Comcast, Time Warner Cable Spend Big To 'Honor' FCC Commissioner Overseeing Their Merger Review

from the soft-corruption dept

We've written in the past about the idea of "soft corruption," in which the direct exchange of money isn't necessarily obvious, but the very clear appearance of conflicts of interest certainly erode the trust of the public in the policy makers. Even when everything is technically above-board, these actions attack the credibility of the policy process. Witness the latest example. Comcast and Time Warner Cable are each shelling out significant cash to "sponsor" an event which is honoring FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn who, of course, is in the midst of a review over the merger proposal between the two companies. As Politico reports:

Comcast will pay $110,000 to be a top-level “presenting sponsor” at the Walter Kaitz Foundation’s annual dinner in September, at which Clyburn is receiving the “diversity advocate” award, according to a foundation spokeswoman. Time Warner Cable paid $22,000 in May to the foundation for the same event, according to a Senate lobbying disclosure filed at the end of last month. The foundation supports diversity in the cable industry.

Diversity is a good thing and we're all for it. It's also great that Comcast and TWC want to "support" diversity. But the questionable optics here are quite troubling -- even if it's technically legal:

There are no rules preventing businesses from helping to honor regulators in this way, and both companies say they have supported the foundation for years.

Comcast further claims that it's "insulting" to suggest that its donation here has anything to do with Clyburn being honored at the event. And, indeed, Comcast has sponsored similar events from the same group, giving similar amounts -- all while past honorees tended to be industry insiders, rather than public sector officials. So it's doubtful that this is any sort of direct tit-for-tat type payment. But, again, that's part of what's so troubling about the nature of "soft corruption." There's still a pretty clear conflict of interest in the entire setup which -- whether true or not -- creates the perception that people in the public sector are in debt to the very companies they're supposed to be regulating.

Filed Under: awards, conflict of interest, fcc, merger, mignon clyburn, soft corruption, sponsorship
Companies: comcast, time warner cable

Emails Show Cozy Relationship Between Comcast Execs And DOJ Antitrust Folks; Party Invitation Blocked By 'Rules Folks'

from the darn-rules-folks dept

A new FOIA discovery via Todd Feathers at MuckRock has turned up some emails showing a rather cozy relationship between top Comcast execs and Justice Department antitrust officials. In fact, just days before Comcast announced its intent to acquire Time Warner Cable, Comcast Senior VP of Regulatory and Legislative Affairs, Kathryn Zachem, had invited Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Renata Hesse, to "attend a celebration of the opening ceremony" of the Sochi Olympics, care of Comcast NBC Universal. Hesse sent an email saying that she really wanted to attend but "the rules folks over here tell me I can't do this." Though, she still says that they need to get dinner sometime soon. When Zachem responds that she had hoped it would still be okay because "we have nothing formally before you all," Hesse notes "our ethics rules are very restrictive." Two weeks later, Zachem was again emailing Hesse to give her "a heads up on an announcement we are making in the early AM." It was, of course, the proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable. A couple days later, there's another email exchange between Zachem and Hesse, in which Hesse introduces Zachem to David Gelfand at the Justice Department who "will be working on this for the front office with me." She notes "If you don't know him, you will and I know you will like him. He's just terrific." Zachem replies: "Hello David - if Renata says I will like you then I already do!" Gelfand jokingly replies:

In the interest of full disclosure, Renata sent her nice email while still under the influence of my having just bought her a cup of coffee. But hopefully I can live up to the advance billing!

Just the kind of chummy, friendly relationship you want to see from the people tasked with determining whether or not your multi-billion merger should be allowed to go through. And, yes, I recognize that regulators and top execs in charge of regulatory affairs are going to have personal connections and relationships with each other. That happens. But given the situation and the timing, this certainly raises the usual questions of just how objective the DOJ's review of the merger will be.

Filed Under: doj, kathryn zachem, regulations, renata hesse, revolving door
Companies: comcast, time warner cable

More Than Half Of All People Want To Ditch Their Cable Provider, If Only They Could

from the what-competition? dept

Back in April, we noted that in a filing with the FCC, Comcast insisted that it had been voted one of the world's "most admired companies" as it sought to hit back at the idea that it was where innovation went to die (and that would get worse if it was allowed to merge with Time Warner). Of course, we pointed out that Comcast did what Comcast did best and was being quite misleading about it. The Fortune list of "most admired companies" does include Comcast... but only in the "cable and satellite providers" category, which only has four companies. And, more importantly, Comcast couldn't crack the top 50 in the full list of the companies that are actually the most admired.

And, of course, Comcast recently won Consumerist's World's Worst Company award. And, just a few weeks ago, the famed American Customer Satisfaction Index announced that Comcast and Time Warner Cable have the two lowest customer satisfaction ratings of any ISP in the US -- and had scores so low that they were basically the most hated companies in America across any industry. Yes, people hate Comcast and Time Warner more than, say, banks, insurance companies or airlines.

And, just to pile on, a new survey has found that more than half of all cable subscribers would leave their current provider if they felt there was a legitimate alternative out there -- though 70% felt that they had no real competition to go to. 72% noted that as these companies became larger, they made things worse, not better, for consumers. And, 73% felt that cable companies were "predatory" in their practices in taking advantage of consumers. Not surprisingly, the report found that Comcast and Time Warner Cable customers were the most likely to be interested in cutting the cord and ditching their cable service altogether.

So, uh, yeah: for all of Comcast insisting how great its merger will be with Time Warner Cable, if allowed, it would appear that pretty much everyone else recognizes that these are two giant companies who have specialized in abusing their market power to not just limit competition, but to then offer consumers terrible, terrible service.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, customer satisfaction, customers
Companies: comcast, time warner cable

John Oliver: Stop Calling It Net Neutrality; It's 'Preventing Cable Company F**kery'

from the a-bit-more-on-target dept

In last night's John Oliver show (technically "Last Week Tonight"), his "top story" was all about net neutrality. This is both surprising (because the issue has received little mainstream attention) and awesome, because it needs much more mainstream attention. Not surprisingly, it's both insightful and hilariously funny. He mocks how the FCC has made the issue sound incredibly boring. He mocks telco industry lawyers claiming it's "not about fast lanes and slow lanes" but "fast lanes and hyperspeed lines." Oliver summarized that quote simply as "bullshit." He shows this graphic of Netflix's speed on Comcast before and after it agreed to pay up, and directly compares it to a mafia shakedown. He highlights how the broadband companies (though he unfortunately lumps telco companies in as "cable companies") have basically bought off Washington DC, amusingly comparing an FCC run by a former lobbyist regulating the cable industry to an Australian couple hiring a dingo to babysit.

And, finally, he has an amusing call to action for "internet commenters" who he suggests have been training their whole lives for this moment, when the FCC has asked people for comments on its proposal. It's just too bad he pointed them directly at the confusing FCC.gov site, rather than the EFF's much better interface at DearFCC.org.

Either way, it's great to see Oliver take on this issue in an amusing way -- and hopefully it will spur more people to speak up on the issue.

Filed Under: broadband, cable companies, fast lanes, john oliver, lobbying, net neutrality, open internet, politics
Companies: at&t, comcast, time warner cable, verizon

Congressional Reps Signing Sympathy-For-The-Cable-Industry Letter Received More Than Twice As Much Funding From Cable Lobbyists

from the the-original-'pay-for-play' dept

As the ongoing net neutrality/internet fast lane issue continues to be debated by the FCC and many other interested parties, it's always helpful to know where your representatives stand on issues related to this battle.

One of the issues being considered by the FCC is the reclassification of internet service as a public utility under Title II. This sort of regulation is obviously opposed by major internet service providers, who aren't exactly smitten with the idea of being held accountable on price or service quality by a government agency.

Maplight.org has researched the political contributions flowing to the 28 Congressional representatives who signed letters opposing this particular part of the FCC's proposed rule changes and found that -- surprise! -- cable companies put far more money into the pockets of those who side with them on this issue.

The 28 representatives signing letters to the FCC against Title II reclassification of the internet as a public utility, a position allied with the cable industry, have received, on average, $26,832 from the cable industry, 2.3 times more money than the average for all members of the House of Representatives, $11,651.

Republicans seem to be asking for more in return for sympathetic letter-writing.

Republicans signing the letters against Title II reclassification of the internet as a public utility have received, on average, $59,812 from the cable industry, 5 times more than the average for all members of the House, $11,651.

In fact, Maplight notes that the top five recipients among letter signers are all Republicans. Evidence indicates that the spendthrift lobbyist may be better off contributing to Democrats.

Democrats signing the letters against Title II reclassification of the internet as a public utility have received, on average, $13,640 from the cable industry, 1.2 times more times more than the average for all members of the House, $11,651.

Maplight also points out that there's an additional layer of self-interest at play as well. According to its research, 29 members of Congress own stock in Comcast, making it the 25th most popular stock in the Congressional market.

The letter warns that this additional regulation will "stifle innovation" and "halt job creation." Comcast's FCC filing is even more succinct in transparent self-interest:

Title II would spark massive instability, create investor and marketplace uncertainty, derail planned investments, and slow broadband adoption.

I'd love to hear more about Comcast's "planned investments" that don't include funneling funds into politician's pockets or swallowing another large cable company, but the filing contains none of these insights. Like the infamous "fiber-to-the-press-release" announcements, any claim of "instability" or curbed "investments" tends to be nothing but enraged puffs of hot air.The company's true aim still seems to be figuring out how it can make more while doing less.

Filed Under: cable, congress, lobbying, merger
Companies: comcast, time warner cable

Comcast Says It's Going To Slap All Of Its Customers With Data Caps, Makes Half-Hearted Attempt To Walk Back Earlier Statements When Backlash Kicks In

from the what-are-you-going-to-do?-go-without?-HAHAHAHAHA dept

Comcast, perhaps feeling a bit too confident about its chances to swallow up Time Warner Cable, is talking about rolling out data caps to all of its subscribers. It had, up to this point, only "offered" it in certain areas on a "trial basis." Customers hated it, of course, but that's not really what Comcast was gauging with its trials. It was only interested in seeing a) how profitable it was and b) whether that profit would offset losses caused by the few customers lucky enough to have options.

With a merger on the line, Cohen chose his words very carefully, responding to a rather dancing, ambiguous question by industry analyst Craig Moffett (long an avid supporter of usage caps, and, apparently, "variabilization") with some dancing ambiguity of his own:

Moffett: Bottom line is, 5 years, 10 years from now, do you think that we will be in a model where the Internet is fully variablized, or usage is fully variablized, or at least variablized to the extent that most people are selecting from a reasonably large number of usage plans that match their usage to their price?

Cohen: I actually think the answer to that is, no. I would say, if you made me predict today, and I don't want to get myself in any trouble, if you made me predict today, I would predict that in 5 years Comcast at least would have a usage-based billing model rolled out across its footprint.

But I would also predict that the vast majority of our customers would never be caught in the buying the additional buckets of usage, that we will always want to set the basic level of usage at a sufficiently high level that the vast majority of our customers are not implicated by the usage-based billing plan. And that number may be 350 -- that may be 350 gig a month today, it might be 500 gig a month in five years, but it will never -- I don't think we will want to be in a model where it is fully variablized and 80% of our customers are implicated by usage-based billing and are all buying different packets of usage.

As Karl Bode points out, it's fun to watch Cohen pretend that Comcast isn't eventually going to cap everyone. If the merger goes through, you can be sure former Time Warner customers will be experimented on and eventually capped as well. But, hey, it's not really a monopoly because the two companies don't compete head-to-head, as someone at the Washington Post claimed in defense of the merger. Instead, it's more customers being screwed by the same company's lousy idea.

Surely the contingent that declares "vote with your wallet" during these sorts of announcements has dwindled to near zero at this point. For most of the country's population, the choice is that or DSL, the offering AT&T and others can't wait to rid themselves of. And it's not like other companies won't initiate their own caps once Comcast puts its limits in place. If one big player is doing it, then everyone can hop on the money train without shedding a ton of customers. In an inversion of the "if everyone's special..." argument, the cable companies will operate under the "if everyone's a crappy service provider, then no one's a crappy service provider" motto.

With this in place -- along with the pay-for-play internet -- Comcast can collect on its customers' Netflix addiction on both ends. The easy money will now be even easier, and no expense will be spared to ensure infrastructure upgrades and better customer service the lousy, pricy caps are advertised using only the shiniest junk mail and the cheeriest TV spots. Or, in fact, why even bother advertising? Incestuous duopolies and straight-up "only game in town" structuring means never having to talk someone into a shitty plan.

Even if Comcast isn't granted its monopoly, its willingness to deploy unpopular usage caps will only encourage Time Warner to speed up its roll-out of the same terrible plans. At this point, the biggest players are hardly putting any energy into maintaining the farcical facade of "network congestion." After all, Netflix chews up a ton of bandwidth, and Comcast has just bumped the speed at which this gets "used up" in exchange for an untold amount of money. If congestion was actually a problem, data hogs like streaming services would either be priced out of the market or more of the market would already be laboring under restrictive caps. But Comcast says "Use more internet!" -- just as long as it gets a larger cut of the action.

There's zero benefit for the consumer.

What companies like Comcast are doing is simply taking current, already-expensive flat-rate plans and pricing -- and affixing usage caps and overage fees on them, making existing product immeasurably more expensive. Under that model, everybody pays more -- no matter what. The industry claims they're just "experimenting" with "creative pricing," but the end result is usually just a rate hike wearing lipstick and a dress.

To extend the metaphor, Comcast's cap plan is like a hooker putting an egg timer on the nightstand and charging you every time she flips it over -- all the while telling you she's just "variabilizing" your sexual experience. And as she walks out the door with a handful of "overage fees," she points out that her service isn't really that restrictive because most of her customers "never achieve orgasm."

Now, Comcast has since made a half-assed retraction of these statements, which doesn't change anything for the thousands of users in uncompetitive Southern markets that are still dealing with data caps. Karl Bode does a great job taking apart the PR speak hastily assembled in the wake of its earlier remarks. Here's Comcast:

We have been trialing a few flexible data consumption plans, including a plan that enables customers who wanted to use more data be given the option to pay more to do so, and a plan for those who use less data the option to save some money. We decided to implement these trials to learn what our customers’ reaction is to what we think are reasonable data consumption plans.

And here's Bode:

Except as we noted the other day, Comcast knows full well what the consumer reaction to these plans is: they hate them. The company's 300 GB offer simply puts pricey overage fees on top of already-steep flat-rate pricing, and their other plan offers users a small $5 discount off flat-rate pricing if they agree to a 5 GB usage cap. Comcast isn't testing whether consumers like caps, they're testing how they can market usage caps in such a way that sees the minimal amount of user revolt.

While it's truly wonderful that Comcast will give customers the "option" to pay more for using more data, most customers would just rather have uncapped connections or data caps high enough that they don't need to cut the kids off Netflix mid-month. Add to that the fact that these caps are wholly reliant on Comcast's unverified measurement of data usage -- along with the fact that Comcast is openly pursuing paychecks from data-heavy services -- and you have the makings of a very profitable "offering." And Comcast has never been coy about preferring larger margins to satisfied customers.

Filed Under: broadband, broadband caps, data caps, david cohen
Companies: comcast, time warner cable

Time Warner Cable's Contractual Loophole Allows It To Tell Local Politicians It Has Received Zero Complaints

from the which-is-the-least-likely-thing-to-ever-have-happened dept

How plausible is it for a company that routinely ranks at the bottom of customer satisfaction surveys to claim it has had "no complaints?" Time Warner Cable did exactly that on its way to extending its franchise agreement with Keene, New Hampshire through 2023. Broadband Reports has the details:

Last month in Keene, New Hampshire, the Keene City Council was voting on whether to add a second local channel (which would give the city more revenue) through Time Warner Cable. In exchange, Time Warner Cable wanted to extend the franchise agreement with the city for an additional five years, or the year 2023. While the rest of the council agreed to give Time Warner Cable the extension, one Councilor had a bit of an issue with the way that Time Warner Cable was running their business.

Even though the Council voted 4-1 in favor of the second channel, Councilor Terry M. Clark expressed his disappointment with Time Warner Cable on their refusal to adhere to the original franchise agreement signed with the city years back that forces Time Warner Cable to tell the City Council about any complaints that they receive from customers:

"They reported back that they had no complaints," Clark said at last week’s meeting. "I asked, ‘Why?’ They said because they weren't required to write them down."

Yes, that last part is true. TWC's franchise agreement contains some language that allows it to whitewash its horrible track record. Bill Neilson at Broadband Reports spoke with the objecting council member, who forwarded him the no-problems-here contractual clause.

Except as limited by federal law or FCC regulations concerning privacy, Franchisee shall maintain a record of all such complaints and such records shall be available at Franchisee's local offices for at least two years for inspection by the Franchising Authority as it may from time to time request, during regular business hours and upon reasonable notice. Nothing herein shall be deemed to require Franchisee to maintain records of oral complaints, which can be handled to the customer's satisfaction in the course of the initial conversation in which the complaint is made or does not require technical field response. Upon request, the Franchisee shall provide to the Franchising Authority an accounting of the number and nature of such complaints.

Oral complaints apparently don't need to be recorded for posterity if they are handled with a single phone call, or if a technician is never sent out. The key here would seem to be "to the customer's satisfaction," but it appears TWC isn't going to let itself get bogged down by discussions about whether or not the end user was actually satisfied. Presumably, "handled in a single phone call" is still valid (and unrecordable) even if the person is bounced from useless rep to useless rep for hours or simply spends an unimaginable amount of time on hold. As long as someone on TWC's end can put a check in the "resolved" box at the end of the conversation (and keep technicians from leaving the building), the complaint is off the record.

If the person calls back, presumably a new record is opened for that single call and, again, dismissed once the problem is "resolved." This is cooking the books on low heat and since TWC is the custodian of the records, there's little anyone can do to point out where complaints are being vanished into the ether.

Councilman Clark strongly feels TWC just isn't being honest.

"It's my contention that most call-in complaints are not resolved in the course of the initial conversation and that they are required to account for the nature of all complaints," said Councilor Terry M. Clark.

But if only one council member is going to ask questions, it's highly unlikely TWC will suddenly become a model of corporate responsibility. Until there's danger of it losing the contract, it's not going to live up to even the most basic level of accountability. This is the other danger of cableco monopolies and duopolies: even cities themselves have no leverage against the only game in town.

It takes a humongous amount of chutzpah to claim you've had no complaints, when all of the following is on the record (gathered by Broadband Reports):

• Ranker.com ranked TWC 2nd worst with customer service.
• Ranker.com youth-users ranked TWC dead last with customer service.
• Consumer Reports stated that TWC ranked "very poorly with consumers when it comes to value for the money and have earned low ratings for customer support" and "Time Warner Cable ranked 16th overall for television service with particularly low ratings for value, reliability, and phone / online customer support."
• According to YouGov, Time Warner Cable has the poorest brand perception of the major pay TV service providers, with a score of -10.
• The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) ranked TWC second to last among Internet service providers. The picture wasn’t much rosier on ACSI’s list of pay-TV providers, with TWC ranking second to last in the subscription television industry.

This statement by TWC is the company daring the city council to call bullshit on its claims. But the city won't. The funds the city collects from every TWC subscriber (much of which goes to support local TV channels) won't be easy to replace, especially if an incumbent cable company poisons the well before leaving town. TWC has a good thing going and has fought the council every step of the way to ensure its profit margins stay intact.

Time Warner offered an adapter box for free through Dec. 18, after which customers had to purchase the adapter from the cable company. The box will also come with a monthly $1 fee beginning Jan. 1, 2015.

Clark convinced his fellow councilors to ask Time Warner to consider waiving the $39.99 installation fee for subscribers who couldn’t install the adapter themselves, but the company refused.

“There are many other things that we’ve asked of Time Warner,” Clark said last week. “They’re not willing to give rate payers anything unless it’s required by law, and even if it is required by law, it has to be pushing and shoving before they’ll acquiesce to that. I don’t think they deserve (a contract extension).”

Clark has been outvoted and TWC has another nine years to continue fighting city hall and tossing complaints in the trash. Does anyone (other than Comcast) think merging it with another cable company with an equally horrendous customer service record will really improve things?

Filed Under: customer complaints, customer satisfaction, customer service, keene, loopholes, new hampshire
Companies: time warner cable

Washington Post Editorial Board Deploys A Bunch Of Bad Arguments In Its Defense Of The Comcast Merger

from the fewer-companies-somehow-equals-better-competition dept

Searching beyond Comcast itself, it's hard to find too many people who have no objections to this massive cable company acquiring another massive cable company. Inside the Beltway, where it possibly matters most, you can find a few defenders, many of whom have pocketed Comcast's money during their legislative careers. But once you step outside of the insiders, you have a multitude of people who realize that, thanks to years of abusive behavior by incumbent service providers, making these companies bigger certainly won't make them better.

I'm not sure where the Washington Post's editorial board falls in terms of insider/outsider status, but it just issued an editorial supporting the merger. And, oh man, it's just a terrible set of opinions bolstered by some equally terrible assertions. The gist of it is that a massive cable company is no problem because regulators have done such a great job at ensuring a competitive playing field to this point.

The government’s smartest move is not to block the merger, but to make clear that regulators will respond if big industry players begin to violate basic principles of market fairness.

There's no question of "if." The violations are not only happening, they're ongoing. Incumbents have squeezed out upstart competitors by using their entrenched positions, pushing for favorable legislation and protecting it all with an army of lawyers that makes it almost impossible for new players to enter the market.

WaPo's board tries to deflect the arguments raised by merger opponents by deploying a combination of Comcast talking points and assertions that have no basis in fact.

[T]raditional cable television and wired broadband providers are in increasingly dire competition with online video services, wireless Internet providers and a cash-flush Google expanding its installation of high-speed fiber-optic cable across the country. Consolidation is the only way to ensure these companies have enough capital to invest in new and better technology that will keep their customers happy — or, at least, satisfied enough not to cancel their subscriptions.

Of everything that's wrong with this paragraph, the presentation of Google's fiber service as a serious competitor is perhaps the worst. Google's limited market entry only presents a direct threat to incumbents in the few areas it's selected to offer its service. At some point in the future, Google may expand the number of markets, but it's a stretch to call a handful of deployments a true competitor to the cable giants. Even the incumbents seem to realize they won't be going head-to-head with Google any time soon -- if at all -- judging from the number of "fiber to the press release" statements being issued.

And it's not as if the cable companies are lacking in capital. The biggest names in the business are also flush with money and they're certainly not spending it on "new and better technology." The supposed "wireless competitors" are giants themselves -- old school incumbents like AT&T that are divesting themselves of their landlines just as quickly as regulators will let them. These companies prefer wireless because it's more profitable, not because they have any desire to keep their customers happy. The maintenance costs are lower and the opportunity to deploy caps on calls and data keeps margins high. One needs only look at Verizon's post-Hurricane Sandy efforts in New York, which saw the provider tell customers it was inferior wireless packages or nothing and the service they once had wasn't going to be repaired.

More bad-to-inaccurate assertions follow.

Some criticism of the merger is misleading or speculative. Cable subscribers will not lose flexibility to get their television service from another company. The market is split geographically: Comcast and Time Warner Cable do not compete for customers.

The first part is only true because many cable subscribers already have little to no flexibility. There's very little for them to actually "lose." For many customers, the only "true" choice is Cable Giant A or DSL Giant A -- at best. That's not competition. That's an illusion of choice. In most markets, the number of competitors rarely rises above a very small number of interchangeable companies that work together to ensure their existing market share never dwindles. They act in concert to keep upstarts out and customers locked in.

That these two companies rarely compete directly for customers makes no difference. Turning two companies into one doesn't magically increase the number of options available to cable customers. Instead of simply aligning behind the scenes to preserve a duopoly, the unity of vision will now be out in the open. If anything, this will result in a more transparent screwing of customers, but that's hardly the sort of thing regulators should be giving their thumbs up to, or be encouraged by a responsible journalistic outlet.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, merger
Companies: comcast, time warner cable, washington post

Comcast Ignores 'World's Worst Company' Award, Misleads About Bogus 'World's Most Admired Company' Award

from the yeah,-good-luck-with-that dept

So, we already wrote about Comcast's attempted charm offensive (built on blatant falsehoods) as part of its effort to get its merger with Time Warner Cable approved. We also wrote about Comcast cruising to an easy victory in Consumerist's famed 'Worst Company' awards (beating out the comic book and sci-fi level evil in Monsanto).

So, in reading through Comcast's filing with the FCC about why its merger is in the "public interest," I found it curious that Comcast decided to ignore the Consumerist award, and instead focus on an award suggesting something entirely different:

By investing heavily in talent, research and development, and in the infrastructure needed to facilitate creativity and invention, Comcast has created a culture of innovation. Comcast now employs over 1,000 engineers and developers, and vigorously competes for new engineering talent with the likes of Google, Apple, Facebook, Netflix, Microsoft, and Twitter. Its single-minded focus on enhancing its services and pursuing innovation have earned it first place among cable and satellite providers on Fortune Magazine’s list of World’s Most Admired Companies – up from third place.

I live in Silicon Valley and talk to engineers all the time. I hear about various job offers and dream jobs, and people talking about working for Google, Apple, Facebook, Netflix, Microsoft, Twitter (and a few other companies as well). I've never, ever, heard anyone even once thinking about working for Comcast.

Of course, it is true that Fortune put Comcast on its list, but note the small caveat that this is solely in the "cable and satellite providers" category which (no joke) consists of a total of four whole companies -- and one of them (ranked the lowest, by the way) is Time Warner Cable. Even more important? The bit that Comcast conveniently leaves out of this message is the line right above its rank in that narrow category. And that's its overall rank:

Top 50 rank: N.A.
Rank in Telecommunications: Cable and Satellite Providers: 1

In other words, Comcast is not in the top 50 "most admired" companies. It only scores in this narrow category with only a very small number of companies, where almost every other company is hated. Now, if we look at the companies that are actually at the very top of the real "Most Admired" list, we'll see: Apple, Amazon and Google in the top three spots. Microsoft (24) and Facebook (38) come in a bit lower. Hell, even AT&T (not a cable or satellite provider) sneaks its way into the top 50 most admired companies at number 50.

So, once again, Comcast's attempts to mislead just call out more scrutiny on the fact that the company seems allergic to honesty. Even in trying to highlight how "admired" the company is, it's actually calling attention to the simple fact that it's not admired at all.

Filed Under: misleading, most admired, world's worst
Companies: comcast, time warner cable

Comcast Apparently Hopes No One Actually Looks At Its Ridiculously Misleading Claims Of Broadband Competition

from the where-are-those-29-competitors dept

Comcast is ratcheting up its charm offensive (or perhaps that's just offensive charm) in trying to get its attempted merger with Time Warner Cable approved. It's released its "public interest statement" and a blog post about how wonderful the merger will be. There are plenty of ridiculous claims in both, but let's focus on the key one -- Comcast's decision to completely fabricate "competitors" in various markets to argue that Comcast competes "in a dynamic, expanding and highly competitive marketplace." Of course, for anyone who actually knows what broadband options they have at home are, this statement is clearly bullshit. But Comcast is going to pretend otherwise, because it's Comcast. This chart really takes the cake: You see that? People in New York City have a wealth of competition according to, well, pure bullshit. Those "29 competitors" involve finding any company in the tri-state area that sorta, kinda offers something that if you squint and sneeze, you might sorta, kinda think maybe could be qualified as broadband if you were the last person on earth and really, really needed a barely working connection to the internet.

In the past, we've reasonably mocked the FCC's website listing broadband competitors, BroadbandMap.gov, because the results it gives are hilariously wrong and/or misleading. But Comcast's competitive claims take this to a new level entirely. Even if we rely on the National Broadband Map, I challenge anyone to find any spot in New York City where someone has anywhere close to 29 choices for actual broadband. Just for fun, I put in an address in the heart of midtown Manhattan, and it coughed up a (laughably misleading) claim of seven competitors. Except three of them (AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint) are just 3G/4G service over your phones with very low caps and limited speed. Those accounts are explicit that they're not to be used for regular home broadband. So they don't count. You have, of course, the traditional competitors: Time Warner Cable (who Comcast is trying to take over) and Verizon.

And who else? There's just Lightower Fiber Networks and Platinum Equity LLC. Platinum Equity is the private equity firm that bought out MegaPath, a DSL company that has been around (in various forms) for many years, but is only focused on business broadband. Ditto for Lightower Fiber, which only serves businesses. So, oh look, if you want true residential broadband, guess what: your choice is Time Warner Cable or Verizon. And, remember, Verizon is actively trying to get out of the wired broadband market, handing its users over to... their main cable competitors. So, it might not be left until your only real "choice" in the heart of midtown Manhattan is... Time Warner... I mean, Comcast.

So, um, what's that about 29 competitors?

Filed Under: broadband, competition, merger, misleading
Companies: comcast, time warner cable