Hawthorne Press Tribune The Weekly Newspaper of Hawthorne Herald Publications - Inglewood, Hawthorne, Lawndale, El Segundo, Torrance & Manhattan Beach Community Newspapers Since 1911 - Circulation 30,000 - Readership 60,000 (310) 322-1830 - June 2, 2016 Inside This Issue Certified & Licensed Professionals.......................4 Classifieds............................2 Finance..................................3 Food.......................................5 Hawthorne Happenings....2 Legals................................ 5-7 Pets........................................8 Police Reports.....................3 Sports....................................4 Weekend Forecast Friday Sunny 75˚/63˚ Saturday Mostly Sunny 77˚/63˚ Sunday Mostly Sunny 73˚/61˚ Instructional Aide Receives Longevity Award Wiseburn School Board commends Corrine Mills on 40 years of service to the district. From L to R: Board President Israel A. Mora; Deputy Superintendent Chris Jones; Member Neil Goldman; Recipient of 40-year Longevity Award Corrine Mills; Superintendent Dr. Tom Johnstone; Member Nelson Martinez; Vice-President JoAnne Kaneda and Member Roger Banuelos. Photo by Marcy Dugan Charter Reveals Plans for Time Warner Customers By Rob McCarthy The telecom carousel continues as Time-Warner Cable was sold to Charter Communications, leaving 1.2 million Southern California customers wondering how the transition will affect their TV, high-speed Internet and phone services and Dodgers baseball. Time-Warner turned over its operations and cable and fiber-optic systems on May 18 to the much-larger Charter, which will now service the airport and South Bay communities. Charter says it won’t be re-branding its trucks or equipment or making programming changes just yet, but changes are coming. Time-Warner customers “won’t see any immediate changes,” Charter spokesman Justin Venech told the Herald. “The branding on the bill, current services, and channel lineups will stay the same.” Charter will phase in programming changes “in the coming months,” Venech said, without offering a specific date. The cable company will notify former Time-Warner customers about their viewing options once Charter migrates its Spectrum brand of programs and services to the Time-Warner cable systems in California and other states. Charter says it has 25 million home and business subscribers in 41 states. The company promises faster broadband speeds, better video products and more affordable phone service to new and existing customers. As the deal closed, Charter promised more investment in the two companies’ broadband network. The L.A. systems it acquired are all-digital. The spokesman assured Time-Warner customers they can keep their existing cable TV service once Charter launches its Spectrum brand in the L.A. market. “While we believe customers will see our Spectrum packages as more compelling and a better value, if a TWC ... customer likes the package they are currently in, they will be able to stay in that package,” Charter’s spokesman said. Former Time-Warner customers have to wonder how smoothly the changeover will go, given the sizable service problems that former Verizon Fios customers are experiencing with Frontier Communications. More than 1,250 customers as of last week had filed complaints with the Public Utilities Commission, according to a spokesman with the commission. The Public Utilities Commission apparently heard enough complaints to get involved. It held a public hearing yesterday in Long Beach about the many complaints lodged against Frontier by its subscribers. The meeting opened with a panel discussion about the phone outages, then the commission took public comment to hear firsthand accounts of how loss of phone and streaming video have affected households and disrupted business operations. Frontier had representatives at the hearing to assist with “customer service concerns,” the commission said before the event at Long Beach City Hall. An internet search about Frontier customer complaints found hundreds from California, Florida, the Midwest and Canada. A Redondo Beach customer of Frontier’s left a comment on the web site pissedconsumer. com about losing phone service for nearly two weeks. “Phone out reported the morning of May 9. Initial comment was action by May 12. Unacceptable, but it gets worse. Told a technician it would be out on May 14 by 5 p.m. No show. It’s now May 21 and nothing from Frontier regarding solution to this problem. They can’t (or won’t) tell me what the likely problem is and they lie.” Frontier blames corrupted software inherited from Verizon Fios for the repeated outages across Southern California and in several states. The telcom company promised state lawmakers last month it would correct the problems with slow internet speeds and service interruptions. A Lake Elsinore reviewer explained that Frontier canceled a service call and re-scheduled it without checking with her. “I have been on the phone with them multiple times due to not having internet service for last two weeks. They finally scheduled an appointment for a technician to come to my home then cancelled the day of and left an automated voicemail rescheduling the appointment for a day I would not be home,” the customer wrote. The Time-Warner sale to Charter is part of a shakeup of telecom ownership that started in July when AT&T U-Verse bought El Segundobased DirectTV. Frontier in April, wrapped up the deal to buy Verizon Fios and its landline divisions. All three pay-TV providers compete in the airport and South Bay cities. Charter quadrupled its number of Southern California subscribers and now services 1.5 million homes and businesses, according to published reports. Time-Warner customers will be relieved to know that Charter has contracts with the Los Angeles Dodgers for baseball, USC football and Lakers games. South Bay cities are yet to hear from Charter about its plans for the future. A change to the federal telecommunications act in 2006 stripped California cities of their authority over local cable TV providers. However, cable companies and cities have business relationships for public-access TV channels, some resident complaints, and maintenance contracts. Manhattan Beach has a five-year contract with Time-Warner Cable to maintain the fiberoptic cables for phone service, according to management fellow Kendra Davis. The new owners, Charter, have not contacted either See Charter, page 8
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