Charter Misses Deadline to Respond To Service Allegations

North Adams will explore its “next legal steps" after Charter Communications failed to respond by a Friday deadline to allegations of breaches of contract.

The Berkshire Eagle reports In a letter to Spectrum parent company Charter Communications last month, Mayor Thomas Bernard cited a number of alleged breaches of its license with the city and requested payments that exceed $500,000.

But Charter did not respond within the 30-day window, a timeline stipulated under its contract with the city.

With no response from the company, Mayor Bernard plans to explore options in consultation with the state Department of Telecommunications and Cable and the city's cable attorney.

The city's complaint centers around the company's failure to install contractually agreed-upon fiber lines between a number of Northern Berkshire public buildings and the Northern Berkshire Community Television Corp. headquarters on Union Street.

The letter also requested proof of payments that the cable company is required to make locally, as well as copies of its customer complaint and service outage logs. By failing to provide that information by Friday, the company has committed further breaches of contract, Bernard alleges.

The city alleges that new fiber lines should have been installed from Drury High School and City Hall to the NBCTC headquarters by March 16, 2016, but have yet to be put in place.

The mayor's letter also seeks a nearly $21,000 reimbursement to the NBCTC for costs the station incurred "to both test and make workable [when possible] the return signals from Drury High School and North Adams City Hall."

The city also has requested a list of information from the cable company, including proof of its contractual payments for public, education and government access channels and Municipal Access and Technology payments.

A representative for Charter told The Eagle last week that the company planned to respond ahead of Friday's deadline. Charter did not immediately respond Friday to a request for comment.