In a panel that otherwise covered little new ground, yesterday’s closing session of the CTAM Summit in D.C. was notable for a tidbit dropped by ESPN’s George Bodenheimer. “Power to the People,” the theme of the cable marketers’ annual conference, was well reinforced when Bodenheimer, in a discussion on “how to make your customers love you,” noted that at least 30 babies have been named ESPN--“one as early as last week.” The poor children’s parents’ questionable thinking aside, it was a fitting anecdote to end a conference packed with no small amount of discourse about how to create and capitalize on customer loyalty in this digital age. And in other news from the panel, the Internet is dead.

The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee addressed Internet safety in a hearing today about protecting children online. In opening remarks Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-HI) referred to the “distinguished and lovely panel” – apparently directed in particular to one of the five panelists, Miss America 2007 Lauren Nelson. The central thrust of testimony was the importance of educating parents, students, teachers and school administrators on encouraging safe online use, rather than relying only on technology tools. Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) asked if parental controls and filtering tools are the answer. Panelists agreed they play a role in protecting children online, but aren’t the silver bullet. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) seemed more dismissive of parental control tools, remarking earlier in the two-hour hearing that “blocking doesn’t seem to work.”

What would seem to work, the witnesses and Senators generally agreed, is making Internet safety education a mandatory part of computer education for all children. Cited as a model is a Virginia program incorporating Internet safety into the school curriculum. Lan Neugent, Assistant Superintendent for Technology and Human Resources with the Virginia Department of Education, remarked that “Internet safety cannot be covered in a single lesson or unit or by using a single program or resource…. It must be integrated into the curriculum as part of a teacher’s daily practice.” He also cited several other elements that must be in place for Internet safety programs to operate effectively: technical assistance, professional development for teachers, and implementation monitoring. Clearly understanding the direction of the hearing, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) announced his intention to offer legislation establishing a grant program to fund the development of online safety courses.

This Los Angeles Times editorial takes a swipe at the telcos for hiking fees on custom calling features:

AT&T and Verizon wasted little time taking advantage of the freedom that the California Public Utilities Commission granted them in August. Unleashed from regulations that limited how they priced many of their services, California's largest telcos quickly hiked the fees they charged for many of their custom calling services, such as caller ID and call waiting. The phone companies had argued for unlimited "pricing flexibility" by pointing to the many phone lines they were losing to rivals, such as cable TV operators. They also said allowing them to respond quickly to competitors' promotional offers would (in AT&T's words) ensure that "customers reap the full benefits of competition."

Cable companies rank highest in telephone customer satisfaction in all six U.S. regions, according to J.D. Power and Associates’ latest study. Cable completely beat out the traditional telcos for the first time. Cox Communications is again tops in three of six regions, while Bright House, Cablevision and WOW! each top a region. Verizon, AT&T and Qwest were shut out at the top of all regions.

The study measures telephone customers’ satisfaction with their local and long distance providers in six major areas: performance and reliability, customer service, billing , image, cost of service, and offerings and promotions. The findings underscore the critical importance of bundling for service providers.

Some Verizon customers are fuming that the company removed copper wiring when they installed the FiOS fiber-optic service. From the Associated Press:

Once the copper is pulled, it's difficult to switch back to the traditional phone system or less expensive Digital Subscriber Line service. And Verizon isn't required, in most instances, to lease fiber to rival phone companies, as it is with the copper infrastructure. What's more, anyone who owns [Long Island, N.Y., Verizon customer] Powderly's house in the future will face higher bills with FiOS than another home with copper. … Besides limiting options down the road, the switch to FiOS can have other implications. Unlike copper-connected phone service, FiOS doesn't work during power outages once a backup battery goes out -- not even for emergency calls. Home-alarms and certain other devices work best with copper. Rabe, the Verizon spokesman, said the company will restore copper to homes if the customer insists, but Verizon would rather not reconnect the copper and will try to persuade the customer to agree.

This Associated Press article declares that cable companies will charge customers more for set-top receivers because of the FCC’s new rules requiring video providers to deploy receivers containing separable security (i.e., detachable CableCARDS), as opposed to the current embedded security. The article declares the increases due to the new FCC rules are a sure thing (“Higher rates are definitely coming,” it proclaimed). At Cox, we will fully comply with the FCC separable security mandate and we have no plans at this time to raise prices on receivers due to the mandate. However, increasing costs may be passed on to customers in the future due to the cost of compliance.

Also in the article, several cable players criticized the FCC’s decision late last week, just before the July 1 effective date, to deny Cable’s petition for an exemption, but granting a temporary exemption to Verizon and other video providers. The National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) said in a statement: “The Commission’s 11th-hour action on the many long-standing waiver requests doesn’t bode well for consumers. There’s nothing in these decisions to stave off a $600 million set-top box tax likely to affect the great majority of cable customers while providing no benefit to consumers. In addition, customers are being treated differently based on the provider to which they subscribe, the unfortunate outcome of a flawed process.”

While I’m not technically a cable employee, I write about the industry here on DST. And, for some people, that seems to grant full license to give me an earful about their cable experiences.

A few weeks ago, I was in the middle of an interview for a local moving company when the manager, looking over my previous employment, asked about my arrangement with DST. After a quick explanation he sat back and said, “I hate my cable. It’s terrible.”