Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Phila. should think broadly to get more from Comcast

Bills that jump inexplicably. Technical problems. Customer-service nightmares. Nobody mentioned getting a statement addressed with an unprintable epithet - this winter's now-legendary Comcast customer-service fail. But other all-too-familiar frustrations were again on display last week as dozens of Philadelphians spoke at public ses

A lot has changed since 2000, when Philadelphia last negotiated its cable franchise with Comcast. (DAVID MAIALETTI/File Photograph)
A lot has changed since 2000, when Philadelphia last negotiated its cable franchise with Comcast. (DAVID MAIALETTI/File Photograph)Read more

Bills that jump inexplicably. Technical problems. Customer-service nightmares.

Nobody mentioned getting a statement addressed with an unprintable epithet - this winter's now-legendary Comcast customer-service fail. But other all-too-familiar frustrations were again on display last week as dozens of Philadelphians spoke at public sessions scheduled to flesh out a statistically focused "needs assessment" for the city's four cable-TV franchises, all held by the hometown cable and Internet giant and due to expire this year.

The Nutter administration commissioned the assessment by CBG Communications of Paoli to prepare itself for franchise- renewal negotiations - the first since 2000, when journalists still had to explain what "broadband Internet" meant to the 300 million people who didn't have it.

CBG's random survey of city residents showed more than one in four Comcast customers were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with its service here - nearly half because of its prices. Comcast collects about $325 million a year from city cable customers, and likely more than half a billion dollars a year if Internet and phone service are counted. Something is out of whack in that equation, and the city rightly wants it rebalanced. The question is how.

I've urged the city to demand that Comcast loosen its stranglehold on local sports, which aside from football has almost vanished from free TV. Another priority, urged by the Media Mobilizing Project, should be pushing Comcast to boost its financial contributions to the city. Federal law caps cable franchise fees at 5 percent, not counting broadband, which has yielded the city just $16.3 million a year over the last decade. Nothing stops the city from seeking more - especially from a company that benefits richly from public resources and tax breaks.

St. Paul, Minn., recently won an extra 2.5 percent, earmarked for its public-access, government, and educational channels - much more than a similar program gets here. In Philadelphia, more could also go to public Internet-access sites such as the city's KeySpots, and to other programs aimed at bridging a digital divide that looms as large in the nation's third poorest big city as anywhere.

But Philly should try thinking more broadly. Three other possibilities:

1. A cable "bill of rights." Seattle is one of a handful of cities that have recognized that cable and broadband deserve the higher level of protections historically applied to essential services such as water and power utilities.

"Internet is like water in the 21st century," Garrett Broad, a University of Pennsylvania communications researcher, told city officials last week, using a common analogy useful on multiple levels. "We wouldn't deny our kids access to clean and affordable water. We shouldn't deny them access to affordable, high-quality Internet."

Essential services also require robust consumer protections - such as methods to ensure that a provider reliably answers its phone, responds quickly, and issues meaningful refunds when it falls short. Legal standards governing cable providers remain weak - reflecting an era when they only sold pay TV, a frill rather than a necessity. In 2015, Philly should set a higher bar.

2. Senior-citizen discounts. St. Paul also won a 10 percent break for the elderly, poor, and disabled, but only on basic cable. Let's seek a break here on a broader range of services - in particular to ease access to the Internet for those who lack familiarity with it.

3. E-mail portability. Many Comcast subscribers, like other customers of older Internet providers, face a barrier to taking advantage of the city's emerging competition from Verizon's FiOS: a long-standing Comcast address.

More than a dozen years ago, wireless carriers had to be forced by regulators to accept "number portability" - the rule that allows you to switch carriers without losing the key link to the world your phone number represents.

Some e-mail providers offer a low-cost way to switch without abandoning an address - Verizon charges $20 a year. Why not push Comcast to offer something similar to remove one of the few barriers to competition that would actually be easy to address?

215-854-2776 @jeffgelles

www.philly.com/consumer