Comcast Hiring 5,500, As Part Of Customer Service Improvement

CHICAGO – Comcast’s unhappy customers finally have gotten through to the nation’s largest cable television company.

Comcast Corp. said Tuesday that it would hire 5,500 additional customer-service workers in the United States and hundreds of new service technicians, as part of a broad plan to improve its poorly rated service operations. The company has been bashed nationwide by cable and Internet subscribers as unresponsive and rude.

CEO Brian Roberts told reporters that the customer backlash had served as a “rallying cry to rethink how we do business.”

The cost to execute its “aggressive” customer service improvements will be on top of $300 million Comcast has invested in recent years in service upgrades, company officials said.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20150506_Cable_leader_admits_the_downside_of_being_disliked.html#CbSPg5D4sPheVYyd.99

Wolf’s Sales Tax Proposal To Include More Goods, Services

HARRISBURG, PA — The Wolf administration this morning released estimates of the new revenue the state expects to bring in by expanding the 6 percent sales tax to include more items and services.

Gov. Tom Wolf’s budget proposal, which is the subject of ongoing hearings by the House and Senate appropriations committees, also would raise the rates of the sales and personal income taxes, while cutting corporate income taxes and providing homeowners with relief from school property taxes.

Applying a proposed 6.6 percent sales tax to a host of new purchases would bring the state approximately $1.16 billion in the fiscal year beginning July 1 and $2.97 billion in the following year, according to a memo released this morning by the Department of Revenue.

Read more:

http://www.post-gazette.com/news/state/2015/03/18/Wolf-s-sales-tax-proposal-to-include-more-goods-services-pennsylvania/stories/201503180188

Profane Name Changes Greet Some Customers Of Cable Companies

The names some cable customers are being called after contacts with the companies that provide them services can be staggeringly profane: scatological and sexual, with allusions to body parts and perverted acts.

They are often mailings of things like bills. Almost all of the names defy mention in a news story, but for some sense of it, here is one of the more temperate ones, received by a female Comcast customer: Super Bitch, which was first reported in the Chicago Tribune earlier this month.

On Wednesday, a Time Warner Cable Inc. customer in Orange County, Calif., received a cancellation letter with her first name changed to a derisive four-letter term for female genitalia.

Esperanza Martinez, 34, said she was shocked at the profanity. She had called Time Warner Cable about an issue with her set-top box and had what she thought was a satisfactory conversation with a representative Feb. 12. Then, bang, the Feb. 16 letter.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20150222_Profane_name_changes_greet_some_customers_of_cable_companies.html#1WSxt0EkF4FuZ0Oh.99

Comcast Could Buy Time Warner N.Y. Cable Franchises

Logo of Comcast Latina: Insigne Comcast (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Comcast Corp. could acquire Time Warner Cable Co.’s New York cable-TV properties, along with other franchises on the East Coast, in a deal with Charter Communications Inc., according to sources in the industry.

A deal would expand Comcast’s market power along the I-95 corridor between Boston and Washington.

Comcast, the nation’s largest cable-TV company, already offers cable and Internet in Boston, Philadelphia and Washington.

Charter declined to comment Monday. Comcast also had no comment.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20140128_Industry_sources__Comcast_could_acquire_Time_Warner_Cable_N_Y__franchises.html#HAyimeAaYY2LBdix.99

Comcast Wants To Be Your One And Only Cable Provider

English: Comcast Tower, tallest building in Philadelphia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

NEW YORK (TheStreet) — America’s largest pay-TV operator wants to be your one and only and it’s willing to absorb the second-largest to do so.

Citing sources, Reuters reports Comcast Corp  is weighing up a potential full takeover bid for Time Warner Cable , an acquisition which would create an industry behemoth.

A full takeover is but one of three potential scenarios in consideration. The Philadelphia-based broadcasting giant is also determining whether to partner with an additional cable company to take over Time Warner or, in a less aggressive move, whether to simply pick and choose certain Time Warner Cable markets.

Time Warner Cable has been the subject of many takeover rumors of late and the latest puts a rumored offer from Charter Communications  in jeopardy. Last week, Bloomberg reported the fourth-largest cable provider was preparing its own bid for Time Warner Cable and was seeking as much as $25 billion in loans to do so. Time Warner Cable is significantly larger than the Stamford, Conn.-based business, with a market share of $37.9 billion dwarfing Charter’s $13 billion.

Read more: http://business-news.thestreet.com/philly/story/comcast-wants-to-be-your-one-and-only-cable-provider/12157503

Comcast Plans To Hike Rates, Start Charging For Adapters

Comcast Building new (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the spring of 2010, Comcast Cable required Lancaster and Elizabethtown subscribers of the “expanded basic package” (channels 25-78) to get digital TV adapters, and the first two adapters were free.

The cable provider, however, never said the adapters were free forever and, effective March 1, Comcast will charge Lancaster-area subscribers $1.99 per digital television adapter or digital transport adapter.

The price remains unchanged for “limited basic” (channels; 2-7, 9-13, 20-24 and 96) customers, who can get up to three adapters at no additional cost. The DTA price is unchanged.

The company previously charged subscribers $1.99 a month for each adapter beyond two.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/809857_Comcast-plans-to-hike-rates–start-charging-for-adapters.html#ixzz2Jf6eUFDP