Businesses complain about Charter phone outages

• Who to call about phone problems
• Call the company%27s national help line at 888-438-2427 for help
• Customers experiencing persistent problems can file a complaint at 800-646-6150 or PSC_complaint@mt.gov

Several Great Falls-area businesses have complained to the Montana Public Service Commission about occasional breakdowns in the phone service provided by Charter Communications that they said brought operations to a standstill, prevented customers from paying with credit cards and more regularly made it difficult for customers to call in.

The Great Falls school district's business manager said such phone outages create problems when parents can't call their children's schools and could be a particular concern if they occurred when the schools were on lockdown because of safety issues.

During the most recent outage, last Friday morning, Charter's phone service was out for about 4¹/₂ hours to mostly Great Falls-area commercial customers because of "an interface failure in which network equipment was not properly communicating," said Brian Anderson, a regional communications director for Charter out of Fort Worth, Texas.

Responding to a Tribune inquiry listing several complaints by area businesses and the Great Falls school district, Anderson issued a statement on Wednesday.

"In recent months, Charter Communications has experienced sporadic telephone outages impacting the Great Falls area," he said. "These outages were unrelated and the result of isolated equipment issues. We apologize for any inconvenience this had caused our customers.

"Charter remains committed to providing our Great Falls customers with the best possible voice, video and data services. To that end, Charter is investing millions of dollars in new infrastructure in Great Falls."

Anderson said Charter opened a new headend, or local master facility, near the University of Great Falls campus that houses its network equipment and a new store front that customers can visit at 1301 11th Ave. S., No. 1.

He said Charter is "continuing to take additional steps to improve our local service," but declined to provide more comments about other complaints.

Montana Public Service Commissioner Travis Kavulla said the state regulatory body has received 47 complaints about Charter's service in the last six months, with many coming from the Great Falls and Havre area.

While it is not clear whether a state utility commission has regulatory power over the type of computer-based phone service, voice over Internet protocol or VoIP, that Charter uses, Kavulla urged dissatisfied customers to let the PSC know so it can determine the extent of the problem and whether to act.

Four business owners or managers told the Tribune the over-arching problems has been occasional phone outages that limited their business operations. Two mentioned more frequent difficulty with customers calling in.

"Ever since Charter took over for Optimum, our service has been unreliable, with frequent breakdowns in our phone service," said Tom Wilson, owner of Data Northwest, a Great Falls company that sells and services computer systems throughout the state.

Charter purchased the assets of the broadband provider that offered cable-television, Internet and telephone services to 375,000 customers in Montana, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming for $1.625 billion in February 2013 and assumed operations in Montana in July 2013.

Wilson cited two recent phone system outages as being particularly disruptive to his business, in which calls for service to its Missoula, Bozeman and Billings offices are routed through the Great Falls office.

Charter's phone lines were down nearly all day once in late January and for five or six hours in mid-February, he said.

"We can't receive computer service calls from customers if the Great Falls lines are down and can't provide IT service to them," Wilson said.

A local Charter representative expressed concern, and because he complained persistently, the company provided credit on his bill for time when the phone lines were down, Wilson said. But that didn't make up for the time when his 18 employees around the state couldn't do their job because the phones were down, he said.

"Charter owes everybody in Montana reliable service," Wilson said.

Shawn Brown, manager of Kohoutek's Liquor Store, said the business has been a phone customer of Charter for two or three months, and experienced a couple of long phone outages during that time it never had experienced before.

"The downed phone line made it impossible for our staff to get access to our credit card line, which was an inconvenience for me and the customers who wanted to pay that way," Brown said.

"The last time it occurred, I told Charter it was costing our business money and we wouldn't hesitate to look elsewhere for phone service if the issue isn't cleared up."

Brian Patrick, director of business operations for the Great Falls school district, said Charter's lengthy phone outages this year and a few minor ones last year "are definitely a concern for the school district."

"Schools are in a unique situation," he said, "because parents want to phone in and find out what's happening if schools have a safety situation requiring a lockdown or shelter in place."

Such situations are somewhat mitigated now days because the school district can use Facebook and Twitter to notify many members of the public during such situations, he said, but basic phone access is still vital.

Two other Great Falls business owners also expressed concern about the sporadic phone outages and said they have experienced more frequent difficulty with customers trying to call in to their businesses.

Bud Hudson, owner of Mr. Tuneup, said his auto repair shop had problems for nearly seven months with dropped calls, in which the connection to customer phone calls was abruptly cut off, and missed calls, in which callers later told him their phone calls to the business rang several times and either went to an automated call can't be completed message or a rapid busy signal.

Hudson said Charter maintenance people changed his modem several times and tried other equipment changes, and he talked with Charter engineers over the phone, but the situation never improved.

He said he and his wife estimated they lost $2,000 to $3,000 in business a month, especially from potential first-time customers who probably ended up calling another maintenance shop when they couldn't call in.

Last week the business switched service to Century Link. Hudson said the same phone system worked fine under previous Bresnan and Optimum owners and seems to be working again.

Doug Palagi, owner of The Do Bar, said his business's phone and Internet service "has been extremely poor since Charter took over."

It has been difficult for customers to call in to ask about bar activities, he said, because calls often don't ring through and sometimes get connected to an automated message saying the voice mail system is full, even though bar does not have a voice mail system.

Palagi said he has called Charter a few times but was unable to schedule an appointment to get the phone situation remedied. He said he also was notified his business had an old Bresnan Internet account, and he tried unsuccessfully three or four times to register for a new one. Consequently, he said, he lost five years' worth of emails and contact information.