Time Warner Cable

Broken router busts Time Warner Cable digital phone service in Hawaii

Doug Mohney — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 10:09:44 -0500

Time Warner's digital phone service for the state of Hawaii is down statewide, clobbered by a broken router on the mainland (Orange County, Calif., to be specific).

Oceanic Time Warner Cable doesn't know how many of its 65,000 digital phone customers are affected and the severity of the problem, but it said intermittent phone service started about a week ago in California. Outages can run anywhere from one to 20 minutes at a time.

Last month, a power failure in Orange County disrupted digital phone service for more than 12 hours for all of Oceanic's Hawaii customers. Refunds were offered to affected customers for that outage, but will not be this time. A marketing executive says it would be "an administrative nightmare" to figure out how many people were affected and offer them a refund for two minutes of service - so they're not. (So much for the spirit of Ohana...)

For more:
- Read of Oceanic's digital phone outage woes. Article.

Related articles
Is there a Tiki Idol curse on Telco? Hawaii no paradise for struggling telco - FierceTelecom
Hawaiian Telcom turns to Chapter 11

Cable companies paint their future in a down economy

Doug Mohney — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:37:06 -0500

At a Wall Street investor's conference Monday, Time Warner Cable and Comcast were painting a relatively upbeat picture, but fessed up that they might end up with declining revenues in certain areas.

Time Warner Cable (TWC) CEO and President Glenn Britt was promoting the view that cable TV will benefit as people stay home, rather than going out to spend money. On the other side of the coin, DVR adoption is down - but that could be due to existing customers having already picked up the service.

Other tidbits Britt shared included a lack of taste for M&A activity and a decline in capex spending. Costs in the industry are coming from two big categories: sports retransmission and labor; TWC has had some restructuring costs due to layoffs.

While TWC has a lot of overlap with AT&T and Verizon, the company continues to take voice customers away from them "at a rapid rate."

Comcast is seeing slowing in advertising and add-on services such as pay-per-view, as well as customers calling up to ask for relief from their monthly cable bills. But Comcast believes it will be able to soak up cost-conscious consumers with a bunch of lower-priced plans.

Customers also want reliability as well as value, so Comcast has been working on how it monitors its network and schedules its technicians. Comcast's customer satisfaction ratings are on the rise, according to the company's internal measurements.

In 2009, Comcast technicians will have dispatch devices that let them track customer appointments throughout the day. The company is working on a feature that will allow customers to go online to find out where a tech is, so they don't have to make a phone call into Comcast.

For more:
- Time Warner Cable President sounds off. Article.
- Paidcontent.org (via Washington Post) reports on TW Cable's outlook. Post.

AT&T inflicts metered billing trial upon Texas town

Doug Mohney — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:04:36 -0500

Poor Beaumont, Texas. First, Time Warner decided to run trial caps between 5 and 40 GB and overage charges of $1 to $1.50 per GB. Now, AT&T has decided to extend its metered broadband trial into the market. It'll be interesting to see if Clearwire decides to accelerate its WiMAX deployment in that area.

AT&T started metered bandwidth in Reno last month, and DSL customers there now face caps from 20 to 150 GB with a $1 per GB charge once you go over the cap. AT&T users are given an online usage tool to track bandwidth consumption and get alerts warning them when they've consumed between 60 to 80 percent of their allocated bandwidth.

Time Warner is trying to convince locals that new billing will deliver guaranteed savings and improve the internet experience, while AT&T says that limiting consumption and charging more for bandwidth (rather than upgrading the network) makes broadband better, and charging more for bandwidth makes it more affordable by targeting "abnormally high usage patterns."

DSLReports opines that both companies are working to cap usage now before Internet video threatens TV revenues, saying data from backbone operators doesn't support AT&T's doomsday scenario of bandwidth running out (Of course, if you call Cisco, the company will tell you that purchasing a zettabyte router or two will fix everything).

For more:
- DSLReports reports on AT&T billing trial. Article.

Related articles
AT&T puts bandwidth squeeze on Reno - FierceTelecom
TWC tests metered Internet, Comcast tests traffic management solution

Study: POTS reliability still king

Dan O'Shea — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 08:30:00 -0500

A study released earlier this month by Keynote Systems Competitive Research found that while VoIP audio quality continues to improve, VoIP is still no match for landline service reliability. At least that's what happened when Keynote pitted AT&T landline POTS against VoIP service from major cable TV providers and other telcos, including Verizon.

AT&T landline service earned the highest grade by far in service reliability, followed by VoIP offerings Time Warner Cable Digital Phone and Verizon Voicewing. Comcast Digital Voice was ranked best in audio quality, while AT&T POTS fell to third place in that category. Do the findings help the case for either landline carriers who are still losing lines by the hundreds, or VoIP carriers who are looking to move up another rung on the mainstream market ladder? It's not clear that quality has been a major factor in switching or staying with a service. For many, even VoIP may be an interim stop on the journey to completely cutting the cord for mobile.

For more:
- GigaOM has this post

TWC reports telephony, broadband boosts

Dan O'Shea — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 09:31:35 -0500

Time Warner Cable, which is nearing a separation from its corporate parent Time Warner, reported third quarter earnings that showed 21 percent profit growth from strong jumps in broadband Internet and voice telephony segments. Quarterly profit was $301 million, versus $248 million for the same period last year. Voice revenue leaped 37 percent to $421 million, as TWC added about 200,000 telephony customers. High-speed data revenue increased 12 percent to $1.06 billion, with subscriber additions running about 214,000.

For more:
- Forbes has the Associated Press story

Cox trimming jobs, predicting results for TWC

Doug Mohney — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 21:50:38 -0500

As Cox Communications plans to cut 460 jobs out of its work force, analysts gear up to predict Time Warner Cable's third quarter earnings, which will be announced on Wednesday.

Cox plans to use a mix of early retirement, attrition and possibly layoffs to trim about 2 percent of the company's jobs out of a work force currently numbering around 23,000. Cox isn't sure what the mix will be, but there could be "a small number of involuntary actions."

Meanwhile, analysts believe Time Warner Cable will post revenues of $4.36 billion and earnings of 28 cents per share. Sanford Bernstein analyst Craig "I hate phone companies" Moffett believes TWC's earnings will be better than Comcast's. The slowing economy's effect on business and TWC's status in the Clearwire WiMAX joint venture are also expected to be discussed during the earnings call.

For more:
- Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports Cox cutting jobs
- AP Earnings Preview: Time Warner Cable to report 3Q

Verizon cranks DSL pricing bundles, hikes speeds

Doug Mohney — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:30:14 -0500

After a drop in DSL subscriptions last quarter, the gloves are coming off at Verizon. The company announced new, lower-cost, DSL-based, triple-play bundles today, along with announcing higher speeds for its entry level service and wider market availability. The L.A. Times smells a telecom price war in the works.

Verizon's new DSL bundling combines voice, data, and DirecTV service together. Entry-level service with 1 Mbps download, voice, and 150 DIRECTV channels is $79.99 per month with an annual contract. The mid-range bundle prices at $99.99 per month and includes download speeds of up to 3 Mbps, unlimited local and long distance service, and 200 DIRECTV digital TV channels, plus a DVR upgrade and SHOWTIME for 12 months. At $119.99 per month, there's all that plus more TV services. Upgrades to 7.1 Mbps at the mid- and high-end tier can be had where available for an additional $10 a month.

Entry-level DSL speeds for Verizon have been hiked to 1 Mbps downstream and 384 Kbps upstream, raised from 768 Kbps/128 Kbps respectively. Users now can order the new entry-level service for $9.99 per month for the first six months under a one-year contract. Depending on the market, monthly pricing on the remainder of an annual plan will range between $19.99 to $25.99.

You can also find 7.1 Mbps download speeds available in 6.6 million households nationwide within Verizon territory.

The L.A. Times blog speculates that the price cuts are to keep customers from fleeing to cable providers such as Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications. Me thinks Verizon may double-down and try to accelerate FiOS rollouts at this rate.

For more:
- Verizon announced DSL bundles. Release.
- LA Times speculates on a telecom price war. Blog.

Verizon revamps wireline bills

Dan O'Shea — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 23:29:56 -0400

Verizon Communications has redesigned its bill for residential wireline services and is now sending the new bill out to customers in New York City. If that doesn't sound like huge news, the move actually comes after NYC competitor Time Warner Cable produced ads criticizing the length and complexity of the telco's bills. Customers also reportedly have complained about the bills.

The New York City market is especially critical to Verizon, since it made a pretty big effort to launch FiOS services there earlier this year. Verizon plans to roll out the new bill design to all of its residential customer by the end of this year.

For more:
- read this story at Xchange

Should telcos fear DOCSIS 3.0?

Dan O'Shea — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 09:31:04 -0400

Cable TV operator support for DOCSIS 3.0 trials and commercial roll-outs has been building for months. Nearly all the major cable players have their plans together, and though some are being aggressive and others conservative, it seems like DOCSIS 3.0-based broadband will soon become a big competitive factor.

Still, at the Fiber-to-the-Home Conference in Nashville this week, Jim Farmer, chief network architect for Enablence's Wave7 FTTx networks division and a noted cable industry technologist, questioned the potential impact of DOCSIS 3.0. He said that putting much more bandwidth downstream also limits the ability to provide more TV channels. He also said that many cable TV companies will not be able to take advantage of the standard's greatest potential benefits when paired with MPEG-4 because they still have such a large base of MPEG 2 gear in the market.

For more:
- see this coverage at Telephony

Cable's push and prayer for WiMAX

Doug Mohney — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:38:30 -0400

From all indications, the Clearwire/Xohm WiMAX merger deal should be completed by the end of the year. Cable operators are eager to get the ability to bundle wireless services with their current triple play offerings, but may have a limited window of opportunity to exploit a WiMAX offering.

Comcast and Time Warner put out large sums to invest in the "new" Clearwire, so both companies are eager to take advantage of a nationwide broadband network. The master theory is to keep customers from straying or dropping TV, phone and internet services by reselling cable-branded phone and wireless broadband services from Clearwire. If a customer has the opportunity to buy cable-branded/bundled wireless phone service, they are less likely to pick up VoIP/landline-esque service - and also have less of an opportunity to migrate to wireless broadband services (and off of broadband cable).

How much of an advantage cable companies might have is subject to debate. Wireless phone carriers have stated their intention to migrate to LTE-based services as rapidly as possible, but their deployment pacing may be based upon the relative success - or failure - of WiMAX and Clearwire.

For more:
- Ars Technica discusses cable's newfound WiMAX embrace. Article

TWC won't throw down DOCSIS 3.0 blanket

Dan O'Shea — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 23:31:00 -0400

DOCSIS 3.0 has been seen as the cable TV industry's answer to big-bandwidth fiber networks, with speed potential from 50 Mbps to well beyond 100 Mbps. Comcast, Charter Communications, Time Warner Cable and other cable TV operators have been testing the technology and have committed to deploy it. This week, TWC chief operating officer Landel Hobbs said at a conference in California that his company's strategy will be to deploy DOCSIS 3.0 "surgically" in markets where it is most needed, but not in markets where the company is finding support for its tiered broadband services.

With big telcos Verizon Communications and AT&T pushing fiber aggressively into new markets, you would expect to see a major cable player blanket markets with its own next-generation broadband solution as quickly as possible. It will be interesting to see what competitors and TWC's "have-not" customers make of this plan.

For more:
- see this report at Multichannel News

Charter scores deal with Big Ten Network

Jim O'Neill — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 10:33:28 -0400

OK, this is a story that will only appeal to Wolverines, Badgers, Nittany Lions, Hoosiers and the other fans of the nation's best college football conference, the Big Ten (You SEC, ACC and Big East fans can skip over this): Charter Cable--the bane of many sports fans, especially in the Midwest--finally has come to terms with the Big Ten Network. Finally. Charter has agreed to a multi-year contract with the network and will offer football and basketball games on the expanded basic level of service this year.

The move follows on the heels of a deal with Time Warner Cable this month and an earlier deal with Comcast. Charter had been vilified by many of the conference's fans for dragging its heels in making a deal.

For more:
- See the story in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Related article
The case for municipal telecoms. Muni-telecom report

Cablevision's on the hot seat

Jim O'Neill — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 09:46:45 -0400

Cablevision has gotten a lot of press lately, not all good, not all bad. The company even did a dog and pony show for Wall Street investors earlier this month, trying to patch up some rough spots with major shareholders. One of the newest -- and largest -- shareholders, hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners, didn't show, and that kind of set the tone for the gathering.

CEO James Dolan, scion of the family that controls some 74 percent of the Long Island, N.Y. cable outfit's voting stock, has some real problems on his hands. Citi yesterday downgraded Cablevisions stock from buy to sell, citing Verizon's push into New York City with its FiOS network as a major potential source of market erosion. Share prices quickly fell 5 percent. Plus, Citi notes, Cablevision has a hefty $1.4 billion in debt due to be refinanced, and with the credit market still fighting to regain its footing, that could mean a substantial bump in interest payments.

On Friday Harbinger, Cablevision's fourth-largest shareholder with nearly 8.1 percent of its Class A shares, let the company know it wants a meeting. Analysts say that despite the Dolan's grip on the company, Harbinger has the ability to shake things up.

Mario Gabelli, whose company Gabelli & Co. also owns a sizable chunk of Cablevision, has been pushing for change. He wants the Dolans to sell assets, specifically the cable business, to TWC.

"Cablevision has always been off limits, since it's controlled by the Dolans," Stanford Group analyst Fred Moran told Wired. "But since shareholders like Mario Gabelli are pushing for a split up of Cablevision's assets -- timed concurrently with the spin off of Time Warner Cable from Time Warner -- you could see for the first time potential discussions of merging Time Warner Cable with Cablevision -- or [Time Warner Cable] buying selected parts of Cablevision's systems."

For more:
- See the Wired report

Related articles:
Hedge fund ups ownership stake in Cablevision. Harbinger report
Hedge fund buys Cablevision stake. Harbinger report
Cablevision makes nice with Wall Street. Cablevision report
Cablevision surprised investors with plans to actually TALK to them. Cablevision report
Cablevision's Newsday buy is unlikely to start a trend. Cablevision report

Bandwidth: Frontier puts a lid on it

Jim O'Neill — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 22:28:00 -0400

Regional ISP Frontier Communications is telling customers in its Rochester, N.Y., market that they'll be allowed 5 GB of bandwidth a month, or they'll have to face the consequences. Although the company hasn't yet decided just what those consequences may be, they've posted a notice to their website warning of service suspension, service termination or additional fees.

Time Warner Cable--which happens to be Frontier's only competition in Rochester--also has floated the idea of imposing service caps, and is testing them in Beaumont, Texas.

For more:
See the San Fransisco Chronicle story

Related articles:
Comcast eyes bandwidth caps. Comcast report
TWC tests metered Internet. TWC report

Verizon to conduct FiOS safety checks in NY

Dan O'Shea — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 10:53:16 -0400

Verizon Communications will conduct safety inspections of all FiOS installations completed in New York before Aug. 1, after the New York Public Service Commission uncovered electrical code violations during routine inspections of some deployments. The carrier said its installations are safe and that there have been no known incidents of safety hazards, but after the issue was discussed by the NY PSC for two months running, the telco submitted a plan to review all of its installations during the next 60 days.

The PSC has not officially approved that proposal and will seek comment on it at a Sept. 22 meeting, but Verizon is moving ahead anyway. The safety issue is cropping up at a time when Verizon is starting to increase its deployments in New York City, particularly in multi-dwelling unit buildings there.

For more:
- read this story at The Albany Times Union

Related articles:
Verizon is set to go head-to-head with Time Warner Cable in New York City. Verizon report
Verizon saw its NYC video plan approved by the NY PSC last month. Verizon report

Cablevision taking its show on the road to Wall Street

Jim O'Neill — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 07:21:08 -0400

Cablevision CEO James Dolan, who traditionally has played the company’s operations close to his vest—and has made a career of creating minor dust ups with Wall Street and his biggest investors—will be meeting with some of the cable company’s largest shareholders next week in an effort to garner support for what the company says will be meaningful strategic moves, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Dolan says the company’s share price isn’t where it should be, and he’s looking to stir the pot a bit. Wall Street is skeptical anything significant will come out of the latest round of spin-off rumors—although Mario Gabelli, the head of one of its largest shareholders, Gamco Investors (which has an 8.3 stake in the Long Island company), is pushing for a sale of Cablevision’s cable systems—that’s right, its cable systems—to Time Warner Cable. Barring that, he says the company should sell its Rainbow Media unit and spin off Madison Square Garden. Gabelli will be hosting the meetings, which will be the first time in years that Cablevision has deigned to meet with its investors.

"It is a nothing short of staggering, and a clear sign that there has been a major inflection point that Cablevision shareholders need to be thinking about," said one stock analyst.

Not everyone is buying into the hype the Dolan family will finally be willing to part with any of its holdings. After all, last year the Dolans tried hard to take the company private, looking to buy up shares on the cheap, said Lauren Silva and Anthony Currie in breakingviews.com. And, it just recently completed the purchase of Newsday, one of the largest newspapers in the country. “At best, they will split off the entertainment assets while keeping the same supervoting stock structure that cements their control and drags on shares. That way, they nod toward shareholders while still holding onto their favorite toys.”

For more:
- See the Wall Street Journal story

Related articles:
Cablevision added 81,000 voice customers. Cablevision report
Cablevision announced a WiFi initiative in May. Cablevision report
Cablevision's Newsday buy is unlikely to start a trend. Cablevision report

Congress wants info on web data mining

Jim O'Neill — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 10:05:06 -0400

This summer’s NebuAd drama has created more angst in Congress and spawned yet another probe of Internet providers. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is looking into how telcos, cablecos and ISPs collect and track information about their customers’ web habits.

Nearly three dozen companies were sent a letter asking them to describe any of their targeted Internet practices and how they chose consumers to be targeted. In all, the letters—which must be responded to by Friday—asked 11 questions.

“In order for us to better understand how companies may be engaged in efforts to target Internet advertising, the impact of such efforts on consumers, and broader public policy implications, we respectfully request that you provide specific answers…,” wrote the letter signed by Chairman John D. Dingell and Rep. Joe Barton of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and Chairman Edward J. Markey and Rep. Cliff Stearns of the Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee.

AOL, AT&T, Bresnan Communications, Bright House Networks, CableOne, Cablevision, Cbeyond, CenturyTel, Charter, Citizen Communications, Comcast, Covad, Cox, Earthlink, Google, Insight, Knology, Level 3, Mediacom, Microsoft, PAETEC, Qwest, RCN, Suddenlink, Time Warner Cable, tw telecom, WideOpenWest, TDS Telecom, United Online, Windstream Communications, Verizon, XO Communications, and Yahoo! All received the letters.

“Privacy is a cornerstone of freedom,” Markey said in a statement. “Online users have the right to explicitly know when their broadband provider is tracking their activity and collecting potential sensitive and personal information,” he added.

For more:
- See the story in PC Magazine

Related articles:
Congress questions Embarq on NebuAd test Embarq report
NebuAd's CEO recently defended the company to legislators. NebuAd report
CenturyTel said earlier this month it would hold off using NebuAd. CenturyTel report

Verizon, Time Warner Cable on war footing in N.Y.

Jim O'Neill — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 22:43:41 -0400

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition! Verizon and Time Warner Cable are going to war for the hearts, souls and wallets of New York City pay-TV customers.

Verizon last week got the go ahead from New York State for its FiOS serviced in New York City, formerly the playground of Time Warner Cable and Cablevision. The telco has boldly gone into action, already taking video-service orders with planned install dates starting Aug. 1. Verizon’s blitzkrieg has so rattled industry analysts that one, Pali Capital’s Rich Greenfield, downgraded TWC stock to sell Monday, sparking a flurry of, well, sales by investors who pushed the cableco’s share price down 4.1 percent.

But TWC’s COO Landel Hobbs has launched a counterattack, saying the company has a multi-pronged strategy of its own that will blunt the Verizon offensive. What, pray tell? Well, TWC’s planning to get installers to the door in a narrower window, is offering discounts for longer term contract and is sending out an army of door-to-door sales reps. Hmmm. Shock and awe it ain’t. Score an early win for Verizon.

For more:
See the Wall Street Journal story

Related articles:
Verizon vows FiOS will blanket New York City. Verizon FiOS report
Verizon opens another front in New York FiOS war. Verizon report
Verizon delivers NYC-wide TV proposal. Verizon report

NY PSC approves Verizon NYC video plan

Dan O'Shea — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:38:14 -0400

The New York State Public Service Commission has approved the video franchise agreement Verizon Communications forged with New York City officials to allow the telco to sell video and triple play services throughout the city. Verizon said in a statement that the company already has begun taking orders for FiOS services, including TV, in the Big Apple, and that the TV service will officially roll out in the coming weeks.

With NYC's Franchice and Concession Review Committee having approved the plan back in May, the PSC's approval is the final authorization Verizon needed to take this significant step with FiOS TV beyond its suburban market comfort zones and into a dense urban market that, until recently, posed deployment challenges, as well as competitive challenges. Verizon now has at its disposal bendable fiber and other solution to help it clear the deployment hurdles. The competitive challenges, in the form of cable TV companies Time Warner Cable, Cablevision Systems and RCN, remain.

For more:
- read this story at Multichannel News

Related articles:
Verizon delivered its proposal to NYC officials in April. Verizon report
Verizon said Corning's Clearcurve fiber helps its MDU push. Verizon report

Windjammer Communications picks up some Time Warner rural customers

Jim O'Neill — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 08:39:21 -0400

Windjammer Communications—a combination of private-equity firm MAST Capital Management and Communications Construction Services (CCS)—is now the proud owner of 80,000 former Time Warner Cable subscribers spread across some 125 head-ends in 25 states … at least it will be once the deal is wrapped in the fourth quarter.

TWC said it had reached agreement to sell Windjammer several small systems that had been for sale since spring in what it described as non-strategic areas. Terms of the deal weren’t released, but Time Warner said its second-quarter results will show a $45 million loss on the sale.

Cable executives familiar with the deal told Multichannel that the systems, while likely in need of upgrades, have the potential to offer high-speed data and telephony: The 120,000 revenue-generating units average only about 1.5 services per customer. “That means that they’re not offering much high-speed data and no voice service,” one executive said.

Time Warner Cable said CCS specializes in providing voice, video and data services to military personnel and supplies service to more than 200 military facilities in the continental U.S. and Hawaii.

For more:
- See the Multichannel news story

Related articles:
TWC testing metered Internet Time Warner Cable report
Time Warner spinning off cable unit Time Warner report