Comcast, TWC officials urge NYPSC not to release information on their call center operations
Comcast and Time Warner Cable officials urged the New York Public Service Commission to exempt information on call center operations at Comcast and TWC from public disclosure laws in connection with PSC review of the first company's plan to buy…
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the second. The PSC remanded the companies’ appeal of a July decision by Administrative Law Judge David Prestemon that the call center operations information shouldn’t be exempted. Prestemon said he would issue a ruling on the remand after parties submitted responses, which were due Monday. Officials for both companies said they view information on their call center operations as a trade secret and its release would “unfairly advantage” competitors. Information about Comcast’s call center operations “identifies the number of employees at each Comcast call center in the Northeast, describes Comcast's call interflow parameters that direct calls to sister call centers, and sets forth also detailed facility-by-facility hours, staffing and operational information,” said Don Laub, Comcast senior director-Northeast Division regulatory affairs (http://bit.ly/1DxiUky). Information about TWC’s call center operations “identifies the number of employees at each Time Warner Cable call center in New York and sets forth also detailed facility-by-facility hours, staffing and operational information, including call interflow parameters,” said Terence Rafferty, TWC Northeast regional vice president-operations. Other information the PSC sought involved TWC’s broadband deployments. TWC said it opposes publication of an un-redacted version of that information, which shows “detailed build-out and deployment plans for individual projects in each affected Time Warner Cable franchise area,” Rafferty said. “The information is particularly granular, showing the plant mileage to be built out, the number of premises to be passed by the buildout, and the expected completion date” (http://bit.ly/1FxVayA). The Public Utility Law Project of New York said the Comcast and TWC interpretation of what constitutes a trade secret is overly expansive, and the PSC should release the information under the narrower definition used under the federal Freedom of Information Act (http://bit.ly/1sLK0Q8).