Charter Service Issues May Be Related to Upgrading of Systems

• Customers Are Already Complaining

BY BILL KOENEKER

Without much fanfare, Charter Communications has quietly begun performing maintenance on its broadband network that is scheduled to take place periodically over the next two months, according to a recent company announcement.

But that may be the good news of a good news-bad news scenario if some early customer rumblings are well-founded.

The maintenance, according to Craig Watson, Charter’s vice president of communications, is related to two new upgrades the telecommunications firm plans to unveil in the near future.

“It will give us the ability to launch new products including faster Internet service and Charter will begin to offer telephone service,” he said. Watson indicated the new products will be offered by the beginning of next year.

The maintenance activity is apparently catching some customers off guard as complaints are coming into the local office and critical letters to the editor. are starting to appear

Charter’s intentions about its maintenance schedule were published in an announcement that was carried over the City of Malibu’s website. The city maintains a television cable franchise agreement with Charter, but has now authorized Verizon to enter the market and provide competition.

The announcement indicates that after midnight, customers may experience network outages from time to time. Company officials have assured customers that all services should be back online by 6 a.m.

Watson said the information was published on Charter’s website and several cities’ websites and broadcast on channel 15, a public access channel. The announcement of the new services was slated to follow.

However, some customers said they were experiencing problems after 5 p.m. and it was unclear if the difficulties stemmed from the planned maintenance.

Watson said without the specifics of each situation he could not comment on whether the evening interference was related to the scheduled work after midnight.

The Charter spokesperson acknowledged that there is always some “pain” when upgrades and expansion of a system takes place.

Watson said, though, the new services will offer customers new choices and conveniences. “Customers will be able to have two or three products on a single billing. With Charter phone they will be able to keep their equipment and their phone number,” he added, saying that for the first time it gives Malibu customers an alternative for phone service. Internet service will increase from five to 10 megabytes, according to Watson.