comcast and Charter Communications and Cox into Tompkins County while keeping TWC here as well.  But until that happens keeping TWC as-is looks like our best option.  So of course it also looks like that's not going to happen.

Stay tuned...

v11i17