Two new J.D. Power and Associates studies note that customers on pricier cable tiers claim they're more satisfied, while DSL users complain their connections aren't keeping pace with modern household bandwidth demands. J.D. Power's 2012 U.S. residential television service provider satisfaction study found that Verizon FiOS, Dish, DirecTV and WOW! topped four different regions when it came to customer satisfaction. Comcast and Time Warner Cable were in last place in most categories measured.

The full rankings interestingly found that customers who pay more money for premium packages claim they're more satisfied (716 out of 1000) than those on expanded basic (677) or basic cable (656). Cable companies will be happy to learn that 31% of premium package subscribers say they won't be switching any time soon, compared to 22% for expanded and 20% for basic cable users.

For several years now PC Magazine has been conducting a somewhat controversial ranking of broadband ISPs by speed, using the PC Magazine Surfspeed application. Criticism over the years has grown about the magazine's methodology, and their decision to rank ISPs based on browsing speed in the age of 100 Mbps connections and Internet video.

Roughly two and a half years after filing for Chapter 11 and insisting they'd emerge as a "stronger, more competitive company with the resources to continue to provide our customers with best-in-class products and services," Broadstripe has been chopped up and sold. The company (see our user reviews) has been divvied up between WideOpenWest and Wave Broadband. According to Multichannel News, Wave has agreed to pay $32 million for Broadstripe's networks in Washington and Oregon, which service 60,000 connected customers and pass 103,000 customers. WOW will be paying roughly $55 million for Broadstripe assets in Michigan with about 48,000 current customers and 92,000 homes passed. The remainder of Broadstripe's assets are in Maryland, and are being acquired for $8 million by a newly-formed company named Ann Arundel Broadband (in part run by former Broadstripe executives).

Last week Berkeley researchers and the EFF announced that ten ISPs were covertly intercepting and sometimes redirecting user search results for additional profit. This week saw a new lawsuit against hardware vendor Paxfire and RCN, with Paxfire denying that they've done anything wrong.

In a post at the company blog, cable operator Wide Open West (WOW) says the company has completed the heavy lifting portion of deploying DOCSIS 3.0 upgrades into all of their markets. According to WOW, they've upgraded all network infrastructure hardware and software for DOCSIS 3.0 in addition to their back office systems for service provisioning. "With these upgrades mostly complete, we are now addressing the 'behind the scenes' software and processes that will support the new speeds and cable modems," says the company. The company, which currently offers a top speed of 15 Mbps to most users, isn't yet saying what faster speeds they'll offer, when they'll offer them, or at what price. WOW is currently the 15th largest cable provider in the United States.

Cable operator Wide Open West took their shot at the Comcast hearings this week by claiming that the merger would restrict their ability to upgrade their own network. How exactly is that even possible? According to WOW CEO Colleen Abdullah, Comcast is already using its market power to prohibit deals with broadcasters that would allow them to offer TV Anywhere Internet video services (though it's not clear TV Anywhere really matters in the face of Internet video, given its brute force approach to forcing the traditional model online). Though Abdullah also notes a freshly merged NBC/Comcast would likely force rivals to pay exorbitant retransmission consent fees.

According to a recent blog post by Wide Open West, the company says they've converted about 20% of their gear in preparation for DOCSIS 3.0. There's still no update from the company on a launch date for faster speeds or prices, the company only vaguely informing Light Reading that they'll upgrade all WOW markets "over the course of the next year or so." Given the relatively inexpensive cost (and significant benefits) of deploying DOCSIS 3.0, if you're seeing a cable operator lag like this -- it's usually a good indication that they're not really seeing substantive competition in the majority of markets they operate in. However, WOW does compete with Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Insight Communications in several bigger markets like Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland.

You might recall that before snoopvertising agency NebuAD flamed out spectacularly, cable operator Wide Open West (WOW) tested the user-tracking technology on their customers -- without telling anybody about it. When asked by the press about the tests, WOW of course denied to comment.

Recent rumors of new speeds for Denver-based Wide Open West were correct. The company's website now lists all of the upgrades to the company's existing tiers.

The past week or so has seen our Wide Open West forum filled with chatter about the company upgrading their speed tiers starting tomorrow (September 16). Tipsters suggest that customers will not only be seeing new bundles, but most tiers will see significant speed hikes as well.

Cable operator Wide Open West (WOW) offers service in portions of Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and Illinois, but hasn't upgraded their top speed tier (for most customers that's 6Mbps) for going on three years now. However, industry gossip seems to indicate that a 15Mbs/2Mbps tier is currently in testing, and some customers have been told that unofficially, the new tiers are scheduled to drop this fall. Officially, WOW isn't yet willing to publicly comment on the new speeds (fairly common practice until launch). Currently, the fastest standalone broadband service WOW offers is 6Mbps/1Mbps for $63.99.

Customer backlash, fears that the technology could violate several privacy and wiretap laws, and the threat of Congressional investigation caused Charter this week to suspend their trials with behavioral advertising firm NebuAD. But what about the companies who were tinkering with the technology long before Charter? Embarq tells the Washington Times that "We are not currently using behavioral targeting tools and have not decided whether to move forward with them, either through NebuAd or with any other vendor." Their privacy policy still references such systems:

A debate is raging in the UK over ISPs' use of deep packet inspection hardware to watch consumer surfing habits and sell them targeted ads. The conversation here in the States remains muted, largely because the biggest ISPs haven't implemented such systems yet (given the ceaseless need to please investors, they will).

A user for cable operator Wide Open West writes in: "Just thought you'd like to know, that I'm suspicious of my ISP, Wide Open West. I'm in the Chicagoland area, and it sure looks like they're allowing NebuAD to infect their network (sorry - my personal interpretation...I'm quite peeved about this) and altering pages to include their tracking cookies.