Charter 2013 Annual Report Download - page 24

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10
Markets
We operate in geographically diverse areas which are organized in regional clusters we call key market areas. These key market
areas are managed centrally on a consolidated level. Our twelve key market areas and the customer relationships within each
market as of December 31, 2013 are as follows (in thousands):
Key Market Area
Total Customer
Relationships
California 595
Carolinas 585
Central States 599
Alabama/Georgia 626
Michigan 644
Minnesota/Nebraska 346
Mountain States 384
New England 357
Northwest 499
Tennessee/Louisiana 530
Texas 193
Wisconsin 578
Competition
We face competition for both residential and commercial customers in the areas of price, service offerings, and service reliability.
In our residential business, we compete with other providers of video, high-speed Internet access, voice services, and other sources
of home entertainment. In our commercial business, we compete with other providers of video, high-speed Internet access and
related value-added services, fiber solutions, business telephony, and Ethernet services. We operate in a competitive business
environment, which can adversely affect the results of our business and operations. We cannot predict the impact on us of broadband
services offered by our competitors.
In terms of competition for customers, we view ourselves as a member of the broadband communications industry, which
encompasses multi-channel video for television and related broadband services, such as high-speed Internet, voice, and other
interactive video services. In the broadband communications industry, our principal competitors for video services are direct
broadcast satellite (“DBS”) and telephone companies that offer video services. Our principal competitors for high-speed Internet
services are the broadband services provided by telephone companies, including both traditional DSL, fiber-to-the-node, and fiber-
to-the-home offerings. Our principal competitors for voice services are established telephone companies, other telephone service
providers, and other carriers, including VoIP providers. At this time, we do not consider other cable operators to be significant
competitors in our overall market, as overbuilds are infrequent and geographically spotty (although in any particular market, a
cable operator overbuilder would likely be a significant competitor at the local level). We could, however, face additional
competition from other cable operators if they began distributing video over the Internet to customers residing outside their current
territories.
Our key competitors include:
DBS
Direct broadcast satellite is a significant competitor to cable systems. The two largest DBS providers now serve more than 34
million subscribers nationwide. DBS service allows the subscriber to receive video services directly via satellite using a dish
antenna.
Video compression technology and high powered satellites allow DBS providers to offer more than 280 digital channels. In 2013,
major DBS competitors were especially competitive with promotional pricing for more basic services. While we continue to
believe that the initial investment by a DBS customer exceeds that of a cable customer, the initial equipment cost for DBS has
decreased substantially, as the DBS providers have aggressively marketed offers to new customers of incentives for discounted