Time Warner Inc., which intends to merge with Comcast Corp, reported internet service is for the most part restored after US subscribers complained of outages in the morning.
The New York-based firm said that during a routine network maintenance, a glitch with its Internet backbone interrupted broadband and on demand products at 4:30 am New York time, according to USA Today. By 6. Am, services had for the most part resumed as updates made it possible for subscribers to get back online.
Customers woke up to no net access and the hash tag timewarnercable rapidly began trending on Twitter as subscribers expressed their disappointments. The nationwide net disruption came in the middle of Comcast’s efforts to earn regulatory nod to buy Time Warner Cable for $45.2 billion. Since the proposal was disclosed in February, the firms have faced subscriber disappointment over poor customer service as they try to gain backing of both regulators and the general public.
“The timing is really unfortunate with the scrutiny both companies are getting right now. “This outage has nothing to do with the merger, but it will be used by detractors to say: ‘See, they need to fix their service problems now before they are allowed to combine and have even bigger problems,†analyst Roger Entner of Recon Analytics LLC in Dedham Massachusetts is quoted by Bloomberg as saying.
Time Warner said it was looking into the source of the glitch.
Downdetector.com, a firm that monitors service problems, indicates there have been more than 10,000 Time Warner Cable problems in the past couple of hours in cities from Los Angeles to New York.
The firm had about 11.4 million customers with residential high-speed data subscription by June 30 and about 550,000 enterprise clients for its internet product. The merger with Comcast will bring together the two leading US cable firms.
To contact the reporter of the story: Yashu Gola at yashu@forexminute.com
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