As summer looms, we thought it would be an appropriate time to offer a few recommendations to find savings in your Etilities.

• Switch from monthly plans to annual plans.  Many service providers offer annual payment plans which are economically advantageous over their monthly plans.  If you have a service that you aren’t planning on changing anytime soon, considering the annual payment plan may be beneficial.  In the case of Vonage (Etilities Forum) for instance, the annual pre-pay plan can save clients $59 per year.  If you are a satisfied Vonage customer, you should seriously consider it.
• Going on vacation?  It is not uncommon for individuals or families to go on vacation for several weeks at a time away from home.  What few people know is that many cables companies offer a vacation plan.  Cox Communications (Etilities Forum) for examples allows you to essentially de-activate your TV, Internet and Phone without returning your modem or worrying about termination or re-activation fees.  Instead, for a low $10 a month fee, you can simply leave your house for several months and reactivate all your services back to normal upon your return.  Some of the providers offer packages of up to 4 months which can save hundreds of dollars over the summer.
• Sign-Up for the Assistant.  By signing-up for the Etilities.Com assistant and completing your profile, we will continuously monitor the industry and evaluate savings opportunities.  If you have unique needs or specific questions about your Etilities, you may also e-mail directly at assistant@etilities.com.

Enjoy your Summer!
©2008-2009, Gallop Services, Inc. All rights reserved.

Given the infamous head-to-head in between Comcast (Etilities Forum) and the FCC last year over the practice of bandwidth throttling based on traffic type, one might be surprised to hear that Cox Communications (Etilities Forum) is going down the very same road. Indeed the company announced on Tuesday a “Congestion Management” program that will essentially divide all traffic into two lanes: time-sensitive and non-time-sensitive. If you are using your bandwidth for non-time-sensitive transmissions, then Cox will slow them down. Time-sensitive traffic includes Web, Voip, Email, IM, Streaming and Games, while non-time-sensitive includes P2P (surprise surprise), Network Storage, FTP and Software Updates. Cox will begin experimenting this new policy in Kansas and Arkansas in February.

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©2008-2009, Gallop Services, Inc. All rights reserved.

There has been a debate brewing for decades about the importance and the role of networks who provide content and that of those who transmit it to end-users.  Each side, of course, supports its own self-interest.  Over the past few days, several fairly heated discussions have occurred between companies on both sides.  Most notably, Viacom recently threatened to pull some programming from Time Warner Cable.  In light of these problems, the news of CBS and Time Warner Cable reaching a fresh broadcasting deal without major fireworks led to a large sigh of relief from the industry and all of us as consumers.  

Cable companies have also been increasing their rates, a move parallel and related to these discussions.  As we’ve mentioned, Comcast (Etilities Forum) is planning to raise rates in February, and today Time Warner Cable (Etilities Forum) announced a planned increase in fees as well.  A spokesperson for the company explained that the move is required in order to overcome higher fees from programmers: “The programmers, we are wholesaler distributors of them, we have to purchase their product, biggest expense”.

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©2008-2009, Gallop Services, Inc. All rights reserved.

Compared to the slew of new media delivery solutions that have developed over the past few years like  iTunes (Etilities Forum), Netflix (Etilities Forum), Hulu (Etilities Forum) or Joost (Etilities Forum), Cable TV seems a bit like a dinosaur.  Along with radio, it is one of the older content delivery services, and it shows.

Research group Parks Associates released a study in late October explaining that Cable TV has customer satisfaction issues compared to Satellite TV and IPTV providers.  Although the details of the study are not publically available, my thought is that this is primarily due to a shift in how much control consumers expect to have on what they watch and when they watch it.  The old, familiar model is that you need to tune in to the right channel at the right time.  You arrange your schedule around the TV network schedules and hope you don’t get interrupted.  What products like Tivo (Etilities Forum) and the Apple TV have introduced is the ability to make your own entertainment schedule.

The answer to this was Digital Cable, specifically Video On Demand (VOD) offerings which let you select movies, TV shows or documentaries out of a library of media that your subscription gives you access to.  But there are still problems.  First, VOD tends to have a more limited selection than the alternatives listed above.  Second, the interface is often sluggish and poorly designed.  Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, this offering still rides on a service that is very expensive: according to the FCC, cable prices have more than doubled over the last decade!

The main thing Cable TV has going for it is that it has a very large established consumer base, and old habits die hard.  But Cable providers should probably realize, for their own good, that we are in the middle of the danger zone: a tough economic downturn that makes everyone try to save money.  Once enough people realize the alternatives out there, Cable TV will need to make a choice: adapt or wither.

©2008-2009, Gallop Services, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cable company Cox Communications (Etilities Forum) announced today that it plans to have its own wireless network operational in 2009. Cox had previously shown interest in the market by investing more than $500 million in wireless licenses from the FCC. According to an article published by the Associated Press, the licenses that Cox purchased will allow them to provide coverage in Atlanta, New Orleans, San Diego, Omaha (Nebraska), Las Vegas, and much of Kansas and southern New Mexico. Roaming coverage would be provided outside those areas by Sprint.

With this move, Cox hopes to provide content to its customers across multiple platforms. The idea would be that you’d be able to use your cell phone to watch the TV stations that you’ve subscribed to in your cable plan, access saved content, or program your DVR remotely. Basically, it would allow you to take your content with you without the hassle of syncing your devices. You can think of it as a content cloud accessible anywhere.

Cox is well positioned to achieve this, with a strong fiber footprint in the areas it plans to service as well as previous experience with cellular technology development since it previously built an operated a cell network in Las Vegas and Southern California in the 1990s that was later sold to Sprint (Etilities Forum). We will definitely be monitoring their progress throughout this endeavour.

©2008-2009, Gallop Services, Inc. All rights reserved.

You’re most likely familiar with bundled technology services.  Your cable provider probably offers you “a better value” if you subscribe to their Cable TV, Internet, and Telephone services.  If you’re lucky, you may also have the choice of FIOS service from Verizon (Etilities Forum), which provides the same package deal, just through the phone company.

Now, cable companies are planning to expand their bundled offerings by putting wireless data services into the mix.  Om Malik reports on his GigaOm site that Comcast (Etilities Forum), Cox Communications (Etilities Forum), Cablevision (Etilities Forum), Charter Communications (Etilities Forum), and Bend (Etilities Forum) have all announced some degree of planned wireless service.  Certainly, their competitors won’t be far behind.  In addition, the recent sale of a wide swath of the wireless spectrum to some of these and other providers will boost their ability to provide ever further-reaching coverage to mobile devices at home and on the road.  Since those spectrum purchases cost hundreds of millions of dollars, there’s no doubt that providers will be aggressive in selling services to recoup their expenses quickly.

At first glance, this seems to be a great benefit to consumers, and in many situations that may be the case.  However, the other side of this development is that your choices may be inefficiently limited to those that come with the provider’s specific bundles.  Consumers need to remain far more aware of exactly what services they are paying for and at what cost.  For example, I do not use a landline telephone enough to justify bundling the cable company’s VOIP service with my other services solely because (according to them), it will “save me hundreds of dollars per year!”  Instead, I use a third-party VOIP service that costs a few dollars per month.  This is perfect since the service is to call 911 if ever needed.

Instead, the widening bundle represents a potentially cost-saving mechanism for consumers whose usage of all of those services warrants the consolidation.  There will certainly be those that feel paying a little more for the convenience of fewer bills is worth the cost as well, but in a leveling economy (or whatever it’s being called this week), the number of folks able to take that route are dwindling.

©2008-2009, Gallop Services, Inc. All rights reserved.

The idea of switching a call from your cell phone to a home phone as you walk into your house has been touted as futuristic but achievable by many service providers.  It was even depicted in a recent commercial for Cox Communications (Etilities Forum) cable services. Yet to date, none have really made it happen in a smooth manner.

In the span of a month, two major announcements were made, providing the capability to “move” a call initiated on a cell phone to a more robust network inside the house, or vice versa.  As mentioned in a previous Gallop post, one reason that many customers maintain a home phone line is solely due to the lack of a solid wireless signal within their homes.

By switching the phone call from your mobile carrier’s network to a wireless signal inside your house, the call will obviously benefit from a more reliable signal throughout your home, while at the same time saving your minutes on the mobile carrier’s network – which saves money.

The first announcement came from a little-known company called iCall, which was launched two years ago.  In early June, they released a beta version of the iCall for iPhone.  This application allows users to transfer calls from a regular mobile phone provider to a wi-fi network in your home, at a free or for-pay wi-fi hotspot, or anywhere else a wireless data network is available.  The application is free for incoming and outgoing calls to US phone numbers and only charges for international calls.  Clearly, iCall for iPhone will be a valuable application for iPhone users.

The second announcement was detailed in a Reuters article, regarding the new wi-fi calling service. from T-Mobile (Etilities Forum).  According to Reuters, the company will charge a $19.99 monthly fee per line for the service, which will be billed on your regular mobile phone bill.

©2008-2009, Gallop Services, Inc. All rights reserved.