Comcast pushes back on critical report

COMCAST CABLE service is more expensive in Philadelphia than in other cities and more than one-quarter of its customers here are not satisfied with the company, according to a hefty study commissioned by the city and released yesterday.

Officials from the Philadelphia-based cable-and-entertainment giant wasted no time slapping back at the findings gathered by CBG Communications Inc., calling them "inaccurate," "overstated" and "misleading."

Flawed or not, Mayor Nutter said the 571-page "needs-assessment" report would be a key tool used by the city as it negotiates a new 15-year cable-TV franchise agreement with Comcast.

The cable company has four franchise agreements covering the city that expire between Aug. 12 and Oct. 7., and that allow it to use public rights-of-way to lay cable lines.

CBG Communications, a nationally recognized consulting firm to local governments in the areas of telecommunications and cable television, spent 18 months investigating Comcast, including conducting 800 phone surveys and 3,200 written and online surveys with city residents, Nutter said.

The finding that 26 percent of customers are not satisfied with their service would be addressed in the new agreement, Nutter pledged during a City Hall news conference attended by Comcast officials.

"In negotiations for a new franchise agreement, the city will seek remedies and improvements to enhance the cable-customer experience for all Comcast subscribers, wherever they may live," he said.

"We will negotiate hard. We know how to negotiate hard. We've negotiated a few contracts with folks over time."

Comcast senior regional vice president LeAnn Talbot said in an interview that she "will not rest until 100 percent of customers are satisfied. That is my mission and my commitment to customers in the city."

Still, she insisted that the city consultant's report is wrong in key findings.

"The consultant's data is really, truly based on recollection, where our data is based on very sophisticated collection systems," Talbot said.

She said the discrepancies include:

* The report found that 15 percent of those surveyed recalled getting a busy signal when they called Comcast; the company's data put the number at less than one-half percent.

* The report found that 61 percent of customers recalled that calls to Comcast were not answered in 30 seconds; the company found that more than 90 percent of calls are handled within 30 seconds.

* The report found that 24 percent of customers said Comcast failed to begin working on outages within 24 hours; the company said its data indicate its network service is fully operational more than 99 percent of the time.

Nutter said the city would seek to implement all recommendations in the CBG report in the new agreement. Those include retaining and upgrading to high definition all 12 public, educational and government-access channels; requiring stronger customer-service standards; and requiring Comcast to create a remediation program to address code-compliance issues.

He said the city also would seek high-speed broadband capacity and computing technology to support key city locations such as libraries; free broadband access in "unserved" and "underserved" neighborhoods; a program to provide computers and digital literacy education opportunities to the public; and high-speed broadband capacity to support the local tech and startup communities.

Nutter said the city would hold six public forums beginning April 27 to get more feedback from the community about cable service. City Council also will host five public hearings on Comcast. Dates and times for all 11 meetings will be released soon, officials said.