AfterDawn: News

Charter Communications files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy

Charter Communications has filed for their anticipated Chapter 11 bankruptcy which will allow the ISP to restructure itself in an attempt to rise from bankruptcy.

Under the restructuring, Charter will completely eliminate $8 billion USD in debt and will no longer need debtors to finance the company's day-to-day operations. Notably, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen will keep his controlling stake in the company and will keep a board seat.



The fourth largest ISP in the US, Charter had a $1.5 billion USD loss for 2008 and was hit hard by the ongoing global recession.

The company does not know when it it will come out of bankruptcy, but says all current services will remain uninterrupted.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 27 Mar 2009 17:11

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• 17 comments

• Fiji5555

  I wonder if Charter will let me file for Chapter 11 since I STILL owe them $98 from about 3 years back which they never got from me :) I'm betting NOT lol.

  27.3.2009 19:12 #1

• solamf30

  I'm just glad Charter is staying. They have yet to say anything about all the bittorrent and the bandwidth I use.

  27.3.2009 22:13 #2

• cyprusrom

  Originally posted by solamf30: I'm just glad Charter is staying. They have yet to say anything about all the bittorrent and the bandwidth I use.Same thought here:)

  27.3.2009 23:22 #3

• mrklean

  Even with the new bandwidth capping?
  
  http://www.charter.com/customers/support...tarticleid=2124

  28.3.2009 00:23 #4

• blueboy09

  i have internet service thru these people and tried other ways like using air cards but to no avail (i live in rural territory which expkains why) but the sales rep didnt tell me squat about the cap limit that seemingly is in place. does anybody know what the cap limit is i think its f'ing retarded to do this but i guess when companies are desperate they will any tactic they can IMO. one positive thing out of the whole thing my waaaay overdue bill was cut in half tho. . .

  28.3.2009 01:32 #5

• cyprusrom

  Lets say every week there were released at least 5 good movies(yeah,right!). That would put us at 20 movies a month.
  20X~700MB = ~14GB. If you are not a dedicated leecher, lets say you up at least ~14GB, which would put you at 38-40GB. We could round it up to 50GB. Add 10-15GB for watching porn, another 10GB for putting junk on myspace, 10 GB for some music, youtube and stuff...Kinda stretching to reach even the 100GB.
  I think many people are more the kind "I don't care if I never even reach the limit, I just don't wanna be told what I can and cannot do".
  
  Honestly, I had no idea there was a cap. My router is been running at full throttle since forever, I still never got one notice about going over my limit. Even If I did, I couldn't complain, since I've been "privileged" with 1/2 price internet ;) for the past 1.5 years. And once I get my connectors, and my cantennas(thanks varnull!) go online, hopefully the price will go down even further:)!
  
  As for their costumer service-no wonder they went down under.

  28.3.2009 03:07 #6

• DXR88

  Quote:Notably, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen will keep his controlling stake in the company and will keep a board seat.i hate it when they hand out this bs. if the company goes so does the people that drag it into debt.a complete waist of taxpayer money. if you watch a company crash don't douse the fire let it burn.
  
  we bitch moan and groan why are we in a recession why are millions of Americans losing there job.
  
  well when your up at the top you don't have to worry about that.
  

  
  

  28.3.2009 22:55 #7

• emugamer

  Originally posted by cyprusrom: Lets say every week there were released at least 5 good movies(yeah,right!). That would put us at 20 movies a month.
  20X~700MB = ~14GB. If you are not a dedicated leecher, lets say you up at least ~14GB, which would put you at 38-40GB.20 HD movies between 4 and 6GB (720p) or between 8 and 15GB (1080p) would be an exponential increase. Strictly 1080p - that's 300GB alone. And that's strictly dl's, assuming that warez is the preferred source and not torrents. Although there are HD trackers that do offer most movies as free bandwidth. So if you're ok with SD, then you're probably fine. But if you've tasted HD and cannot turn back, then you're probably a big target. Can't forget music. Especially if FLAC is your cup of tea.
  
  I wonder how large the bonus will be for the Charter executives. Apparently bringing a company to the ground is a good thing these days and can be a rewarding experience.

  30.3.2009 12:14 #8

• cyprusrom

  If I have to wait a week to finish downloading a movie just to be able to watch it in full HD(yeah, you gonna throw in all the Usenet speed and blah, blah...) , I'll go and work at McDonalds for 3 hours instead and buy the damn thing...I wanna see who downloads everything in full HD...and buys a 1TB HDD every month to store everything.

  30.3.2009 13:05 #9

• emugamer

  Originally posted by cyprusrom: If I have to wait a week to finish downloading a movie just to be able to watch it in full HD(yeah, you gonna throw in all the Usenet speed and blah, blah...) , I'll go and work at McDonalds for 3 hours instead and buy the damn thing...I wanna see who downloads everything in full HD...and buys a 1TB HDD every month to store everything.I don't know about or care about Usenet. I don't keep track of my speed anymore, but I believe I can do about 10GB in less than an hour. Anything 720p obviously is half the time. I don't have Charter though. I don't know what their usage plans are.
  
  I wouldn't go so far to assume that people who dl everyting in full HD need to buy 1TB HDD's a month, because then you have to assume that everything is worth keeping. I manage to keep everything on about 1.5TB's total, with stuff coming and going. I'm using the HDD's I've had for a couple of years. Haven't bought a new one in quite a while.

  30.3.2009 13:54 #10

• cyprusrom

  Well,the way I see it, if one wastes the bandwidth and time to download tens of GB just to delete it a few hours later, then its a waste period. To me, if its crap that isn't even worth keeping to maybe watching a second time later on, then SD or HD, it is still crap, just a more costly one.

  30.3.2009 15:53 #11

• cart0181

  Originally posted by emugamer:
  Quote:I wonder how large the bonus will be for the Charter executives. Apparently bringing a company to the ground is a good thing these days and can be a rewarding experience.Yup, it's been time to overthrow the government for a while now. Somehow, I don't think the new regime is going to make the kind of 'changes' we're looking for. Just more and more tax increases forcing the wealthy to try underhanded tactics like this. No one seems to understand simple economics anymore. It's all high-minded theory that doesn't work in the real world. In the real world, when you spend more than you make, bad things happen. Also in the real world, when you steal from someone over and over again, and they find out about it, then very bad things can happen.

  30.3.2009 15:55 #12

• emugamer

  Originally posted by cyprusrom: Well,the way I see it, if one wastes the bandwidth and time to download tens of GB just to delete it a few hours later, then its a waste period. To me, if its crap that isn't even worth keeping to maybe watching a second time later on, then SD or HD, it is still crap, just a more costly one.It's only a waste of bandwidth if you are capped. Then every GB is important. And only a waste of time if you don't have the bandwidth. Anything is a waste of time really, if you decide it's not worth the time to make for it. For those that enjoy high bandwidth and no caps (for now), time is not an issue. Not to say that you are wrong in what you are expressing. Just that there is another side to the coin. It also depends on what each individuals viewing habits are, and the individual value placed on certain movies. Heck, if it will take 20 minutes for a 720p version vs 5 minutes for a SD version, I'll choose the 720p and wait the extra 15 minutes, just because I can and just because it's worth the difference in quality.

  30.3.2009 16:35 #13

• Bozobub

  If you think it's difficult to use up a 100 GB cap in a month, either your internet connection is rather slow, or you're simply bad at math.
  
  I use Comcast's fastest available non-commercial internet - 22mbit down/2 mbit up, generally see much higher speeds, ~30 mbit/3 mbit - and I can use ALL of that bandwidth in a very short time.
  
  First, you should remember that, when using p2p file transfer systems, you use bandwidth both ways.for one. Considering my connection's speeds end up at 2+ Mbyte/sec down and 300+ kbyte/sec up, well, you can kiss that cap buhbye pretty fast. 100 GB on a slower connection should be pretty similar, and if it's as fast as mine...Jeez. At full speeds 24/7, I have only (very roughly) 30 hours of bandwidth at 2.3 MB/s!
  
  Judging others' bandwidth usage by your own is incredibly misleading; you might as well simply stop doing so.
  
  And NO, you do not need to be doing anything illegal at all to use up bandwidth like candy. Need a simple example? Try the Tor Onion router network... And that's only the first example I came up with, after - literally - 1 second of thought.

  2.4.2009 16:50 #14

• DXR88

  for those of us that are baffled by conversion measurements there's this site.
  
  http://www.scalezone.com/convert/index.htm

  2.4.2009 17:43 #15

• cyprusrom

  Originally posted by Bozobub: If you think it's difficult to use up a 100 GB cap in a month, either your internet connection is rather slow, or you're simply bad at math.
  
  ... And that's only the first example I came up with, after - literally - 1 second of thought.No, my math skills are not very developed-although I was talking about volume, not speed. My neuro pathways are not as fast as yours either(one second to come up with that wasted good explanation, that was rather impressive!)
  Props to you for your lightning fast internet and "mathing" abilities!

  2.4.2009 18:41 #16

• dos2k6

  Caps limits are: 10mb subscriber is 100gb month,22mb sub is 250gb per month

  3.4.2009 22:28 #17