About Charter Communications

Charter Communications, Inc. operates as a leading broadband connectivity company and cable operator serving more than 32 million customers in 41 states through its Spectrum brand. Over an advanced high-capacity, two-way telecommunications network, the company offers a full range of state-of-the-art residential and business services, including Spectrum Internet, TV, Mobile and Voice. For small and medium-sized companies, Spectrum Business delivers the same suite of broadband products and services coupled with special features and applications to enhance productivity, while for larger businesses and government entities, Spectrum Enterprise provides highly customized, fiber-based solutions. Spectrum Reach delivers tailored advertising and production for the modern media landscape. The company also distributes award-winning news coverage and sports programming to its customers through Spectrum Networks. The company’s network, which it owns and operates, passes over an estimated 55 million households and businesses across the United States. The company’s strategy focuses on the evolution of its network, expansion of its footprint, and the execution of high quality operations, including customer service. This strategy allows the company to maintain a state-of-the-art network delivering the most compelling converged connectivity services in a capital and time-efficient manner, and in turn, offer advanced services to consumers at highly attractive prices, together with outstanding customer service. Offering high quality, competitively priced products and outstanding service allows the company to increase both the number of customers it serves over its fully deployed network and the number of products it sells to each customer. This combination also reduces the number of service transactions the company performs per relationship, yielding higher customer satisfaction and lower customer churn. The company’s network and product evolution plan is progressing, with a clear path to delivering symmetrical and multi-gig speeds to its customers across its footprint, meeting the needs of today and anticipating the demand for faster speeds. It continues to evolve its hybrid fiber coaxial network using a number of technologies, including spectrum expansion, initially to 1.2 GHz and then to 1.8 GHz, changing the bandwidth allocation to a high split to increase upstream speeds, Distributed Access Architecture (DAA) and DOCSIS 4.0 technology. Through this process, which the company expects to complete in 2026, it transforms its network to enable multi-gigabit data speeds to customers. In addition, the company expects its network evolution to enable it to offer fiber on demand across the majority of its footprint. In October 2023, the company began deploying Xumo Stream Boxes (Xumo) to new video customers. Combined with its Spectrum TV app, Xumo is now the company’s preferred go-to-market platform for new video sales. The company also expects to participate in additional federal, state and municipal grant programs over the coming years, including the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program, if regulatory conditions are conducive to private investment. The company’s rural investments allows it to offer a suite of broadband connectivity services, including fixed Internet, WiFi and mobile to over 1.6 million passings in unserved areas in states where it operates. During the year ended December 31, 2023, the company added 2,474,000 mobile lines and 155,000 Internet customers. During the year ended December 31, 2023, the company activated approximately 295,000 subsidized rural passings. The company’s mobile line and Internet customer additions were supported by its Spectrum One offering, which brings together Spectrum Internet, Advanced WiFi and Unlimited Spectrum Mobile to offer consumers fast, reliable and secure online connections on their favorite devices at home and on-the-go in a high-value package and were further supported by growth in its legacy and new subsidized rural markets. Products and Services The company offers its customers subscription-based Internet services, video services, and mobile and voice services, and related charges based on the types of service selected, whether the services are sold as a bundle or on an individual basis and based on the equipment necessary to receive its services. Bundled services, including some combination of the company’s Internet, video, voice and/or mobile products are available to substantially all of its passings. Residential Services Connectivity Services The company provides its customers with a suite of broadband connectivity services, including fixed Internet, WiFi and mobile which when bundled together provides its customers with a differentiated converged connectivity experience while saving consumers and businesses money. The company offers Spectrum Internet products with speeds up to 1 Gbps across its entire footprint. Spectrum Internet bundled with its in-home Advanced WiFi allows multiple people within a single household to stream high definition (HD) video content while simultaneously using its Internet service for other purposes, including two-way video conferencing, among other things. The company’s in-home WiFi product provides its Internet customers with high performance wireless routers and a managed WiFi service to maximize their wireless Internet experience. It offers Advanced WiFi service across all of its footprint along with WiFi 6E routers capable of delivering speeds over 2 Gbps. With Advanced WiFi, customers enjoy a cloud-optimized WiFi connection and have the ability to view and control their WiFi network through its Spectrum app (My Spectrum App). The company also offers Spectrum Security Shield across its footprint which protects all devices in the home using network-based security. Spectrum Security Shield is an automatically-enabled security feature that works to defend its customers and their devices from online threats by detecting and blocking malicious websites, phishing scams, data theft and Internet-originated attacks against devices in the home. The company also offers the capabilities of the Advanced WiFi service to multiple dwelling units (MDUs) as Advanced Community WiFi (ACW). With ACW, tenants receive the same visibility and control over their apartment’s WiFi networks through the My Spectrum App. The company’s Spectrum Mobile service is offered to customers subscribing to its Internet service and uses both its Spectrum Mobile network, as well as leveraging Verizon Communications Inc.’s (Verizon) cellular network. It leverages the Verizon cellular network to provide nationwide coverage including unlimited calls, text and data using Verizon’s fourth generation and fifth generation (5G) service including their 5G wide band services. In addition, the company continues to focus on improving the customer experience and integrating its mobile and fixed Internet products with enhancements, such as Spectrum Mobile Speed Boost (Speed Boost). The company provides wireline voice communications services using voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) technology to transmit digital voice signals over its network. Its voice services include unlimited local and long distance calling to the United States, Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico, voicemail, call waiting, caller ID, call forwarding and other features and offers international calling either by the minute, or through packages of minutes per month. For customers that subscribe to both the company’s voice and video offerings, caller ID on TV is also available in most areas. It also offers Call Guard, an advanced caller ID and robocall blocking solution, for its residential and SMB voice customers. Call Guard reduces customer frustration and improves security by blocking malicious calls while ensuring the company’s customers continue to receive the legitimate automated calls they need from schools or healthcare providers. Video Services The company provides its customers with a choice of video programming services on a variety of platforms, including through a digital Spectrum Receiver or an Internet Protocol (IP) device. Video customers have access to a variety of programming packages with approximately 375 channels available in home and out of home allowing its customers to access the programming they want, when they want it, on any device. The company’s video customers also have access to programmer authenticated applications, such as Fox Sports, Starz, NBC, ESPN and CBS and direct-to-consumer (DTC) applications, such as Disney+ which, beginning in 2024, is included with a customer’s video subscription. The company’s video service also includes access to an interactive programming guide with parental controls, and in virtually all of its footprint, video on demand (VOD) or pay-per-view services. It also offers digital video recorder (DVR) service that enables customers to digitally record programming and to pause and rewind live programming on set-top boxes. The company’s cloud DVR service allows customers to schedule, record and watch their favorite programming anytime from the Spectrum TV app, as well as SpectrumTV.com. In October 2023, the company began deploying Xumo to new video customers. Xumo combines a live TV experience with access to hundreds of content applications and features unified search and discovery along with a curated content offering based on the customer's interests and subscriptions. Combined with the company’s Spectrum TV app, Xumo is its preferred go-to-market platform for new video sales. Customers are increasingly accessing their subscription video content through the company’s highly rated Spectrum TV app via mobile devices and connected IP devices, such as Xumo, Roku and Samsung TV. Access to the Spectrum TV app is included in all Spectrum TV video plans. Commercial Services The company offers scalable broadband communications solutions for businesses and carrier organizations of all sizes, selling Internet access, data networking, fiber connectivity to cellular towers and office buildings, video entertainment services and business telephone services. Small and Medium Business (SMB) Spectrum Business offers Internet, voice and video services to SMBs over the company’s hybrid fiber coaxial network. In 2023, the company launched Advanced WiFi service to SMBs, which leverages the residential platform features, including Security Shield, with features specific to small and medium-size business, such as a guest service set identifier (SSID). In addition, the company offers its Spectrum Mobile service to SMB customers. Spectrum Business includes a full range of video programming and offers Internet speeds up to 1 Gbps across its entire footprint. Spectrum Business Connect with RingCentral is an SMB communications solution that includes Spectrum Internet, voice and complementary mobility features allowing its customers’ remote and office employees to stay more easily connected regardless of their location. The company also offers Wireless Internet Backup to its SMB customers which is designed to enhance and protect Internet service for SMBs in the event of a network disruption. Enterprise Spectrum Enterprise offers tailored communications products and managed service solutions over a high-capacity last-mile network with speeds up to 100 Gbps to larger businesses and government entities (local, state and federal), in addition to wholesale services to mobile and wireline carriers. The Spectrum Enterprise product portfolio includes connectivity services such as Internet Access (fiber, wireless and coax delivered); Wide Area Network (WAN) solutions (Ethernet, Software Defined (SD)-WAN and cloud connectivity) that privately and securely connect geographically dispersed customer locations and cloud service providers; and Managed Services which address a wide range of enterprise networking (e.g. routing, Local Area Network (LAN), WiFi) and security (e.g. firewall, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection) challenges. To meet the communications needs of these more sophisticated customers, Spectrum Enterprise also offers an array of voice trunking services and unified messaging, communications and collaboration solutions. The company offers Unified Communications with RingCentral, which integrates Spectrum Enterprise’s managed services to complement its other solutions and gives customers more choices for enhancing their digital experience across locations and devices. In addition, for industries such as hospitality, education and healthcare where specialized video solutions are demanded, Spectrum Enterprise offers a wide range of solutions designed to meet those requirements. Spectrum Enterprise serves businesses nationally by combining its large serviceable footprint with a robust portfolio of fiber lit buildings and a significant wholesale partner network. Advertising Services The company’s advertising sales division, Spectrum Reach, offers local, regional and national businesses the opportunity to advertise in individual and multiple service areas on cable television networks, various streaming services and numerous advanced advertising platforms. The company receives revenues from the sale of local advertising across various platforms for networks, such as TBS, CNN and ESPN. The company inserts local advertising on up to 100 channels in over 90 markets. Its large footprint provides opportunities for advertising customers to address broader regional audiences from a single provider and thus reach more customers with a single transaction. The company’s size also provides scale to invest in new technology to create more targeted and addressable advertising capabilities. Available advertising time is generally sold by the company’s advertising sales force. In some service areas, the company has formed advertising interconnects or entered into representation agreements with other video distributors, including, among others, Verizon, DirecTV and Comcast, under which it sells advertising on behalf of those operators. In other service areas, the company enters into representation agreements under which another operator in the area sells advertising on its behalf. These arrangements enable it and the company’s partners to represent and deliver commercials on their inventory across wider geographic areas, replicating the reach of local broadcast television stations to the extent possible. In addition, the company enters into interconnect agreements from time to time with other cable operators, which, on behalf of a number of video operators, sells advertising time to national and regional advertisers in individual or multiple service areas. Additionally, the company sells the advertising inventory of its owned and operated local sports and news channels, of its regional sports networks that carry Los Angeles Lakers’ basketball games and other sports programming and of SportsNet LA, a regional sports network that carries Los Angeles Dodgers’ baseball games and other sports programming. In conjunction with other multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs), Spectrum Reach enables multi-channel cable networks (e.g. AMC, Univision) to deploy household addressability on their own inventory in its footprint, charging them an enablement fee. The company also offers Ad Portal, which allows small businesses to purchase local cable advertising and/or creative services via its web portal with limited sales personnel interaction. The company’s fully deployed Audience App, which uses its proprietary set-top box viewership data, allows it to create data-driven linear TV campaigns for local advertisers. Spectrum Reach also offers a programmatic sales platform allowing advertising agencies and advertisers to buy inventory in a fully automated way. Streaming TV, which consists of Spectrum TV app impressions, as well as those from numerous over-the-top streaming content providers, is part of its suite of advanced advertising products available to the marketplace. Spectrum Reach is also employing multi-screen deterministic attribution services for television and streaming services that lets advertisers know the effectiveness of their advertising on Spectrum Reach’s platform. Other Services Regional Sports Networks The company has an agreement with the Los Angeles Lakers for rights to distribute all locally available Los Angeles Lakers’ games through 2033. It broadcasts those games on the company’s regional sports network, Spectrum SportsNet. American Media Productions, LLC (American Media Productions), an unaffiliated third party, owns SportsNet LA, a regional sports network carrying the Los Angeles Dodgers’ baseball games and other sports programming. In accordance with agreements with American Media Productions, the company acts as the network’s exclusive affiliate and advertising sales representative and have certain branding and programming rights with respect to the network. In addition, the company provides certain production and technical services to American Media Productions. The affiliate, advertising, production and programming agreements continue through 2038. The company also owns 26.8% of Sterling Entertainment Enterprises, LLC that carries New York Mets’ baseball games, as well as other regional sports programming. News Channels The company owns and manages 38 local news channels, including Spectrum News NY1 and Spectrum News SoCal, 24-hour news channels focused on New York City and Los Angeles, respectively. The company serves providing 24/7 news, weather and community content focused on hyperlocal stories that address the deeper needs and interests of its customers. Customers can also read, watch and listen to news stories by its Spectrum News journalists and local partner publications on their mobile device on its Spectrum News application and certain smart TVs and streaming devices. Community Solutions Spectrum Community Solutions (SCS) delivers broadband connectivity solutions to apartments, single-family gated communities, off-campus student housing, senior residences and RV parks and marinas. Services offered by SCS include Internet speeds up to 2 Gbps, property-wide managed WiFi coverage, and traditional and streaming video packages, as well as customized fiber and coaxial solutions for new construction and established communities. SCS also manages its relationships with third-party resellers of Spectrum services to small and medium-size businesses, as well as large, complex coax customers. In addition, SCS is responsible for the company’s non-bulk MDU salesforce covering sales within existing, serviceable MDU properties. The company’s SCS bulk customers are serviced by dedicated call centers. Network Technology The company’s network includes three key components: a national backbone, regional/metro networks and a last-mile network. Both the company’s national backbone and regional/metro network components utilize a redundant IP ring/mesh fiber architecture. The company’s last-mile network utilizes a hybrid fiber coaxial cable (HFC) architecture, which combines the use of fiber optic cable with coaxial cable. In most systems, the company delivers its signals via fiber optic cable from the headend to a group of nodes and use coaxial cable to deliver the signal from individual nodes to the homes served by that node. The company’s design standard allows spare fiber strands to each node to be utilized for additional residential traffic capacity, and enterprise customer needs as they arise. For its Spectrum Enterprise customers, fiber optic cable is extended to the customer’s site. For new buildouts, including for its rural construction initiative, and MDU sites, the company utilizes a fiber deployment. The company’s systems provide a two-way all-digital platform, leveraging DOCSIS 3.1 technology and bandwidth of 750 megahertz or greater, to virtually all of its estimated passings. This bandwidth-rich network enables the company to offer a large selection of HD channels and Spectrum Internet Gig across all of its footprint which enables it to provide fast, reliable and secure online connections, meeting customer demands. Through the company’s network evolution initiative, it is expanding its spectrum to 1.2 Ghz through a module upgrade in the hub, node and amplifier and using high splits and DAA to deliver multi-gig speed capabilities while using the DOCSIS 3.1 customer premise equipment. The company plans to complement its wireline investments with planned WiFi upgrades for in-home routers. With nearly 500 million devices connected wirelessly to the company’s network in its customers' homes and businesses, it is unlocking its network investments for multi-gigabit speeds through the deployment of WiFi 6E which began in 2023, and a planned shift to WiFi 7 in late 2024. The company owns 210 Citizen Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) Priority Access Licenses (PALs). It intends to use these licenses along with unlicensed CBRS spectrum to build its own 5G data-only mobile network on targeted 5G small cell sites leveraging its HFC network to provide power and data connectivity to the majority of the sites. These 5G small cells, combined with growing WiFi capabilities, increase speed and reliability along with improving its structure through offload of wireless data onto the company’s owned networks. In 2023, the company commercialized its first market with its 5G network and continues deploying 5G small cell sites in targeted areas of its footprint, as part of its broader multi-year 5G mobile network buildout. Rural Construction Initiative In 2023, the company continued its rural broadband construction initiative in which it intends to expand its network to offer a suite of broadband connectivity services, including fixed Internet, WiFi and mobile to more than one million estimated passings in unserved areas in states where it operates. The company sells its residential and commercial services using national brand platforms known as Spectrum, Spectrum Business, Spectrum Enterprise and Spectrum Reach. These brands reflect its comprehensive approach to industry-leading products, driven by speed, performance and innovation. The company’s marketing strategy emphasizes the sale of its bundled services through targeted direct response marketing programs to existing and potential customers, and increases awareness and the value of the Spectrum brand. The company’s marketing organization creates and executes marketing programs intended to grow customer relationships, increase the number of services the company sells per relationship, retain existing customers and cross-sell additional products to customers. Competition Internet Competition The company’s residential Internet service faces competition across its footprint from fiber-to-the-home (FTTH), fixed wireless broadband, Internet delivered via satellite and DSL services. AT&T Inc. (AT&T), Frontier Communications Corporation (Frontier) and Verizon are its primary FTTH competitors. Several competitors, including AT&T, Frontier, Verizon, WideOpenWest, Inc. (WOW) and Google Fiber, deliver 1 Gbps broadband speed (and some deliver multi Gbps) in at least a portion of their footprints which overlap its footprint. The company faces terrestrial broadband Internet (defined as at least 25 megabits per second (Mbps)) competition from three primary competitors, AT&T, Frontier and Verizon. Video Competition The company’s residential video service faces competition from large telecommunications companies, primarily Verizon, which offer wireline video services in significant portions of its operating areas. The company’s residential video service also faces growing competition across its footprint from a number of other sources, including companies that deliver linear network programming, movies and television shows on demand and other video content over broadband Internet connections to televisions, computers, tablets and mobile devices. These competitors include virtual multichannel video programming distributors (vMVPDs), such as Hulu Live, YouTube TV, Sling TV, Philo and DirecTV Stream. Other online video business models and products have also developed, some offered by programmers that have not traditionally sold programming directly to consumers, including subscription video on demand (SVOD) services, such as Netflix, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime, Hulu Plus, Disney+, HBO Max, Peacock, Paramount+, AMC+, Starz and Showtime Anytime; ad-supported free online video products, including YouTube and Pluto TV, some of which offer programming for free to consumers that the company purchases for a fee; pay-per-view products, such as iTunes; and additional offerings from mobile providers, which continue to integrate and bundle video services and mobile products. Voice Competition The company competes with over-the-top phone providers, such as Vonage, Skype, magicJack, Google Voice and Ooma, Inc. Mobile Competition The company’s mobile service faces competition from national mobile network operators, including AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile US, Inc. (T-Mobile), fixed wireless providers, as well as a variety of regional operators and mobile virtual network operators. Regional Competitors In certain service areas, the company’s residential Internet, video and voice services compete with WOW, altafiber, Google Fiber and Astound Broadband. Seasonality The company’s business is subject to seasonal and cyclical variations. The company’s results are impacted by the seasonal nature of customers receiving its cable services in college and vacation service areas. The company’s revenue is subject to cyclical advertising patterns and changes in viewership levels. The company’s advertising revenue is generally higher in the second and fourth calendar quarters of each year (year ended December 31, 2023), due in part to increases in consumer advertising in the spring and in the period leading up to and including the holiday season. Regulation and Legislation The Communications Act and FCC regulations cover a variety of additional areas applicable to the company’s video services, including among other things: licensing of systems and facilities, including the grant of various spectrum licenses; equal employment opportunity obligations; customer service standards; technical standards; mandatory blackouts of certain network and syndicated programming; restrictions on political advertising; restrictions on advertising in children’s programming; ownership restrictions; posting of certain information on an Federal Communications Commission (FCC) public file website, including but not limited to political advertising records, equal employment opportunity practices, compliance with children’s programming requirements, policies for commercial leased access, system information, and channel carriage information including disclosure of its ownership interests in channels it carries; emergency alert systems; inside wiring and contracts for MDU complexes; accessibility of content, including requirements governing video-description and closed-captioning; competitive availability of cable equipment; the provision of up to 15% of video channel capacity for commercial leased access by unaffiliated third parties; and public, education and government entity access requirements. The FCC has never classified the VoIP wireline telephone services, the company offers as telecommunications services that are subject to traditional federal common carrier regulation, but instead has imposed some of these regulatory requirements on a case-by-case basis, such as requirements relating to 911 emergency services (E911), Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) (the statute governing law enforcement access to and surveillance of communications), Universal Service Fund contributions, customer privacy and Customer Proprietary Network Information protections, number portability, network outage reporting, rural call completion, disability access, regulatory fees, back-up power, robocall mitigation and discontinuance of service. The company’s VoIP telephone services are subject to certain state and local regulatory fees such as E911 fees and contributions to state universal service funds. Additionally, to comply with RDOF program requirements, the company has chosen in the Rural Development Opportunity Fund (RDOF) areas to offer Lifeline VoIP telephone services subject to traditional federal and state common carrier regulations. History Charter Communications, Inc. was founded in 1993.