Suddenlink FYI

In the category of semi-old news, nearly all of Suddenlink’s largest markets were named to Forbes magazine’s list of 179 “Best Small Places for Business and Careers,” published last month.

The Suddenlink cities and their ranking on the Forbes‘ list were:

If you’re looking for an easy-to-read, comprehensive briefing paper on the February 2009 digital transition, here’s one resource that fits the bill.

As long-time supporters of the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life fundraiser, members of Suddenlink’s Parkersburg, W. Va., team added a twist (and a cut) to their participation this year.

On April, 5, nine employees, three of their children and several friends went to a local hair salon to donate their ponytails to Locks of Love, a program that makes wigs for children who have lost their hair as a result of cancer treatments.

When the cutting was done, 36 ponytails totaling 399 inches (more than 33 feet) were headed to Locks of Love. The Suddenlink-Parkersburg team also held a bake sale during the clipping, raising additional money for the Relay for Life event, which will be held locally on May 16 and 17.

Rumors are stubborn things. Hopefully, facts are even more stubborn.

And the facts are these: Suddenlink cable TV customers do NOT need to order digital equipment from us to continue receiving our Basic and Expanded Basic services. In fact, cable TV customers will continue to have access to our Basic and Expanded Basic services — WITHOUT digital equipment — after the February 2009 digital transition and for the foreseeable future.

Local entrepreneurs introduced cable to Charleston, W. Va., in 1967. At the time, they had four employees and offered five channels for $5 a month.

From that humble beginning, the Charleston cable system is now owned by Suddenlink and offers a full array of advanced TV, Internet, and phone services. Approximately 700 dedicated employees work in the sytem, maintaining more than 8,000 miles of cable lines and equipment and serving more than 200,000 customers in four states: Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia.

Suddenlink acquired this flagship cable system from Charter Communications on July 1, 2006 — a purchase that made Suddenlink the largest company of its kind in W. Va. (Beyond Charleston, the cable system also serves several of the state’s other major cities, including Beckley, Logan, Princeton, and Parkersburg.)

On March 18, Suddenlink’s national network recorded its first day handling more than 3 million phone calls — up a half million per day since Jan. 2.

The company is rapidly approaching 115,000 total phone customers, many of whom have bundled Suddenlink Phone with Suddenlink TV and/or Internet services, resulting in significant savings during these challenging economic times.

Suddenlink Phone uses IP technology to transport calls over the company’s own, private, managed IP-based network, never traversing the public Internet. As a standard part of its service, Suddenlink offers unlimited local and domestic long-distance calls, plus a set of popular calling features. Suddenlink Phone also provides automatic access to the FCC-mandated Enhanced 911 system and is compatible with most modern alarm monitoring equipment.

To learn more or to order Suddenlink Phone, start here.

A recent Associated Press story suggests that cable TV customers may need to lease a set-top box from their cable company prior to the DTV transition on Feb. 17, 2009. That’s not the case for Suddenlink customers.

Our customers only need a set-top box if they want access to our Digital cable service. To continue receiving our Basic and/or Expanded Basic service, customers don’t need to do anything, if our cable lines are already connected to their TV sets.

Know the facts on the DTV transition.

A couple weeks ago, we shared correspondence from a customer of our New Bern, NC, cable system, who returned to Suddenlink after discovering that the claims of a direct broadcast satellite (DBS) company didn’t measure up to the expected reality. This week, we share a similar story from our Eureka, Calif., cable system. As before, the customer’s correspondence has been edited for space.

“A … satellite TV service … is advertising heavily in the Humboldt County area as well as nationally. In their advertising, part of what they promised is: ‘No startup costs or equipment to buy, and every package includes local channels.[’] By local channels, they don’t really mean locally produced programs from Eureka; they mean ABC, CBS, NBC out of Los Angeles. I understood that when I signed up and gave them my credit card number. They … told me that getting the so called local channels would take up to 45 days. While I waited for the local channels, I kept my cable service so that we could watch ABC and CBS programs and paid for both services. After 50 days of waiting, they … informed me that they could not deliver on their commitment to provide those local channels. The reasons that they could not deliver on their commitment [were] that the local TV providers would not grant a waiver to allow the LA station to be substituted for the local broadcasts. I can understand that because each lost customer means fewer people watching local commercials and that could impact ad sales. When they … informed me that they could not provide local channels I told them that I had no reasonable choice [but] to terminate their service and ask for a refund. I explained my situation both verbally and in a letter to their Billing Disputes Department. They responded by billing my credit card for $388.23, in addition to what I paid them for monthly service. Perhaps this letter will prevent others from making the same mistake that I made.”