212-364-8300, option 2.
twc.cotp@twcable.com remains the email address.

The number goes straight to the customer care advocates in the TWC Office of the President. Thanks to TWC Director, Digital Communications Jeff Simmermon for proactively keeping us up to date. He writes, "Your posts help us get help to customers that need it, and we appreciate all your efforts." Yay. (Photo: billaday)

He writes:

I called TWC almost 2 weeks ago regarding "pixelation" problems with my On Demand channels, that my 2 kids (under 3) watch all day. They came yesterday and swapped out the box. When I got home a little while later to try it, the On Demand didn't work at all, so I call TWC and they tell me "he should have tested it prior to leaving, and we they have to set up another call in about a week". Needless to say I ask for a supervisor who tells my he will send out another tech tomorrow. They call me last night to confirm the appointment and give me a window between 2 and 6 PM. I give the dispatcher my cell, home, door bell #s, and tell them that I have a doorman in my building.... So today I call around 6:30, because no one ever showed up. The rep for TWC tells me that the tech showed up and no one was home, after blowing up I ask for another supervisor who proceeds to tell me sorry, we can setup another appointment in about a week and there will be a $40.00 cancellation fee for today's appointment! Meanwhile my doorman was in the lobby, my kids, wife, and I were all home at the time. Terrible business practice, I can't wait for Verizon FIOS to get to my building.

Such a hefty fee, especially when Ed wasn't at fault, is definitely worth fighting. You could even argue that even if the tech did show up but signals were somehow crossed, TWC shouldn't have charged him $40. Perhaps this is one for the Time Warner Cable Executive Customer Service line.

(Photo: The Consumerist)

Dave writes (to TWC):

I just wanted to give you an update as to TWC's continuing failure to deliver the TV services that I am paying for.

Apparently, TWC is just too inept to get this fixed. My TV picture continues to freeze up with audio cutting out on a regular basis. Last night my wife and I missed 17 minutes of a one hour show because I had to reboot the POS DVR that I PAY FOR, not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES to get the picture unstuck. That doesn't even count the other times when I only had to shut everything off and turn it back on to get my picture back. Once again, this is NOT a problem with any of the equipment in my home. I know this for a number of reasons:

You've had numerous technicians in my home who determined there was nothing wrong with my equipment
Your operations/maintenance head (Keith) has confirmed to me in the past the issues that TWC has had with the Scientific Altlantica DVRs and your signal coming from NYC
I have this problem, my neighbors in my development have this problem and, as evidenced on a town message board, others in my town have this problem

Then, this morning, I discover just how screwed up your DVR is. I was scrolling through the program guide when I saw that I had an upcoming recording of "Tom & Jerry" scheduled. I found that odd, as I know neither my wife or I set that recording and my 6 month old son hasn't quite mastered the use of the DVR yet. So, I went to delete the scheduled recording when I saw that the confirmation screen was asking me if I wanted to cancel recording FOR A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SHOW!!! Maybe that's got something to do with why my DVR keeps recording reruns, even though the recording options are set to capture first run shows only.

Once again, TWC = FAIL!!!

So, I called TWC Customer Service. They wanted to send out a technician, since, according to their records, the last technician to come out to my home was in April. I guess my correspondence with the Executive Response Center (in May) and the subsequent technician they sent out didn't count. Maybe you guys could, I dunno', actually communicate with one another so the left hand knows what the right is doing.

So, I've got an appointment set for tomorrow between 2-6pm. Yes, once again, I have to block off my afternoon so TWC can send a technician to not resolve my problem. If your technician comes, sees the problem and can't fix it I expect free service until such time as the problem has been resolved. Why should I continue to pay for a service that TWC is too inept to provide?

Oh yeah, I'm also planning to start capturing the video of your craptastic service. Once I make a nice compilation/mix tape of TWC's absurdly bad service I will be creating a new You Tube channel to post it all on. I'll also be sure to record your technician's visit tomorrow. Once the You Tube page is up I'll be sure to send you a link. I will also use it to actively lobby the neighbors in my development to ditch TWC for FIOS when it's available.

Honestly, TWC is the WORST service company that I have to deal with. Your products and services suck. Your customer service sucks. Your technicians suck.

When the day comes that FIOS becomes available not only am I going to shout it from the rooftops, but I am going to actively campaign to have each of my neighbors ditch your services for Verizon's.

Poor Dave.

My mother is moving to a new home on the lot next to ours. She's getting older and I'm much more up-to-date on the terminology I'm sure the cable agents would be throwing at her.

I was browsing the Time Warner Cable site looking at the packages available, decided on a package with phone service that would suit her, and attempted to sign up on-line. Unfortunately, when you do this Time Warner must consult a database and not finding the newly built house/address in the database claimed that they didn't service my area. Since our home is literally 500ft away and have their service just fine, I figured I'd call and someone would help me out.

When I called customer service the agent was happy to take the order for new service - at a higher price than the "web only specials" that I'm unable to sign up for. When I noted this, she said I would have to sign up via the web and she was not authorized to give me that pricing as those are "from a different contractor." I was annoyed. Knowing I wasn't going to get anywhere, I said to the agent (and the recording that I dearly hope was happening for someone to review), "I'm simply trying to get service started and it should not be this difficult. It is not my problem that Time Warner is using a different contractor for the web specials. I go to your web page, I see 'Time Warner'. I call your number and it answers 'Time Warner'. To me, you're all the same and you should be able to help."

Trying a different tact, I figured if I chatting with a live agent via the same website, I might have better luck. I started up the session, chatted with the agent noting the above. I get what amounts to links to the same web page for the specials that I can't sign up for in the first place and a "is there anything else I can help you with?"

At this point I'm ready to call Dish Network. DirectTV. Have my kids do finger-puppet shows for grandma. Anything.

I cooled down and decided to try one last time. I called the general customer service number and got what turned out to be a very nice rep. When she answered the first thing I said was, "Hello, I've been trying for about a hour to give Time Warner money and no one seems interested in taking it. Can you help me?"

I went through all of the drama I experienced above, told her what I wanted, and we got the install scheduled. By then, mom had canceled her existing service by using their phone tree and getting it done easily. Stop for a moment and giggle to yourself that it's easier to get service terminated with them than it is to start it in this case.

The problem I have with all of this is that I needed to find the right person to speak with. At no time in my call or web conversation was I directed to a phone number where someone could take my service request and "make it happen." Maybe I was even lucky to find a great person that was willing to help. I could have just as easily have taken my business elsewhere, but given my options I was going with a company that we already have service with and am generally happy with - past Consumerist posts aside.

I hope someone at Time Warner Cable reads this and empowers their reps to do a little more for a customer that is saying, "here is my money! Take it! Please!"

Customer service reps with no power are the reason for so many of the complaints here at Consumerist. At the same time, I wonder whether this is a common problem for newly constructed houses. Do all new homes miss out on the best Web deals? Or is it just Steve's mother?

Comcast and Time Warner Cable are working to bring this to you, starting with Turner Broadcasting programs. BusinesWeek has the details:

Here's how the trial will work: Starting in July, 5,000 Comcast subscribers will be able to see shows online from Turner Broadcasting's TNT and TBS channels, like The Closer and Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns. But first, they each will have to demonstrate that they're a Comcast cable-TV subscriber through a screening called authentication. That most likely will entail a user name and password. Comcast will offer the shows on Comcast.net and Fancast.com, and Turner on TNT.tv and TBS.com.

Cable companies hope to stop users from giving up cable entirely through evil plans such as cable subscriber authentication and charging for sites like Hulu. Will media companies succeed in breaking younger consumers' belief that content should be free?

Time Warner, Comcast Plan to Wall Off Online TV [BusinessWeek]

(Photo: LAYeiser)

He wrote:

I have been a Time Warner cable and internet customer since 2006. I recently began shopping around for service from your competitors in the area to compare pricing. I went to your site and viewed your current prices and realized that your standard bundle of digital cable and Roadrunner Standard was $10.00 cheaper than what I have been paying for the last two years and this is not a promotional price. This lower price has been in effect since 2007.

I called your customer service number, waited for a CSR for 40 minutes, and explained the issue. My request was simple: Correct the billing to reflect the regular bundled rate, upgrade my internet service to Roadrunner Turbo ($10.00 more) and credit me the overcharges for 1/2 the time it occurred. I am willing to split the difference. In addition, I will remain a customer and add a premium service. I think this is a more than reasonable request. The CSR placedme on hold to ask her supervisor who declined and offered to correct the billing as of today and credit me the previous 3 months in overcharges. The CSR offered to let me speak to the supervisor and Suzanne came on the line. Suzanne's reply to my offer was "This is not Let's Make a Deal".

I found this to be extremely rude. Throughout the course of the phone call, she repeated this statement on two more occasions even after I mentioned to her that it was rude. I am an avid reader of The Consumerist and used the email address your company provided to them for problem resolutions. I have had a nice relationship with your company for the last three years and I want to give you one more chance before I cancel, and do business elsewhere.

Here is my current pricing:

Digital Cable with HDTV Tier: $50.95
Road Runner Standard: $46.95
Additional Tiers: Variety: $5.00
Equipment: HD DVR: $6.50
DVR Service Charge: $10.00
Multi-Product Discount: -$5.00
Total: $114.40

Here is your pricing for this bundle since 2007:

SURF N' VIEW: $82.95
Digital Cable with HDTV Tier (included)
Road Runner Standard (included)
Additional Tiers: Variety: $5.00
Equipment: HD DVR: $6.50
DVR Service Charge: $10.00
Total: $104.45

I request that you credit me for 1/2 of the overcharges since your new pricing took effect. In return, I will remain a loyal customer, upgrade to Roadrunner Turbo and add a premium service. Thank you for your time.

He fired his EECB on a Saturday evening. By Monday morning, the price of his service had been corrected, and he had a $240 credit on his account.

To learn how to launch your own Executive Email Carpet Bomb, read this post.

(Photo: dan taylor)

6. Special Provisions Regarding HSD Service

(ii) I agree that TWC or ISP may change the Maximum Throughput Rate of any tier by amending the price list or Terms of Use. My continued use of the HSD Service following such a change will constitute my acceptance of any new Maximum Throughput Rate. If the level or tier of HSD Service to which I subscribe has a specified limit on the amount of bytes that I can use in a given billing cycle, I also agree that TWC may use technical means, including but not limited to suspending or reducing the speed of my HSD Service, to ensure compliance with these limits, and that TWC or ISP may move me to a higher tier of HSD Service (which may result in higher monthly charges) or impose other charges and fees if my use exceeds these limits.

(iii) I agree that TWC may use Network Management Tools as it determines appropriate and/or that it may use technical means, including but not limited to suspending or reducing the Throughput Rate of my HSD Service, to ensure compliance with its Terms of Use and to ensure that its service operates efficiently. I further agree that TWC and ISP have the right to monitor my bandwidth usage patterns to facilitate the provision of the HSD Service and to ensure my compliance with the Terms of Use and to efficiently manage their networks and their provision of services. TWC or ISP may take such steps as each may determine appropriate in the event my usage of the HSD Service does not comply with the Terms of Use. I acknowledge that HSD Service does not include other services managed by TWC and delivered over TWC's shared infrastructure, including Video Service and Digital Phone Service.

Senator Schumer was previously able to halt Time Warner's ill-conceived expansion of metered broadband in New York with a press conference, but it's clear that nothing short of federal legislation will be able to quash Time Warner's ill-conceived plot.

They're Back: Time Warner Cable Adds Cap ‘n Tier Language to Subscriber Agreements [Stop the Cap!]
(Photo: gb775)

So after much debate, I decided to downgrade my Time Warner cable service to internet only and purchase Apple TV. Turns out, you actually get all kinds of channels free (even some in HD) if you just subscribe to internet. I don't have DVR, but I'll live without. After all, my monthly bill will be going from $145 to $45. not too shabby.

I called to cancel last week, but the CSR told me it wouldn't be effective until I turned the box in. I did so this morning and when I got my receipt, I did notice that the current balance was listed as -$558.85, but I just figured it would fix itself. I logged into the Time Warner payment site and noticed that in the Recent Activity section that there were tons of charges and credits, but in the end, it told me that the amount applied to next bill would be $1271.25. Hmmmm.

So I called, of course, to figure this out. I got a nice guy on the phone that was completely stumped. I was put on hold a couple of times, then finally he comes back and says, "Well, we can't fix it, it's an error on our part. Enjoy." He said they have no idea what happened, but that it was their fault. I told him to please make a note on my account that I question this. After all, I don't want to use the credit, then them fix it and suddenly I owe 6 months of service. I'm going to call back tomorrow, but this seems for real.

Ever hear of this??

The credit is a tease. Don't even think of spending it. One Time Warner customer service representative might be willing to part with money that isn't his, but the company is going to want it back. If you use their services, set aside the full amount so you aren't surprised when they come asking for payment.

Here's what Consumers Union found:

• TWC's revenues from broadband during the first three months of this year rose 11% percent over the first quarter of 2008, climbing from $994 million to $1.1 billion.

• At the same time, TWC's costs to provide broadband service to its customers dropped 18%, from $40 million to $33 million. That dramatic drop in costs came even though its number of subscribers grew from 7.9 million to 8.6 million.

• Overall, TWC's profits were down for the quarter, falling from $242 million to $164 million. But the company says the drop in profits was due mostly to restructuring costs rung up when it was spun off in March from its parent company, Time Warner.

Although consumer outrage forced TWC to shelve their metered broadband plans, it seems unlikely that they've given up. The company still argues that charging by use is more equitable — and that the current pricing structure is unfair to light users. When they shelved the plan, they claimed that they were just taking more time to "educate" consumers.

Consumers Union is having none of it.

If we may, we would like to offer TWC a little bit of advice: Stop trying to put one over on your broadband customers. There's no amount of "consumer education" that can change the fact that TWC is making a whole lot of money selling broadband service — without metered pricing.

Now Hear This Newsletter, April 30, 2009[Hear Us Now]

Austin StoptheCap! reader Ryan Howard kicks off our premiere edition with a report that his Road Runner service was cut off yesterday without warning. According to Ryan, it took four calls to technical support, two visits to the cable store to try two new cable modems (all to no avail), before someone at Time Warner finally told him to call the company's "Security and Abuse" center.

"I called the number and had to leave a voice mail and about an hour later a Time Warner technician called me back and lectured me for using 44 gigabytes in one week," Howard wrote.

Howard was then "educated" about his usage.

"According to her, that is more than most people use in a year," Howard said.

Thanks for the warning, guys.

HissyFitWatch: Cutting Off Customers Who Use "Too Much" in Austin [Stop the Cap] (Thanks to everyone who sent this in!)

(Photo: dragonflyeye)

We can see why they are worried. Wilson's ISP sounds great. It's an all fiber optic network that has 81 basic cable channels, 10 Mbps (download and upload), and a digital phone plan with unlimited long distance to the U.S. and Canada, all for $99.95, says Daily Tech. A comparable TWC package would cost $137.95, for an introductory rate.

Now Wilson's ISP, which calls itself "Greenlight" has started a blog to protest the legislation. Here's an excerpt:

My name is Brian Bowman. I'm the Public Affairs Manager for the City of Wilson, NC, and I'll bet my broadband is faster than yours.

I have a 10Mbps up/down connection at my house. Can't get half that from the cable company. I buy it directly from the City of Wilson. After less than a year of residential service, almost 3,000 Wilson citizens are subscribing to Wilson's fiber optic network. Local businesses can get up to one Gbps. Local homes get up to 100 Mbps. We call it Greenlight.

NC Senate Bill 1004 and House Bill 1252 would change the law to stop cities from providing broadband. The bills say they "Level the Playing Field" but they are designed to protect cable monopolies in our state. The cable company told me Wilson would be exempt, but it's still wrong for NC.

Time Warner and Embarq can't compete with city-owned ISP, trying to outlaw it [Engadget] (Thanks, Alejandro!)
Time Warner, Embarq Fight to Outlaw 100 Mbps Community Broadband in Wilson, NC [DailyTech]
[Save NC Broadband.com]

According to TWC's press release, the dust-up was caused by a "vocal minority" of customers and that the problem is that they just haven't educated everyone.

Here's the official word from TWC's CEO:

We still believe that Road Runner customers who use less should pay less, and that those who use more should pay more. But an important part of any product trial is the dialog a company has with its customers. We want to do everything we can to inform customers of our plans and have a meaningful dialog with them about those plans before we proceed. We have heard from a vocal minority of our customers and have determined that we need to spend more time educating everyone on this new model. We've also heard from you. While we still believe that Consumption Based Billing is the right way to equitably charge our customers, it is clear that we need to first teach customers about how much bandwidth they actually consume.

Meanwhile, others are declaring victory and promising to keep working to prevent the spread of nefarious metered billing...

New York Senator Chuck Schumer announced the decision at a rally in front of Time Warner Cable's local headquarters in Rochester, and Representative Eric Massa said he wouldn't give up his mission to outlaw metered broadband.

"We're delighted that commonsense prevailed," said Rep. Eric Massa. "The people of Western New York spoke and I heard them loud and clear. Together we have won and I am glad that I was able to play a small part in bringing about this change. This is a true grassroots victory, but we will move forward with our legislation to ensure that any future plans to charge customers based on how much they download do not spring up anywhere else."

Time Warner Cable cancels Internet tier pricing plan [Democrat and Chronicle]
Statement from Landel Hobbs, Chief Operating Officer, Time Warner Cable [TWC]

Time Warner Cable (after the usual stuff about "oh no people are using the internet a lot") says:

If we don't act, consumers' Internet experience will suffer. Sitting still is not an option. That's why we're beginning the consumption based billing trials. It's important to stress that they are trials. The feedback we've received from our customers has been very helpful. We've made changes to the terms in our current and upcoming trial markets as follows:

• To accommodate lighter Internet users and those who need a lower priced option, we are introducing a 1 GB per month tier offering speeds of 768 KB/128 KB for $15 per month. Overage charges will be $2 per GB per month. Our usage data show that about 30% of our customers use less than 1 GB per month.

• We are increasing the bandwidth tier sizes included in all existing packages in the trial markets to 10, 20, 40 and 60 GB for Road Runner Lite, Basic, Standard and Turbo packages, respectively. Package prices will remain the same. Overage charges will be $1 per GB per month.

• We will introduce a 100 GB Road Runner Turbo package for $75 per month (offering speeds of 10 MB/1 MB). Overage charges will be $1 per GB per month.

• Overage charges will be capped at $75 per month. That means that for $150 per month customers could have virtually unlimited usage at Turbo speeds.

• Once we implement this trial, we will not immediately start billing customers for overage. Rather, we will first provide two months of usage data. Then we will provide a one-month grace period in which overages will be noted on customers' bills, but they will not be charged. So, customers will have an opportunity to assess their usage and right-size their service packages before usage charges are applied.

• Trials will begin in Rochester, N.Y., and Greensboro, N.C., in August. We will apply what we learn from these two markets when we launch trials in San Antonio and Austin, Texas, in October, but we will guarantee at least the same level of usage capacity in these trials.

• As we launch DOCSIS 3.0 in the trial markets, we plan to offer a 50/5 MB speed tier for $99 per month.

Again, the Internet is dynamic and continually evolves, so our plans will evolve as well and aren't set in stone. We appreciate the feedback we've received. We'll look forward to more dialogue as we progress in these trials. You can send your comments and feedback to us at realideas@twcable.com.

Statement from Landel Hobbs, Chief Operating Officer, Time Warner Cable RE: Consumption based billing trials
4-9-09 [TWC]

Massa says:

"Just at a time when access to information is driving our economic recovery, Time Warner is moving to stagnate the 21st Century technology needed to rebuild America."

"Internet access is as essential to our economy as water is to our survival," said Congressman Eric Massa. "With limited choices in broadband providers, and virtual monopolies in many market areas, I view this as nothing more than a large corporation making a move to force customers into paying more money. I firmly oppose capping internet usage and I will be taking a leadership role in stopping this outrageous, job killing initiative."

The Rochester Democrat And Chronicle says that Massa is drafting legislation that would prevent Time Warner and other ISPs from charging by the gigabyte.

Internet users upset by Time Warner's usage-based pricing plan [Democrat & Chronicle]
Congressman Eric Massa calls on Time Warner to eliminate Broadband Internet Cap [Eric Massa] (Thanks, Kevin!)

It's Ticketmaster VS Time Warner Cable:

This is a post in our Worst Company In America 2009 series. The companies nominated for this honor were chosen by you, the readers, and seeded according to number of nominations. Keep track of all the goings on at consumerist.com/tag/worst-company-in-america. Download the bracket here.

In an email to Consumerist, Jeff Simmermon, Director of Digital Communications for TWC, wrote that the ISP has been experiencing "some pretty extensive and frustrating internet service problems with our customers out in Southern California and in our National divisions. As it turns out, our DNS servers have been hit pretty hard by DDoS attacks."

A full statement is posted here. Here's an excerpt:

These attacks are not uncommon, especially for a network as large as ours. However, this particular series of attacks has been larger and more difficult to contain than similar attacks in the past. We suspect that the attackers are using "zombie computers," or hijacking unsuspecting subscribers' machines to perpetuate the attack without its owner's knowledge.

As of 6PM EST on February 24th, we have amplified and expanded early detection and response to this sort of problem.

Customers who want to prevent their computers from being used in this sort of attack should make sure that their anti-virus and firewall software are up to date.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Please know that we are currently working with the help of law enforcement to bring these attackers to justice.

If you need some anti-virus software, Lifehacker has some recommendations.

No word on whether TWC will offer compensation to those customers who were affected by the attack.

[Official Statement From Time Warner Cable re: Southern California DNS Outages ]

We totally exceeded the number by 3-times the amount. It was hugely successful. But a lot of people used it at peak times, which overloaded the system. For any inconvenience we caused for customers, we do apologize.

"Time Warner Cable apologizes for 1-cent movie mess" [Gadgetress] (Thanks to Brett and Pete!)

Tamara Chuang of the OC Register has been following the non-sale this weekend:

What a mess! For customers trying to take advantage of Time Warner's 1-cent customer appreciation movie deal, the deluge of requests has apparently taken out the system. Readers are complaining that they cannot access the movies, plus other promised movies (mostly HD) are now missing! As of 11 p.m.[on February 14th], only "Hamlet 2" is available in HD.

If you call Time Warner's customer support line, at 1-888-TWCABLE, a recording says that it is aware of the video-on-demand issues and engineers are working on it. After 30 minutes on hold myself, a polite customer service representative offered me two coupons for free movies in the future and explained that HD movies were removed because they weren't coming in clearly (?). She didn't expect issues to be resolved tonight but was told by her supervisor that we should check the lineup at 8 a.m. on Sunday. The missing HD movies should also be added back.

That 8 a.m. deadline is about 10 minutes away. We'll see how Sunday's cheap movie sale works out for TWC customers in SoCal.

"This weekend: Time Warner offers 40 movies for 1-cent each" [Gadgetress at OC Register] (Thanks to Brett!)
"One Cent Movies On Demand" [Time Warner Cable]

RELATED: Reach TWC Office of the President Executive Care Team (Photo: tehusagent)

Rather than doing any actual negotiating, the two companies seem to have been hoping the threat of an angry, alienated customer base would resolve the issue. It hasn't.

Time Warner Cable finally blinked last night, but it didn't help:

Viacom has rejected Time Warner Cable's request for a 15- to 30-day extension on the 12:01 AM January 1st deadline when the cable programmer pulls its 19 channels off the 2nd largest cable system operator. I'm told Viacom and TWC had no contact throughout yesterday until news of the Big Media battle broke. Suddenly, at 8 PM, TWC came to Viacom with an increase offer and the extension request. But Viacom rejected both out of hand. "It was bogus. The low-ball offer was clearly an excuse to ask for an extension and then use that in their press acrtivity today," a Viacom source claimed to me. "After we've been trying to meet with them for several weeks, we won't consider an extension unless they're prepared to really negotiate and come across with a reasonable offer."

So who's to blame? Bloggers at the LA Times choose sides, but we were serious about that Hulu/BitTorrent comment—it's possible that in this economy neither side will come out ahead by shutting the doors on its customers. Notice how both bloggers draw the same "maybe I'll just find another way" conclusion:

Anti-TWC:

Time Warner's dangerous gamble [is] that people can learn to live without what it's selling. I already have, to some extent. When Time Warner pulled Turner Classic Movies from its basic cable lineup—in Hollywood, no less!—and substituted the Golf Channel, I didn't bite and upgrade to premium. I've ended up buying a lot of the black and white classic films I love, and can now watch them on my schedule, not Time Warner's.

Anti-Viacom:

[Viacom is making] the wrong demand at the wrong time. And the big loser here could be Viacom, which needs Time Warner more than Time Warner needs Nickelodeon, MTV, BET and the host of other Viacom cable networks.

You could argue that recessions are good for cable operators—people spend less on entertainment away from home, raising the value of packaged home-entertainment bundles such as cable and satellite. But as the jobless rate climbs, it's hard to imagine Time Warner extracting sizable rate increases from their subscribers in 2009. More important, as Patt notes, Viacom puts its shows online, free of charge. So while it's asking Time Warner for more money for its channels, it's flooding the market with a cheaper version of the same product.

"Blackout looms in Time Warner, Viacom standoff" [Reuters]
"Unhappy New Year!" [Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily]
(Photo: Getty)

tinyrobot says:

I took your advice, and called Time Warner Cable during my lunchbreak today to see if anything could be done about my bill. I have the standard cable modem (not "lite"/low speed) service, and Digital TV standard package with an HD DVR, all coming out to about $121 per month.

I called up, spoke to a friendly CSR after navigating to the "Downgrade my service" option in the phone tree, and explained that I was thinking about canceling my TV service, since there's a recession on and I got an e-mail offer from DirecTV that advertised comparable service for $30 per month. As soon as I mentioned the last part, the rep put me on hold (a good sign, I've learned) and came back with a tasty offer: 25% off my current package total for the next 13 months. That brought service (taxes included) down to $90 per month without a contract or any other obligation, or change/downgrade in services. The whole thing took about 4 minutes.

Perhaps I could have haggled for more, but this brought the whole bill for ~10mbps internet and a gazillion channels with HD DVR back to where it seems reasonable again, so I was happy.

Thanks for the urging - worked for me!

Hooray! If your cable bill has gone up recently, and you'd like to save some money — read this post.

(Photo: meghannmarco )

The tipster writes:

Every three months, I call Time Warner Cable in New York City and complain about the service, and they give me free HBO for six months, or something like that. My cousin, who worked in the IT department at Time Warner, told me that the "complaint" list resets every three months, so after that, they don't know that you complained. Four phone calls a year can give you all sorts of premium channels and the like.

Our Time Warner internet connection dies more frequently than Kenny, and free premium channels are our favorite way to mourn. Here's how we do it:

• The internet dies. Again.
• We call Time Warner.
• Time Warner checks for outages in our area. There are none. Ever.
• Time Warner expresses befuddlement over the problem.
• Time Warner tells us to power cycle the modem. This does nothing. Ever.
• Time Warner offers its only solution: dispatch a tech to replace the modem. Again.
• We explain this happens regularly, and ask for free premium channels.
• Time Warner laughs and explains that they don't offer free premium channels.
• We promise that they do, and ask them to consult our scroll-length list of outages before checking with a supervisor.
• We sit on hold for 15 minutes.
• Time Warner gives us the free premium channels.

(Photo: Meghann Marco)

KXAN's website has a lobbying section that compares TWC broadcasting their network for free to someone bottling water from a drinking fountain and selling it.

KXAN says:

Here is a basic analogy: If you were to get a drink of water at a public drinking fountain, it is free, but once the water is placed in a package, it is no longer free. The same holds true for local television programming delivered through a subscription-based provider.
...
Time Warner Cable pays cable networks, such as ESPN, TNT, Disney, Lifetime, Nickelodeon, and the list goes on and on. Cable companies often say that local broadcasters have “unreasonable demands” and they are trying to “protect their subscribers from increasing their rates”. If that were true, why are they paying cable networks that have far less viewership than KXAN-TV?

We do not believe that a penny a per day per subscriber is an unreasonable demand for our award-winning news, sports and entertainment programming. It is actually much less than what cable companies compensate many of its cable networks, most of which do not have the high viewing of your local NBC station.

The station also says that they've reached agreements with every other provider — including DISH network, DirecTV, and AT&T.

Time Warner Cable, on the other hand, claims that KXAN is damaging its reputation as a news outlet by "conveying one sided, misleading information to the public." And has set up its own "Anti-KXAN" website.

Time Warner Says:

KXAN is demanding money from our customers to pay for a signal that has been and is free. That's right. They get it free from the Federal Government, but they want you to pay. We don't want that to happen just so KXAN can add to their revenue base.

KXAN is trying to subsidize their business by charging cable customers money. By doing so, they not only add to their revenue base, but take advantage of their viewers by charging for a signal that is FREE.

This may sound familiar to some of you, as the same struggle is going on all over the country, where other stations owned by KXAN's parent company, LIN TV, will also be dropped from TWC on October 2nd if a deal isn't reached.

There are 15 LIN TV-owned stations carried by Time Warner: Austin, Texas; Buffalo, N.Y.; Columbus, Ohio; Dayton, Ohio; Fort Wayne, Ind.; Green Bay, Wis.; Indianapolis; Mobile, Ala.; Springfield, Mass.; Terre Haute, Ind. and Toledo, Ohio.

So what's a consumer to do? Well, you can wait it out and hope that the stations reach a deal with TWC, buy a good antenna, or you can make plans to switch. LIN-TV is encouraging TWC's customers to switch to DISH Network — and also told Multichannel News that customers in the Buffalo area and the Fort Wayne market can switch to FiOS.

If you're in Austin, Buffalo, Columbus, Dayton, Fort Wayne, Green Bay, Indianapolis, Mobile, Terre Haute and Toledo markets you can receive a $50 incentive to switch to DISH.

Retrans Standoff Could Keep LIN TV Stations Off TWC Systems [Multichannel News] (Thanks, Clint!)

"I ran out of the house with my baby in my arms," said Joshua's mom, Evelyn Rodriguez, 27, of Woodside. "I had to make it to the hospital."

Audain, a Time Warner Cable repairman, was on the sidewalk heading to his company van Aug. 28 when he heard Rodriguez screaming for help.

"My brain wasn't registering what was happening at the time," Audain, 27, said Saturday. "There was a child involved. I had no time to think."

[Daily News](Thanks, Michael!)

From JS Online:

The agreement came only days before the start of the Big Ten football season. The Big Ten Network has the broadcast rights to this Saturday’s game between the University of Wisconsin and the University of Akron at Camp Randall.

If not for the agreement-in-principle, the game would not have been made available to Time Warner customers.

As recently as Friday, Mark Silverman, the president of the Big Ten Network, said he was pessimistic that a deal could be reached in time for the start of the football season.

For months, the cable giant and the network differed on the merits of a channel devoted to Big Ten sports. The network argued that, particularly in the Big Ten states, there was a demand for Big Ten programming. Time Warner argued that such a channel belonged on a special sports tier, in which customers who wanted Big Ten athletic events to watch should have to pay extra to see them.

With Time Warner now in the Big Ten Network fold, that leaves Charter Communications, which has extensive cable operations in Wisconsin, including Madison, without a deal with the Big Ten Network.

A Charter Communications spokesman could not be reached for comment.

The network, which went on the air last August, has national agreements with Comcast, DirecTV, Dish Network, AT&T U-Verse, Verizon FiOS and more than 230 smaller cable operators.

We expect a lot of distraught Charter customers to email in the coming days, but it's still good news for Big Ten fans.

Time Warner adding Big Ten Network [JS Online]

(AP Photo/ Morry Gash)

I'm the director of digital communications at Time Warner Cable, and I'd like to bring some clarity to this discussion. We're happy to to take our lumps when we've earned them, but it doesn't seem to be the case in this instance.

Take a look at some of the traceroutes posted to the thread in question ... starting here, at comment #446: http://tinyurl.com/5gqe27

If you follow the commenter's posted trace results, you'll notice that it's only on TWC's Roadrunner (rr) network for the first 6 hops — with maximum response times of 10 ms. The response time jumps drastically at hop # 11 — when the trace is no longer on the Roadrunner network.

Scroll down further on the same page to comment #456, and you'll see something similar — a giant leap in lag times. However, this trace never touches our network. It starts at Verizon, goes to Alter.net at hop #5, and then jumps to ATT.net's network at hop #8. Hop #9 shows a response time of 114 ms — quite a jump from the 49ms at hop #8.

On the first page of the thread, you'll see something similar: http://tinyurl.com/3hfs9k

At comment #10, the lag time leaps from 18ms on our network at hop #6 to 150ms at hop #7 — on Level3, an Internet backbone.

At comment #18 (same page), the trace again never touches our network. The lag jumps from 15 ms at hop #3 to 261 ms at hop #4, while on the Verizon network. The hops vacillate between high and low response times throughout the trace.

Blizzard's comment at the top of the thread that "Unfortunately this means that the only commonality between all the players experiencing these disconnects and extreme latency is Time Warner/Road Runner" is a pretty interesting choice of words, in light of the fact that several of the troublesome traceroutes posted in the forum itself never touch our network.

Jeff Simmermon
Director, Digital Communications
Time Warner Cable

So, is Blizzard just trying to pass the buck to the best available scapegoat? If both companies aren't responsible for the lags and disconnects, whos is? Does anyone know how this crazy Internet works?

(Photo: ashley_dryden)

“Time Warner’s improper tying and bundling harms competition,” Meeds’ lawsuit states. “Since the class can only rent the cable box directly from Time Warner, manufacturers of cable boxes are foreclosed from renting and/or selling cable boxes directly to members of the class at a lower cost.”

Meeds told the Kansas City Star,

“I think that for most people, if they could buy the box, they would. That definitely makes more sense.”

Meeds' attorney says that the situation is similar to the days when AT&T forced customers to rent telephones, before lawsuits helped break open the market:

“I think it’s very similar to the cases brought back in those days, where slowly but surely, the courts whittled away at that kind of protectionist activity by AT&T,” he said.

“I think the same thing is present here. You have a lot of companies out there manufacturing these boxes, and there’s nothing necessarily proprietary about them. … They only cost about $30 or $40 at most, and they’re charging around $15 a month for them.”

"Fairway man sues Time Warner over cable box rental requirement" [Kansas City Star]

We don't play World of Warcraft, but if we did, it looks like we'd have to cancel Time Warner Cable and install FIOS in order to guarantee a connection to Blizzard's servers. That's what some East Coast WoW players are saying—they've been suffering disconnections and game-killing lags for months now, and Time Warner Cable seems unable to solve the problem. They swear they're not doing anything to disrupt or throttle gamers, and say that "customers who are having problems on the local level should contact customer service." Based on the 24-page thread on Blizzard's forums, TWC's customer service has yet to resolve the issue.

One Wow player wrote,

Everyone here is extremely frustrated because we want to play but can't get a connection to do so. Blizzard does what they can to help but the problem is the path to the servers not the servers themselves so we are sent to TWC. I'm sure everyone that has called has been asked to check thier connection, their router, their modem and their underwear color. The "techs" are outsourced and don't listen or don't understand English very well. How many of you have told the "tech" that you have tried their suggestions 100 times only to have them send you to http://speedtest.nyc.rr.com/ and say "See .. no problem with your connection"?

Maybe you should unplug your router for a few moments to reset it. LOOKIT ME I'M A TIME WARNER CABLE CSR.

Update: An alleged Time Warner Cable employee wrote to us this morning:

Without going into detail, I am an employee of Time Warner Cable. At this time, we are not aware of any issues with this. If possible, please urge anyone having this issue to contact us immediately using an online form. If we have account information, we can investigate the issue, but we do not block packets/servers/etc. that should be causing the issue. If anything, a recent system upgrade should be delivering faster speeds. Please, if possible, direct those with the issue here:

http://www.timewarnercable.com/nynj/customer/contactus/

"TWC Blamed for Internet Interference" [New York Post]
(Photo: thms.nl)

Stacey crunched the numbers yesterday and came up with an interesting conclusion: If you bought the monthly 15 mbps/40 GB transfer option for about $56 a month, you’d get about 40 hours of standard definition video along with enough bandwidth for your normal browsing and surfing habits. That’s just over 75 minutes of SD Internet video every day - two or three shows at best - which means you might need to continue buying the “video connection” in order to watch more television. Sure you can slice and dice the data transfers with other online activities, but this is all about video.

How close are you to ditching cable and watching all your shows online or through a "Netflix box?" Are you already there? Is cable the new "land line?"

Why Tiered Broadband Is the Enemy of Innovation [GigaOm](Thanks, Henry!)

The 25-page lawsuit, a copy of which was reviewed by The Times, claims the company violated its franchise agreement with the city by having subscribers spend hours on hold with customer service representatives and allowing excessive repair work delays.

"Hundreds of thousands of Los Angeles residents were ripped off," Delgadillo said in a statement. "Time Warner must be held accountable for its promises."

The lawsuit cites several examples of how Time Warner Cable mislead customers or failed to live up to agreements made when it became the main cable provider for Los Angeles two years ago, including:

• their advertising gave a false impression that prices would remain the same
• they failed to answer 90% of customer service calls within 30 seconds, which is a requriement of their franchise cable agreement
• their technicians failed to show up on time or complete repairs promptly

The paper says Time Warner Cable could face "civil penalties of tens of millions of dollars." We can't wait to see what Time Warner Cable says about this.

"L.A. to sue Time Warner Cable over poor service" [Los Angeles Times]
(Photo: Getty)

5% of TWC's users take up half of the ISP's capacity, says Kevin Leddy, Time Warner Cable's executive vice president of advanced technology.

"We think it's the fairest way to finance the needed investment in the infrastructure," Leddy said.

Most ISPs already have "download caps" on their so-called unlimited use accounts, but the caps are kept secret.

From Yahoo!:

Time Warner Cable had said in January that it was planning to conduct the trial in Beaumont, but did not give any details. On Monday, Leddy said its tiers will range from $29.95 a month for relatively slow service at 768 kilobits per second and a 5-gigabyte monthly cap to $54.90 per month for fast downloads at 15 megabits per second and a 40-gigabyte cap. Those prices cover the Internet portion of subscription bundles that include video or phone services. Both downloads and uploads will count toward the monthly cap.

A possible stumbling block for Time Warner Cable is that customers have had little reason so far to pay attention to how much they download from the Internet, or know much traffic makes up a gigabyte. That uncertainty could scare off new subscribers.

Those who mainly do Web surfing or e-mail have little reason to pay attention to the traffic caps: a gigabyte is about 3,000 Web pages, or 15,000 e-mails without attachments. But those who download movies or TV shows will want to pay attention. A standard-definition movie can take up 1.5 gigabytes, and a high-definition movie can be 6 to 8 gigabytes.

Time Warner Cable subscribers will be able to check out their data consumption on a "gas gauge" on the company's Web page.

The company won't apply the gigabyte surcharges for the first two months. It has 90,000 customers in the trial area, but only new subscribers will be part of the trial.

We can't help but think this is going to put a damper on services such as the new Netflix box, or Apple's iTunes. It may have some pricey implications for deaf cable customers as well, as they tend to use internet video to communicate.

Then again, it does seem more honest than Comcast's current policy of shutting down users who exceed an undisclosed monthly cap.

What do you think? Will this fly?

Time Warner Cable tries metering Internet use [Yahoo!]
(Photo: meghannmarco )

David writes:

I'm writing this as I sit waiting for the next level of service. It's been 3 hours and 10 minutes and my 5th Time Warner phone call of the day. A little background first... I recently got commercial class internet so I could fix my bandwidth problem. My wife had already called a couple times to tell them that her name had changed when we got married. I told them that when we linked accounts I wanted her name to be changed because it never took. Instead of doing this, they changed the name of my company to "Christi [redacted] Company."

We got new commercial internet and it was a little faster, but not what I expected. The tests ran fine showing it was fast internet, but there was a lag. Running a traceroute clearly shows this. It just hangs while waiting for road runner nodes to respond. It does this randomly all the time and this makes pages load slow. This is what the engineer said would be gone after 7 months of Time Warner managers coming out to my house and finally bringing him out to talk to me.

Yesterday my service was going in and out because of a problem in the area. I called and they gave me a credit for one day of internet service. It completely screwed up my day of work. I had an unusual balance, but I figured my wife had forgotten to pay the bill. No big deal. I asked them if this would be an issue. She was at work and had the credit card. I obviously had no internet, so I couldn't log in to our account and pay it as usual. They said that wouldn't be a problem and that I could call or log in tomorrow.

Today started with the cable and internet not working. I called the residential number and went ahead and payed the bill with a credit card since the internet wasn't working. The billing department said there was no record of a disconnect and it must be a technical problem. I asked if they could at least check the cable because it was residential. They said it was all commercial and I would have to call them. When I talked to commercial tech support, they said my account was a soft disconnect. I told them that billing said it was not disconnected. Commercial tech support told me I would have to call billing back.

When I told them that I just got off the phone with billing and that they had told me to call commercial tech support, they put me on hold. 15 minutes later they came back and told me everything was ok. Everything had been reconnected and should be working now. I reset everything and nothing was working. She didn't know why the internet wasn't working and stated working on it. She couldn't access the cable boxes for some reason. She had me read the MAC address off of one to try and get to it. That didn't work either. She told me I would have to call residential back about the cable boxes. I told her that earlier in the morning they stated that they couldn't do it because it was all commercial. She said she would work on my internet and give the box time to reset. She would call me back later.

On to the cable problem. I called residential back and they couldn't find my cable account. This is when things started to make sense. I gave her my wife's number and it came right up. It said that it shouldn't be disconnected and everything should be working. But the boxes in the house still were not working. We figured out that there were still two accounts. The one in my wife's name that she payed online, and the one in my name that we thought was linked to the commercial account. It turned out that all the payments we had made on her online account didn't apply to the new commercial internet. We had been getting double billed. All the new commercial internet bills were going unpaid and were therefore soft disconnected. But since there was no internet, the bill I paid this morning paid all of the commercial internet balance since I had called in under my name. She helped me figure everything out and was going to get a technician out here. I asked her if they would came same day, since one of the promises of the commercial internet is that if its down, they'll fix it the same day.

She wasn't sure since the cable was residential. When our 45 minutes of digging through problems was over I asked her why they were both disconnected since only the commercial internet was behind on payments. She wasn't sure. She was going to connect me to someone to link the accounts. She connected me after about 10 minutes on hold. She took time to explain the situation to him. The guy asked for my account number. I asked him which one. I told him that was the problem. I gave him the residential account number. Then he asked for my pin. What do you mean? He said there was a pin number on my wife's account. I had talked to people already about the account. Why would I need it now? He said there was nothing he could do until I gave him a pin. So I asked him to transfer me back to the woman I had been talking to. He told me that he couldn't because she was in the commercial department. I told him that she wasn't. She was in residential and I needed to reconnect to her because she had figured everything out already. I was put on hold for 15 minutes. After that I heard a ring and Jason Rutlage's voicemail picked up. Who is that? Now what? All I could do was hang up.

I called back and had to explain to someone that I had to find the lady from earlier. All he could see was that I talked to some guy. At that point, the internet lady called back. I put him on hold and clicked over. I explained that we have no idea what's going on. Both services are paid and should be working, but they're not. She said someone could come out tomorrow. But they promised me that someone would come day of if there were any problems. She said she would see what she could do and call me back. I clicked back over and gave the guy my wife's phone number. He looked at the notes to find the woman I was looking for. After 10 minutes on hold I heard some clicks. A bunch of noise started coming out of the phone. I kept saying hello for about 20 seconds and a woman answered... "Thank you for choosing Time Warner. How can I help you today?"

AAAAHHHHH! I was speechless and had no idea what to do next. I briefly explained that I needed to find this woman and I told her what was going on. I gave her my wife's number and she asked for a pin. I don't know it, that's the problem. I explained that there were two accounts. She told me that I needed to disconnect one of them. NO! Don't do that. That's the last thing I want. I want the services working for one, and then I want the extra money back that I paid. She told me to call the commercial department back. I hung up and called them.

Commercial told me that a technician is scheduled to come out between 3 and 5. They can't do anything else. Now I have to call residential back. At this point I noticed that the internet sync light was on. I have internet, but no cable, and the season finale of Lost is on tonight. I got a knock at the door. It was the commercial internet guy. He had just hooked it up outside. It turned out that it was a hard disconnect on both. The internet and cable was physically disconnected. But he couldn't turn on the residential cable because he was a commercial internet guy and he would get in trouble. He called and verified that I still had residential internet service and was being double billed. He said that he's the only one that does commercial disconnects and he didn't disconnect me. He called residential services and they said the account was in good standing and there were no disconnects, so he went downstairs and connected it for me. Apparently someone came to disconnect someone else and pulled my cable instead. The neighbors were moving. It might be them. Now everything worked, but I was still being double billed.

When I called Time Warner to remove the double billing, it had been 4 hours at this point, she kept asking me why I "feel" like I'm being double billed. Again, she asked why I "felt" like I was being double billed. I began to read this whole thing to her in order to get her to understand. I had been writing all day as it unfolded and I sat on hold. She finally stopped me and decided to work with me. I asked her why anything was disconnected at all. She said it WAS supposed to be disconnected. I replied, "Soft disconnected, not physically, and not cable TV." So she issued me a credit for internet and video for one day. Total credit... $8. Money I lost by not working on what I was supposed to be working on... $400. Not to mention that I lost 6 hours of my life over this. Now I've been on hold for the last hour to remove the old residential internet from my account. In that time I've proof read and finished writing this. This started at noon. It's now 6:15pm. As of now, nobody can tell me why anything was ever physically disconnected.

—Dave

Dave, you've been more than patient with TWC. If you'd like to try speeding your complaint to the top of the pile, here's some contact information for you.

(Photo: meghannmarco )

Time Warner Cable:

"My hate for TimeWarner burns with the energy of a trillion gas giant suns."

"I have almost no choice but Time Warner, and they fuck me over at every opportunity. Their CS is a huge pain in the ass, too. You can call them up about a busted cable box, wait on hold for 45 minutes, and get a call center person who instructs you through 5 different ways of resetting your box."

"I have to go with Time Warner—they wouldn't let my mother take my father's name off of our cable bill They inexpicably cut off service whenever they feel like it. If we need help over the phone we're redirected to people that don't even live in the city that we have service in. I'm happy that we have DirecTV instead of Time Warner now—DirecTV is truly a lesser evil than Time Warner. That and stores like Bath and Body Works ask for your address for no reason like Radio Shack but they didn't make the Worst Company in America cut."

"Um, I had like 5 different (cracked out) Time Warner "employees" come door to door in during dinner hours and ask me if I wanted to "upgrade" from FiOS to Roadrunner."

"TWC is the most obnoxious company I have ever dealt with in my life.

Even better, they know it's either not have cable, or deal with their shit. So they win. "

"Time warner installed my cable and internet a couple months back. Afterwards, the internet wouldn't work. For over a week they kept asking me to try all sorts of stupid things trying to figure out why it wasn't working. I had just moved and had Time Warner at old place and internet worked fine, but somehow they still insisted the problem was somehow my fault. Well finally after much hassle I basically got a "oops, we forgot to turn it on." Thanks Time Warner, for the week of no service and blaming your stupidity on me."

"Time Warner won't answer the damn phone!!!"

American Airlines:

"Kinda disgusted that they were able to fly putting lives at risk."

"AA constantly tries to route me through Dallas, despite my origination point or intended destination
DISAPPROVE"

"You might as well as "which business model is more doomed — renting movies from a store, or the hub & spoke airline system?""

"AA is a microcosm of the entire Airline Industry. Maybe if we let foreign airlines operate domestic flights, the healthy competition would alleviate these problems."

"Last time I flew on an AA flight they forgot to put a single bag on the plane. I know the blame probably lies between AA and the airport (who hires all baggage handlers). But seriously, how do you leave without having a single checked bag on board? Then they had a very sketchy dude deliver the bag at 1am to my girlfriend's parent's house after knocking on every door to the block because the douche couldn't read the address numbers on the mailbox. Fail."

"AA is worse because they can trap you on an aircraft for hours on end, or in an airport in a strange city where you know no one and are hungry, tired and filthy. They can ruin your honeymoon or your family's long-awaited, long-saved-for trip to (God forbid) Disneyland or that booze cruise."

"Flying American Airlines is hell. My mother hates flying with them because of them constantly overbooking flights(yes, all airlines do it, but my mom was pissed bc my uncle had to drive 3 hours each way to/from the airport for 2 days even though she was early to check-in. My uncle lives abroad and it's very expensive for gas there and for him to take off work to drive my mom to the airport). And this was before flyers' rights to hotel, etc were being promoted so much."

"The problem with American Airlines is NOT with the recall of the planes... that is a condition of a much larger issue. Lets take a look at how many of the employees who took a pay cut for the COMPANY after 9/11 have gotten their pay and benefits back. The mechanics are now in negotiations with the union and the head company and since AA has taken a first quarter loss, due in fact to the planes being taken out of service AA now once again has the upper hand in the negotiations. Is it a coincidence? NO! Look at how much money the management gets for bonuses. It is an insane way to run a company- screw the guys who are actually making it all work and greedy corp america gets paid. And by the way- mechanics do not get to make decisions on what they begin to repair. They could not have changed those wore bundles without first getting direction from the Corp office. They go by a manual. Feeling better about flying with America's Largeest Airline? Greedy Corp America spells bad conditions for you and me."

STILL OPEN FOR VOTING: Home Depot vs Wellpoint, Wal-Mart vs Citibank, Capital One vs ATT, Sallie Mae vs eBay/Paypal, TransUnion vs Diebold, Best Buy vs CompUSA, DeBeers vs Verizon, Exxon vs United Airlines, Sony vs Ticketmaster, Comcast vs The American Arbitration Association

"philippe23" writes:

I want to get off Directv. Time Warner is the local cable company, so I called them and asked if we could get service.

They said that our address wasn't in their system (the house is only about 3 or 4 years old and has always been serviced by Directv) and they'd have to do a survey and get back to us in a few days. After a few days, they called to say that our house was not serviceable.

That was about a year and a half ago. About every six months I'd call up after getting sick of my Directv signal going out when it would snow or rain and ask again if I could get service from Time Warner — the answer always being "no.

Until last week. Last week they called back and left me a message saying I could get service as long as I paid for the build-out. The build-out would cost $10,860 of which Time Warner would cover $1,800, leaving my portion of the costs at $9,060.

Now, if I lived back on a private road and was asking them to lay cable back for a few miles, I could understand this, but I live on a State Route and my house is all of 70 feet from the road. Furthermore, I've seen TW trucks parked just down the street, less than a 1/4 mile.

(Photo: Getty)

Verizon spokesman Eric Rabe told Dow Jones: "The ad is the one in which they have their snarly looking homeowner and Time Warner customer responding to the overly eager Verizon salesman." Verizon has asked TWC to take the ad down, but the cable company refused and is standing by it.

"We feel the suit is without merit and we look forward to defending against it in the appropriate venue," said spokesman Alex Dudley.

The ad in question pokes fun at FiOS's NYC availability issues, such as the company's lack of a video franchise agreement with the city, says Dow Jones.

UPDATE: Verizon Sues Time Warner Cable Over Its TV Ads [CNNMoney] (Thanks, Josh!)