TV's Back to the Future II

Well, the sequel is never as good as the original.  But, I wrote about Back to the Future before.  There's lots of news.

 

The FCC’s TV auction plan is in place.  If you’re not familiar with it and you’re A) a broadcaster, B) an advertiser, C) an agency person or, D) a viewer who likes HD television, you might want to get familiar with it.

 

Here’s the executive summary:   

·    Over-the-air television takes a lot of the radio frequency spectrum

·    The FCC wants more spectrum allotted to personal communications services like wireless Internet/broadband.  They want to be able to auction off spectrum to increase revenue to the government

·    The FCC has proposed allowing telecasters to combine their services onto a single channel, freeing up spectrum.  For this, each telecaster would receive a payment
 

Hey!  That’s pretty neat.  Let’s get channels 7 & 9 & 13* to combine inside one channel, say, “7”.  They’d keep their own identities, branding and other associated equity – even their number – but they’d all be contained in the channel that was formerly allocated solely to the owners of “7”.

 

That means that the frequencies that “9” and “13” occupied are now vacated and can be reassigned for PCS – through auction.  And, per the commission, the broadcasters so “sacrificing” their spectrum, will be rewarded financially.

 

Still cool?  Do you see everyone as a winner?  As the old army joke goes, “Not so fast, Mullany.”

 

When you put two or three stations inside a single channel, something has to give.  That give is on signal quality.  Without going into detail, it means that HD evaporates.  Under the current – and currently discussed – systems, there’s no not enough room inside 6mHz to cram multiple HD channels.  In fact, you won’t see two 720i signals inside the 6mHz channel without some significant adjustment to coding.

 

Fine, Len.  What does that have to do with me?

 

I guess first, the issue is that over-the-air 1080i and 720p – and maybe 720i may disappear from stations which choose to band together in a single channel.  With 8VSB, we already stuff 10 pounds of, uh, stuff in a 5 pound bag.  So there’s not much room for the higher quality signals.

 

Now that may be ameliorated by the fact that broadcasters could still supply the higher-definition signal to cable system headends, telcos, and to DTH satellite uplinks.  So subscribers to these services could still see HD.  But for the 20 or so percent who view over-the-air, well, thanks for playing.  Your HD set will do its best to upconvert 480.

There is (are) a slew of issues:

 

Is there a conflict of interest on the part of broadcasters which own or are owned by cable systems?  Does Comcast care if over-the-air viewers get 480i?  Heck, that should drive more viewers to cable for the quality.

 

Does anyone really care about over-the-air?  Maybe broadcast television becomes like AM – lower quality, poorer resolution and looking for a niche that draws viewers.

 

Does broadcast turn to the PCS guys to distribute their product on portable devices?  If so, who needs hi-def on a small screen?  But then, as devices grow in size, there’s that need for higher resolution – which 480 won’t be able to deliver.

 

And what about the future.  If you’re new to this issue, you’re probably new to 4K, too, which is Ultra HD.  The concept – which was viewable at 2012 NAB – provides for a standard that is 3840x2160 in resolution, or about 5 times (linear or over 20 times total) the resolution of 480 and twice that of 1080.  Like I said, there’s already 10 pounds of stuff in the bag, so unless the compression scheme includes instructions like, “Imagine a lake with a boat on it…” there’s no way we’ll ever see 4K over the air.  You can read more here.

 

There are plenty more – you can think through them.   They all spin a pretty sad story for a medium.  But do we really need over-the-air distribution?  Is it OK to forsake the 20 percent who view via OTA so that more people can get broadband?

 

Just follow the money.

·    The PCS and cellular lobbies are far stronger than broadcast

·    The NAB is living somewhere in the 1930’s.  I hear they’re considering an award to Vladimir Zworykin

·    Cable and broadcast integration and cross ownership means the broadcasters have less to lose.  In fact, if they take the bait, there may be lots of money for them

·    The demos of those 20 percent, well, pretty low importance
 

In its announcement, the FCC says that it, “…expects a healthy and vibrant broadcasting industry to thrive after the auction…”  which is a lot like telling a patient that, “you’ll be much better without that lousy heart and those kidneys.”

 

They held a workshop – Broadcaster LEARN.  You can check out the video on the NPRM for the auction here.

 

In the meantime, keep in mind that the average viewer has no idea this is happening. No thought that part of the value of HD is being rendered obsolete almost immediately after the FCC – and congress – mandated its implementation in the first place.  And they won’t figure it out until the resolution drops like a rock and they’re told by their local station that they need to subscribe to cable, telco, satellite, some paid service in order to get those lines of resolution.

 

*Note that currently, those channel numbers are carry-overs from analog days.  Your channel “7” may have been on the actual channel 7 (174-180mHz) but moved to another 6mHz block yet through channel virtualization, everyone

Judge Greene May Have Been Right

I'm talking about the telco breakup...

First – if you don’t care about the topic, skip to the end for some fun telemarketer pranks.

Ya’ know, for years I was angry at Judge Harold H. Greene – for breaking up AT&T.  I think it was mostly the broadcaster in me and all the wailing and crying and gnashing of teeth that came from dealing with multiple carriers in the aftermath as they all elbowed under the basket for control of territories and services.

Maybe it was because the change was so radical and rapid.  Tens of new carriers, new services, regions.  Made the day-to-day guy’s life pretty interesting and gave a whole new meaning to, “It looks good leaving Denver.”

We can discuss whether the breakup was done right, whether AT&T came out ahead another day.  Regardless, we all wound up with a bunch of different companies vying for your service.  The operative word: vying.  Some of the overzealous ones slammed us and we had to go ranting and raving to get back the service we really wanted.  But, for a time, prices dropped.  Long distance fell like a rock. 

Concurrently, we were discovering the use of POTS for audio remotes.  Ordering dialup lines for remote broadcasts became a regular occurrence.  Of course, the mixing of new carriers with AT&T’s copper made for some great finger pointing.  And sometimes, that was more important to the telcos than the service, itself.  Nonetheless, with the competition came service – and people who actually listened when you had a question, special need, or an idea.  What a refreshing change from the conglomerate days when, at one point, I bought a T-shirt in Westwood, California that said, in polite robin’s egg blue letters, “No, we don’t care!  We’re PacBell.”

The proverb goes, “This, too, shall pass.”  And it did.  Like cannibals, they all slept with one eye open as they grew their respective regional and long distance businesses.  Don’t forget the manufacturing.  Western Electric got hit with the judicial mace, too.  Slowly, the also-rans, often those with poor customer service, fell by the wayside.  Their customers got gobbled up by others until at the end of the fest, one company was standing.  Yes, others survived.  But the namesake – AT&T became king again.  And with that, somehow, came the attitude.

Cards face up, I will tell you that I do business with AT&T.  If you live in and have a business in Chicago, you don’t have much of a choice.  I also have business and clients in Tennessee – Bell South land (AT&T, too.).  So let me relate two stories.

AT&T in Chicago nodded and agreed when I talked to them about changing an account.  Keep the number, keep the location.  Change the name on the billing from one of the companies I work with to another.   “No problem.”  “No penalties.”  “No interruption.”  The first four months following saw their fine billing folks, well, in the vernacular, screw it up royally.  Company name wrong.  Fix that and screw up the address.  Add penalties which had been waived, and on it went.  Each month I went through the wonderful AT&T “I really don’t care” phone tree to get to a live person. 

Note that before you get to talk to them, you’re advised that, “This call may be monitored or recorded for quality control purposes.”  As they finally introduce themselves, they ask, in the same breath, if, in accordance with federal privacy laws, they may use this call to make me aware of additional products or services. Sure.  My calling customer service, spending forever getting to the sorta-right person about a problem brought about by their ineptitude – makes me the perfect candidate to pitch some upsell product to.

Let me take a little detour.  This is fun.  When you get to a live person, announce to them that, “This call may be monitored or recorded for quality control purposes.  The reaction varies by company.  T-Mobile will throw a hissy-fit and say you can’t do that.  Then when you ask them why you can’t while they are, they stammer and stutter.  You can imagine where it can take you.  From “Go ahead.” which generates quite the polite and obliging CSR to an immediate hangup.  Hey, it’s worth it for the laugh.

Now back to story number one.  It actually took five months to straighten out their mess.  It coasted for about 5 months until I got a renewal notice.  And when I called to check the various programs available, the sales guy offered me a bundled Internet price: business local and long distance plus AT&T’s super fast fiber Internet.  The rate he quoted would save me about $30 a month – even though I had DSL with them coming into the same place on another number.  Nope.  I had to switch to this number – like the DSL signal cared whether it was coming in on yellow/black instead of red/green.

I made the switch.  What’s that you say?  “Len, you idiot?”  Yeah.  Go ahead.  Say it again.  First when the installer showed up, I told him where I wanted the new line routed.  He said, “What new line?”  I told him that the sales guy said he had to install fiber into the house.  The installer laughed out loud.  “There is no fiber anywhere around here.  You’re gettin’ copper DSL.  Then he proceeded to install a new modem on the line and remove the old one from the other red/green line. 

And it didn’t work.  Well, it did – it was just that about half the time, the modem would decide not to let programs access the web.  That’s not a good thing when part of what you do includes automatic uploading, FTPing and the like.  It’s not so good to wake up and see that half the files your automator was to handle are still on the left side of the page.  And the following two days were filled with, “Yes [name] I’m sorry.  I know they didn’t go up overnight.  But I did get them up first thing.”

Two days later, a service person came to the door.  He apparently fixed what the initial installer had done wrong.  At least that’s what he told me.  {Note to service guys:  when you sell out your partners, I think less of both of you.]  So I chugged along for almost a week.  Then I saw it.  The dreaded AT&T truck in the alley. I went inside and tried to get online.  Nothing.  The neighborhood was down.  When it came back, I so did my problem.

Ah, that’s not the clincher.  That’s when the bill came.  Instead of saving me $30 a month, it was going to cost me about $20 additional.  AND they billed me for the service call.

I called the sales guy.  [Another note:  tell whoever it is you have to call him/her back.  Get a number].  I was told he was on the phone and that he’d call me back.  He didn’t.  Two days later, I called again.  Didn’t get him. Talked to a supervisor.  Laid out the case.  Son of a gun, the sales guy called me back.

I told him how I felt – the problems, the fiber deception, and the price.  He was adamant about not having said any of those things till I said, “Let’s go to the tape.” 

“What?” he said.

I reminded him that when we did the deal on the phone, he asked me if he could record it and I said yes.  And I also made sure he remembered how I stated specifics as we agreed – stating the price, the fiber, and adding that if there were any billing errors or if what we talked about wasn’t delivered, AT&T would return everything to the way it was prior.

The guy backpedaled like Lance Armstrong down a French mountain.  The sad thing here is that it took that to get satisfaction.  He doesn’t care.  I doubt the marketing or ops folks care.  I’m just a number, and only ten digits at that. The best part, in closing – after he recorded us agreeing to get rid of the new services – he told me that if I had friends who needed service, he’d appreciate my recommending AT&T and him.  I told him I’d definitely give his number to my competitors.

And the second story?  Not important.  Take the above, plug in Bell South where you see AT&T and add a lady who asks you to hold while she pulls up your account then acts surprised when, after 12 minutes of holding, you dial on your cell phone and tell her you’re still holding, and another who asks how long it would take for me to connect the modem and I tell her one minute and she says she’ll call me back in exactly one minute.  And she never calls back.

Through the recent economic morass we’ve heard “Too Big to Fail” a lot.   Well, guess what?  Some companies are too big to succeed.  They trample themselves as marketing doesn’t tell sales what it’s doing and operations hasn’t a clue about what’s being sold while sales can’t tell you how anything works.  But they all promise the world and, if they’re big enough, they fold their arms and expect you to accept their definition of what that promise really means.  Their only success is in taking advantage of customers because of their size.  And what do we get?  Lost time, lost money, and in many cases, lost hair. 

So Judge Greene, we probably didn’t need you back then.  You just traded one form of insanity for another.  Sure need you now.  Especially if you’re any good at customer service.  

Fun telemarketer pranks.  In dealing with telemarketers, of course there are the trieds and trues…like, “Oooh.  Just one second!” then setting the phone down, returning a few minutes later just to hang up.  Or the barking dog/singing bird.  And I’m guessing more people than not have heard of the murder witness prank which can be seen here.

Here are mine:  Direct the caller.  When he/she starts reading the script, take charge.  “No. No. No.  Not like that.  Give it more meaning!”  Or, “You see, that’s not the important part of what you’re saying.  You want to tell me how…”  or just, “C’mon.  You can’t sound like you’re reading.  Now.  Look at the sentence.  Get it in your mind.  OK?  Now tell me.  Don’t read to me, just tell me.”

A second option is to begin selling them something.  An easy one is, “Hey, are you using a headset?  How comfortable is it?  Because, I have one that’s soft, light, and I can really hear you great.  I can let you have it for XXX$$$$.  And keep on selling.

Personally, the one I like is reserved for repeat callers.  The second time someone calls, just answer with, “Tourette hotline. What in the *$)^*&$  #*%&() #^*%_ do you #&*%* want?”