Charter Communications Inc. has put CSG Systems International Inc. on the
bill for the next 10 years, signing an extended customer-care and billing
agreement with the provider through 2012.
CSG will provide outsourced billing-management services to charter for the
MSO's video and high-speed-data customers. That includes using CSG's 'Care
Express' Web-based customer-care system, which allows electronic bill processing
and payment.
'We're confident that CSG Systems' products will provide consistent and
enhanced customer-care and billing-support capabilities,' Charter senior vice
president and chief information officer Michael Riddle said in a release.
'CSG has provided a dependable customer-care and billing service to us that
will continue to be a key success factor as we compete for new customers and
evolve our `Wired World' vision,' he added.
The extended deal comes at a time when CSG is still wrestling with AT&T
Broadband.
The protracted legal battle has AT&T Broadband trying to terminate its
extended billing agreement with CSG and accusing the billing provider of
withholding key customer data.
CSG, meanwhile, has filed a counterclaim, saying that the MSO has breached
their 15-year contract, signed in 1997, conspiring to replace the billing firm
and preventing it from bidding fairly on a billing-aggregation contract.
CSG has also filed a complaint against Comcast Corp., claiming that the MSO
-- which is currently in the process of merging with AT&T Broadband -- has
unlawfully tried to interfere in the AT&T Broadband
agreement.
