Charter 2001 Annual Report Download - page 14

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Together, they constitute a powerful mechanism for
bringing the promise of broadband to the American home.
The fact that we have been able to bring more than
35,000 miles of acquired or legacy networks up to our
new broadband standard in each of the past three years
reflects an enormous accomplishment. By carefully
managing the upgrade process, we’ve collapsed dramat-
ically the time it used to take to rebuild traditional
cable TV networks.
Through 2001, 80 percent of Charter’s physical
plant had been brought up to 550 megahertz or higher,
and more than 70 percent had been upgraded to 750
or 860 megahertz. Plainly speaking, that’s a vast amount
of bandwidth. By the end of 2002, our upgrade will be
nearly complete.
Another key attribute of our network upgrade has
been our ability to leverage our resources over wider
geographic areas. This “clustering” approach affords
great economies by allowing us, for the first time, to elim-
inate numerous local signal-distribution and processing
sites in favor of regionally centralized facilities. But we
don’t just save money, we also improve signal quality
and network reliability. By the end of 2002, the number
of centralized headend buildings we operate will shrink
to approximately 750 from the original 1,350, with our
100 largest central headends serving 90 percent of our
customer base.
That’s not all. In our remaining smaller markets,
we’re introducing a novel approach to service and content
improvements that takes advantage of a different econom-
ical networking technology. Essentially, we’re creating
a Charter-owned satellite delivery network that will bring
to smaller, more isolated markets the same kinds of
digital programming we’ve introduced elsewhere through
our Charter Digital Cable®service. With a bundled,
satellite-fed service, we can economically deliver to
smaller markets enhanced digital content that maintains
our competitive appeal – and fortifies our role as an
innovative company that makes advanced broadband
services affordable and easy to use.
Enhanced Customer Care
and Network Management
Along with our improvements in underlying network
technology and services, we’ve made advances in
customer care through investments in training, tools
and technology that allow us to respond more quickly
and more adeptly to customer needs.
The sheer volume of activity within our call centers
demonstrates the importance of our services to millions
of customers. Throughout the year, we engage in millions
of telephone conversations with customers who call us
for a range of reasons – from requesting new digital
service packages to optimizing their personal computers
for our Charter Pipeline service.
Telephone calls remain the dominant avenue of
sales and service upgrades for the company. That’s
why we’ve worked hard to improve the quality of the
telephone-service experience we deliver in support of
our advanced broadband offerings. In 2001, we began
an initiative to pack more capability into fewer call
centers, an approach that helps us usher in economies
of scale and share ideas that work across the entire
organization.
As of December 2001, we had opened four regional
state-of-the-art customer contact centers as part of our
transition to a consistent national customer contact
function. Additional centers are planned for 2002. Each
center is a comfortable, efficient and modern workplace
equipped with sophisticated tools such as intelligent
call-routing systems that identify our customers and
quickly distribute their phone calls to the proper service
agent. In addition, we employ qualified training, super-
visory and monitoring personnel and we’ve created a
career-path progression that rewards top performers
in both telephone and technical service roles.
Our investments in service improvements reflect
the changing profile of our business. As our products
and services expand, so does our mandate to support
more complex service challenges. Our company is proud
Revenue Growth from Advanced Services
Demand for digital cable and high-speed data
service has significantly increased over the past
two years. Deployment of these services drove a
14 percent increase in 2001 pro forma revenues
compared to pro forma 2000.
Annualized Quarterly Revenues
(in millions)
$100
$200
$300
$400
$500
$600 Digital Data
4Q99 4Q00 4Q01
$390
$210