Time Warner Promises Change in L.A.
Operator Promises to Correct Outages, Customer-Service Issues
By Linda Haugsted -- Multichannel News, 4/16/2007 9:46:00 AM MT
Time Warner Cable’s metropolitan Los Angeles division will "slow the face of customer-facing change" in the region while refocusing on the integration of the physical plant it inherited from Adelphia Communications and Comcast and resolving customer-service issues, according to a letter from the company to the city of Los Angeles.
The operator is under fire in the region for video- and Internet-service outages and long on-hold times related to changes necessary as it becomes the area’s dominant cable provider. The city demanded that the operator explain why executives hadn't anticipated the problems it is having unifying the operation.
In a letter to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, council members and the city's board of information technology commissioners, the company blamed part of its problem on the former Adelphia plant.
Although the company did due diligence as it approached the acquisition, it did not know until it took possession that the plant was "neither robust nor reliable enough" to support the advanced services, such as HD channels, that it wants to offer, Time Warner said.
Time Warner hired new customer-service representatives and technicians, and it is taking contracted work in-house and creating neighborhood work areas to improve service, according to the April 13 letter.
As an olive branch to Los Angeles Time Warner is constructing a fiber network in the two buildings that make up City Hall, which will allow officials to order cable services, HD channels, digital-video-recorder services and video-on-demand at discounted prices. The operator will assume the cost of the network installation.
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