Charter 2013 Annual Report Download - page 15

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PART I
Item 1. Business.
Introduction
We are among the largest providers of cable services in the United States, offering a variety of entertainment, information and
communications solutions to residential and commercial customers. Our infrastructure consists of a hybrid of fiber and coaxial
cable plant with approximately 12.8 million estimated passings, with 97% at 550 megahertz (“MHz”) or greater and 98% of plant
miles two-way active. A national Internet Protocol (IP) infrastructure interconnects Charter Communications, Inc. (“Charter”)
markets. See "Item 1. Business — Products and Services" for further description of these terms and services, including "customers."
As of December 31, 2013, we served approximately 5.9 million residential and commercial customers. We sell our video, Internet
and voice services primarily on a subscription basis, often in a bundle of two or more services, providing savings and convenience
to our customers. Bundled services are available to approximately 97% of our passings, and approximately 62% of our customers
subscribe to a bundle of services.
We served approximately 4.2 million residential video customers as of December 31, 2013, and approximately 92% of our video
customers subscribed to digital video service. Digital video enables our customers to access advanced video services such as high
definition ("HD") television, Charter OnDemand™ (“OnDemand”) video programming, an interactive program guide and digital
video recorder (“DVR”) service. We initiated our all-digital initiative in 2013 in a number of our markets. We expect to complete
our all-digital rollout by the end of 2014. Once a market is all-digital, we will offer over 200 HD channels and faster Internet
speeds in these areas.
We also served approximately 4.4 million residential Internet customers as of December 31, 2013. Our Internet service is available
in a variety of download speeds up to 100 megabits per second (“Mbps”) and upload speeds of up to 5 Mbps. Approximately
75% of our Internet customers have at least 30 Mbps download speed which currently is the minimum speed we offer.
We provided voice service to approximately 2.3 million residential customers as of December 31, 2013. Our voice services typically
include unlimited local and long distance calling to the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico, plus other features, including voicemail,
call waiting and caller ID.
Through Charter Business®, we provide scalable, tailored broadband communications solutions to business and carrier
organizations, such as video entertainment services, Internet access, business telephone services, data networking and fiber
connectivity to cellular towers and office buildings. As of December 31, 2013, we served approximately 567,000 commercial
primary service units, primarily small- and medium-sized commercial customers. Our advertising sales division, Charter Media®,
provides local, regional and national businesses with the opportunity to advertise in individual markets on cable television networks.
For the year ended December 31, 2013, we generated approximately $8.2 billion in revenue, of which approximately 84% was
generated from our residential video, Internet and voice services. We also generated revenue from providing video, Internet, voice
and fiber connectivity services to commercial businesses and from the sale of advertising. Sales from residential triple play
customers, Internet and video revenues and from commercial services have contributed to the majority of our recent revenue
growth.
We have a history of net losses. Our net losses are principally attributable to insufficient revenue to cover the combination of
operating expenses, interest expenses that we incur on our debt, depreciation expenses resulting from the capital investments we
have made, and continue to make, in our cable properties, amortization expenses related to our customer relationship intangibles
and non-cash taxes resulting from increases in our deferred tax liabilities.
Charter was organized as a Delaware corporation in 1999. On March 27, 2009, we and certain affiliates filed voluntary petitions
in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York (the “Bankruptcy Court”), to reorganize under Chapter
11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”). The Chapter 11 cases were jointly administered under the
caption In re Charter Communications, Inc., et al., Case No. 09-11435. On May 7, 2009, we filed a Joint Plan of Reorganization
(the “Plan”) and a related disclosure statement with the Bankruptcy Court. The Plan was confirmed by the Bankruptcy Court on
November 17, 2009, and became effective on November 30, 2009, the date on which we emerged from protection under Chapter
11 of the Bankruptcy Code. The final decree closing the case was entered by the Bankruptcy Court on December 30, 2013.