Charter Gets More Time For New York Unwind Plan

The New York Public Service Commission has granted Charter more time to produce a plan for discontinuing service in New York, extending the deadline to Oct. 9, as well as the deadline for appealing that decision, which is now Sept. 10.

The commission ruled on July 27 that the cable operator had failed to comply with the broadband network expansion condition the state put on the deal, as well as related matters in which it was "deficient," and require Charter to come up with a plan within 60 days of how to wind down operations in the state.

Charter, which is expected to challenge the ruling, sought an extension of the Sept. 25 deadline for filing the plan, saying it would give it more time to talk with the Department of Public Services before initiating an appeal or court proceedings, as well as of the Aug. 27 deadline for filing for a re-hearing.

The commission concluded that "the modest 14-day extension requested by Charter for both was "sufficiently timely and reasonable under the circumstances."

The state and cable operator had been tussling over how Charter was complying with the deal condition that it "pass' an additional 145,000 “unserved” (download speeds of 0-24.9 Megabits per second (Mbps)) and “underserved” (download speeds of 25-99.9 Mbps) residential and/or business units within less populated areas of New York (the Network Expansion Condition).

The expansion was to have been achieved in phases. The state says Charter failed to build out the requisite 36,250 premises by May 18, 2017. The state and Charter reached a settlement for that underperformance, but now the state says Charter has failed to meet its buildout targets--the commission disallowed some of the addresses Charter said had been reached--though Charter has told the commission it did not believe it has "disavowed" its commitments to the state.

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John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.