Letter to Mr. Thomas Rutledge, Chairman and CEO of Charter Communications - Schatz Presses Companies for Answers on Internet, Cable, Cell Phone Outage and Their Slow Response to Residents on Kauai, Calls for Plan to Prevent Future Outages

Letter

I write to express my concern regarding the recent service outages that impacted the island of Kauai in Hawai"i. I understand that sometime on October 27, 2019, a CenturyLink undersea fiber optic cable between Kauai and Oahu was damaged, which resulted in loss of Spectrum services across Kauai. It is also my understanding that this outage left many of the island's residents and businesses without access to phone, internet, or cable services for a 24-hour period, with some customers experiencing outages for up to two days. There was also a subsequent outage beginning on November 1.

Hawai"i is uniquely vulnerable to service disruptions due to the limited number of undersea cables supporting telecommunications for the islands. Companies serving Hawai"i must account for these challenges and ensure that the infrastructure they count upon to deliver service is reliable. This includes design and engineering that incorporates adequate redundancy in case of network path or equipment failure so that people and businesses in Hawai"i remain connected.

The outages on Kauai are a good example of how failed infrastructure that has not been made redundant can disrupt the lives and businesses of Hawai"i residents. I am particularly concerned that the outage appears to have contributed to interruptions of 911 services, which could have had potentially serious consequences.

Accordingly, to understand how Spectrum is addressing these challenges and ensuring that these types of outages do not happen again in the future, please provide my office with a written response to the questions listed below by November 22, 2019.

When did the outages begin and end? Provide dates and times.
When were customers and regulators given information about the outages? What information was provided, including whether they were informed about how long the outages were expected to last?
When did you become aware of the disruption to the fiber optic cable? When did you first receive communication from CenturyLink about that disruption?
Is network redundancy built into your service for Kauai Island and how? If so, what is your plan to enhance the redundancy for Kauai customers? If not, why not and how will you address this deficiency?
Thank you for your attention to this matter. I look forward to your response.

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