Through the Wire

Contributors: Mike Farrell, Kent Gibbons.

Mountain State’s Calling Kent Home

Country roads could be leading Jerry Kent home, in a manner of speaking. Several executives in the cable investment-banking community say the former Charter Communications Inc. CEO’s current firm has emerged as the winner in an auction of about 243,000 Charter subscribers in West Virginia and Virginia, including the capital city of Charleston, W. Va. An agreement could be announced this week, one person close to the process said.

The price tag was pegged at $750 million to $800 million, according to two people involved in the process. That’s a relatively pricey $3,000 or more per customer, indicating Kent had to top rival bidders. The systems are being shopped for Charter by Daniels & Associates and JP Morgan Chase & Co.

Kent, who formed investment bank Cequel III after leaving Charter in 2001, already has about 400,000 subscribers in several Southwestern states through his interest in cable operator Cebridge Connections.

Taking a big step up in size, Cebridge already has a pending deal to buy 940,000 subscribers in secondary markets from Cox Communications Inc. for about $2.3 billion. That deal’s expected to close in April.

Should Cebridge close its deals and rise above the 1.5-million customer mark, it would surpass in size the eighth-biggest U.S. cable company, Rocco Commisso’s Mediacom Communications Corp.

If the West Virginia deal goes through as expected, it would be the first time Kent has bought systems from his former cable outfit.

Cebridge spokesman Peter Abel and Charter spokeswoman Anita Lamont both declined comment. A Daniels official did not return phone calls.

The West Virginia operation is said to be in good shape: It’s at 750 Megahertz capacity, with 210,000 customers served from a single headend, with relatively strong high-speed data penetration but no phone service. Another 33,000 customers are in Virginia.

Ex-Cable Guy’s Gripe Is Comcast 'Nightmare’

Here’s something you don’t want to see while the fate of your business is pending before the California legislature: the telecom adviser to the president pro tem of the state Senate bitching about his operator’s performance on the anti-cable blog called mycablenightmare.com.

We were surfing through the site when we found the comments by Joe Camicia (pictured), a Charter Communications Inc. veteran who works for State Sen. Don Peralta, a Democrat. According to the executive, he’s been sent to collections by Comcast Corp. in Sacramento for an unpaid bill for service to his former apartment.

Camicia told the Wire he’d notified Comcast three weeks before his move that he was canceling service. He wanted to smooth the transition to his new place and get installed quickly. Instead, Comcast cut his service immediately and he had to call to get it restored. Apparently, Comcast did not terminate the service at the former address on the date specified by Camicia. So now Camicia is getting bills from an outside collection agency.

As for the “nightmare” posting, he joked, “I want to win that [iPod] Nano.” The site, created by Consumers for Cable Choice, offers a Nano for the best bad-service tale about cable providers.

Comcast representative Erica Smith said her company endeavors to provide excellent service. But even if 99.9% of central California’s 750,000 customers have a great experience, that means a handful won’t get the service they should expect. Comcast “dropped the ball” with Camicia, she said.

Anti-Telco 'Baloney’ Site Attacks on Cable’s Behalf

There’s a darker side to the high-minded “Cable: A Success Story” happy-talk ad campaign. The same agency that created those commercials for the National Cable & Telecommunications Association has also crafted low-brow ads and a Web site called www.phonybaloney.net.

The site is designed to attack groups branded by NCTA as fake grassroots organizations, also called Astroturf groups. Such outfits as Consumers for Cable Choice and Freedom Works have had representatives show up in state legislative and Congressional hearings, representing the public but funded by telephone companies.

The agency, California-based Strategic Perceptions Inc., designed the Web site to accompany on-air 30-second and 60-second spots, currently running only in Indiana.

In the spots, a fat, sweaty man mouths the pro-consumer arguments, then leans under the table to say that, really, telcos already have the ability to compete but have chosen not to and that their entry will raise phone rates.

The site, heavy on animation, features images such as a yakking doll with dollars being inserted in its back while phrases like “freedom” and “choice” appear in word balloons.

Adam Brandon, a spokesman for Freedom Works, said his group predates the telecommunications debate and contended that while some support does come from corporations, the majority is from donations of less than $50 from some 700,000 members.

Regarding the campaign, Brandon said, “They’re about to lose their monopoly status. They’ll do anything.”