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Time Warner still cleaning up cable merger mess in O.C.
October 28th, 2008, 3:00 am · 12 Comments · posted by Tamara Chuang, a.k.a. The Gadgetress
This is the first in a 3-part series of posts. Read the second one “Time Warner Cable’s new features finally coming to O.C.“
For Time Warner Cable customers in Orange County upset with customer service, high cable prices and expiring discounts, there is one man with the answers. Fred Stefany, president of the Time Warner Cable’s O.C. operation, offered some insight into what is Time Warner thinking?
Stefany, pictured on right, says the mess is part of the aftermath of last year’s acquisition of Adelphia and Comcast customers. When that happened, Time Warner customer service reps had to learn two new programming guides, two more cable boxes and a variety of pricing plans for the new cities. They were already learning Time Warner’s new system while also juggling the older one. A year after the merger, Time Warner is in a 4-way tie for the bottom of the list in customer service.
“By mid-year next year, we’ll just have two systems and a new video-on-deman system,” Stefany said. Right now, he added, “We’re down to one billing system, from three.”
I met Stefany two weeks ago at his Anaheim office, a rather worn building that looks unchanged from the 1960s. He went on to talk about lots of new features that are coming once the cable systems are consolidated.
But even when that happens, there will still be users in Seal Beach who refuse to move to Time Warner’s cheaper and more expansive digital service. There will be folks in Costa Mesa who don’t want to give up their Motorola cable boxes they inherited when Comcast left the county. And because cable franchise fees vary per city, cable TV prices will continue to be all over the O.C. price map. So, there will still be a learning curve for customer service reps.
Some of the confusion may never leave us because each city charges different franchise fees. From Time Warner’s price guides, I compared prices of basic broadcast service (minimal TV service to get a clear signal on typically free channels) and basic cable. There are 10 different prices in O.C. Take a look:
| Broadcast | Basic Cable | |
|---|---|---|
| Anaheim | $18.50 | $54.00 |
| Brea | $18.50 | $54.50 |
| Buena Park | $16.00 | $55.00 |
| Costa Mesa | $12.00 | $53.45 |
| County of Orange (LTW) | $15.00 | $52.90 |
| Cypress (Comcast) | $12.00 | $48.99 |
| Fullerton | $14.00 | $55.00 |
| Huntington Beach (Adelphia) | $15.00 | $55.00 |
| Huntington Beach (LTW) | $14.00 | $52.90 |
| Santa Ana | $17.00 | $55.00 |
| Seal Beach | $8.50 | $55.00 |
| Tustin | $15.00 | $53.45 |
| Yorba Linda | $22.50 | $52.50 |
This chart offers a bit of insight into just a smidgen of what a Time Warner customer service rep needs to know when dealing with an Orange County user. By comparison, Cox Communications, the other Orange County cable TV company, has one price for all customers. Its lowest-priced offering is $17 for limited basic cable service.
Howsever, for its digital service, Time Warner customers pay the same rate of $47.95 for digital cable, which includes more channels than broadcast and basic cable combined.
Stefany also gave me the full tour of Time Warner’s Anaheim headquarters, from the network monitoring room (on top left) to the actual facility where video is coming into and out of the building (bottom right image shows the thousands of fiber-optic cables, with each yellow cable serving 250 homes in O.C.) The two photos in between show the variety of equipment that customer service reps need to know.
Next up:
- New features coming soon to O.C. cable TV customers
- Coming Wednesday: New HD channels from Time Warner and why Costa Mesa, Tustin get them first
Related articles:
- 30 new HD channels for AT&T U-verse
- AT&T’s U-verse TV service still targeting Irvine
- AT&T’s U-Verse TV has less than 1 million users
- How to get cheaper cable TV in O.C., part 2
- How to get cheaper cable TV from Time Warner Cable
- Time Warner Cable plans more channels in O.C. despite fines
- UPDATED: Verizon FiOS TV heavily targeting apartments, condos in O.C. and more
- Cox wants to give back to O.C.’s women-owned businesses
- Blu-ray DVD players drop below $300, even $200
- DirecTV offers extremely local weather reports
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OH BOY, MORE CHANNELS,MORE COMMERCIALS.WILL WE SEE MORE REALITY SHOWS THAT DISPLAY THE DECLINE IN THE HUMANE RACE?WILL WE WAKE UP ON SAT.,& SUN. TO SEE LARGE BREASTED WOMEN SHOWING NEW AND USED VEHS.?SORRY, IF I’M NOT IMPRESSED WITH THIS SO CALLED CLEAN UP,BUT I’M VERY UNIMPRESSED WITH WHO EVER SELECTS PROGRAMING FOR OUR KIDS TO WATCH.IT’S NO WONDER THERE IS SO MUCH DRAMA IN THE WORLD TODAY.THANK YOU TIME WARNER FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTION TO THE DECLINE OF OUR MORAL VALUES.
@KC CROWDER : So you are upset with yourself then? Since in the end, it’s YOUR decision to allow your child to watch whatever programming they are watching, not anyone else…
I wish that someone there would get the schedules and program titles and subjects right on their online digital service. I know that “law and order is a crime drama” but that has been the subject on all of those programs (“ci is a spinoff of the popular law and order series” as well) for the last few months, so you can’t set a DVR recording w/o going to other schedule services, and then hoping that TW’s boxes have the time slots right.
Also spare me the comments about law and order, I just picked that as an example. most of the listings are not very accurate.
What I want to know is why I have to have 3 channels of the same network. Does it look like I have more options to watch or what? Takes me three times as long to surf the guide because I have 3 channels with the same show! I really miss Cox Communications, when will they buy out Time Warner? I had to move and the worst part of the move was giving up Cox Communications.
When Slime Warner took over Paragon Cable in GG the rate doubled but no extra channels. I had it disconnected.
You’re comparing apples to oranges here for the prices. ALL cities charge franchise fees. I guess TWC adds it to the base price, but most companies, like COX add it as it a line item at the bottom of the bill.
If you really want to compare prices, find out what TWC is charging pre-franchise fees. Looking at those prices, there are a 20% difference on some prices. That’s more than franchise fees allow for. I believe in most areas it’s capped at 5%.
watch your bills, I was just charged for buying a movie, when all I did was watch a free preview, and then to boot, I was charged for a movie I never watched while I was at work .It’s the worse customer service. A couple of days ago, I traveled to Costa Rica and could not understand the Rep..If I could have a dish where I live, I would have dumped Time Warner! They come to my place so much to fix their screwups, that I know the Contractor by 1st name. They have been promising not to raise prices, a lie, and to fix their lousy customer service…but chose the cheaper way out, by sending cust service out of the country…their offices are dumps, which just goes to show they do not care about their employees anymore than the customers.
You go! Fred Stefany.
TWC sucks!! We are so tired of paying for the lack of customer service, poor cable quality and the price. So much so, we are switching over to Direct TV this weekend!! You couldn’t pay me enough money to go back to them!
Oh no…this explains it. Went from Direct TV to TW….everything has been a nightmare! Lost payment, wrong account info, improper cable install, etc……every single step has been a disaster! Had no idea about all of this ~>:-/
You know what stinks about the Time Warner merger/takeover? They never showed the customers any sort of appreciation. The rates got higher and they are constantly promising more channels and more HD channels, but they have yet to deliver. If I could watch hockey games online, I’d ditch TW in a heartbeat. It sucks having to pay for all these channels that I don’t watch, when me and the wife are only interested in one or two. An ideal word would have us purchasing programming online and watching TV through the internet. Imagine paying a small fee per show or per channel instead of $55 a month for a bunch of stuff you don’t even use.
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