Charter Highlights Transaction Benefits

Shortly after announcing Charter’s merger with Time Warner Cable (TWC) and acquisition of Bright House Networks (BHN), the three companies filed a Public Interest Statement with the FCC outlining the many public interest benefits of the transaction. Since that time, we have had the opportunity to embark upon integration planning and to learn more about each other’s operations, investments, employees and businesses practices. In addition to putting us on sound footing to ultimately operate as a single company, this additional due diligence has enabled us to provide additional detail and analysis about the public benefits of the transaction.

To that end, we filed a letter with the FCC that will give the Commission and interested parties added confidence that they are meaningful, transaction specific and will be accomplished within specific timeframes. More specifically, the letter provides more details about increasing commercial and wireless competition, upgrading all TWC and BHN areas to all-digital, and providing innovative technologies to consumers in the communities that would be served by New Charter.

Here are some of the highlights of the letter:

Increasing Competition

• Competing to serve Small and Enterprise Businesses.
  • New Charter will be able offer disruptive pricing and highly competitive terms to small businesses spanning a wide range of industries, sizes and locations.
  • The businesses the transaction will enable us to serve are located in small to medium-size cities throughout the country that are currently underserved and where cable has not provided significant competition to date.
• Offering a wireless service.
  • New Charter’s scale and footprint make offering a mobile product, using Wi-Fi, deploying licensed spectrum or an MVNO arrangement – and likely some combination of these — a good investment we intend to pursue.

Increased Broadband Speeds and Innovative Technology for Consumers.

• Accelerated transition to all-digital.
  • New Charter will upgrade all of TWC’s and BHN’s currently non-digital customers to digital, giving them a minimum of 60 Mbps. and innovative video services, faster than would happen absent the transaction.
  • Approximately half of these currently non-digital customers will be transitioned within 15 months and the remaining customers within the next 15 months.
• Expanding Access to Advanced Technologies at Affordable Prices.
  • Customers across New Charter’s footprint will have access to Charter’s Spectrum Guide that allows intuitive search and discovery and the ability to access online video distributor (OVD) content, effectively converting traditional televisions into smart TVs.
  • As New Charter takes TWC’s and BHN’s networks all-digital, it will use Charter’s innovative WorldBox, which is less expensive than TWC’s and BHN’s set top boxes and ultimately will save consumers money.

As our planning continues alongside the FCC’s review process, we look forward to continued dialogue with the Commission and interested parties about the consumer and economic benefits that will exist under New Charter, demonstrating that this transaction is squarely in the public interest.

You can read more about these benefits here.