Jonathan Creek cable provider discusses service; transition

Oct. 3—When Carolina Mountain Cablevision was sold to Zito Media this summer, the move took customers by surprise, leaving many with a stream of questions and no place to turn for answers.

Customers with questions on bills or service could not stop by the Jonathan Creek office because it was closed, and were stuck calling a corporate phone system where they reported being on hold for a longer time than they could wait.

The complaints were brought to the company's attention by county leaders and the county's broadband committee.

At the recent Haywood County Board of Commissioners meeting, Zito Media co-owner Jim Rigas admitted the company's roll-out in Haywood was rocky.

"In any transition, there are always some bumps in the road," Rigas said. "I'll fall on my sword in this case. There were probably more bumps than we're used to."

Part of the transition difficulty was because of a cybersecurity attack the week before the company changed hands. The attack did no serious damage because there were backups, but it made the transition rougher than normal, Regas said, because personnel working on the transition also had to address cybersecurity issues.

The attack led to Zito hiring a forensic security company to figure out what happened and recommend ways to stop attacks in the future.

Another issue was staffing, something many businesses are dealing with in a post-COVID environment, Rigas said.

"We offered everyone from the prior company employment but there was significant turnover," Rigas said. "Filling positions and keeping those people has been difficult. It is our intent to keep the office open. We recently made progress, but it takes a while for people to get trained."

On the video side of the business, Zito has decided to stop carrying any new programming, and Rigas said there are video contracts the company no longer has because of the sharp rate hikes.

While the company will continue to support those who choose the company's video service offerings, the new emphasis will be to strengthen the broadband service to the homes, Rigas said.

"We decided to not carry Viacom after a rate increase," he explained, adding it included a series of channels previously on the network that are no longer available.

With improved broadband service, however, customers can select the programming that best suits their needs from the wide range of available providers.

Rigas discussed the changing communications industry, noting that in the last 17 years, the industry has gone from providing entertainment and video services to a business that focuses on a broadband network.

"The internet is key to everything we do," he said. "We're rebuilding a network for fiber to the home. We've increased service capabilities over time."

Planned upgrades

In Haywood, Zito has the capability to deliver up to 1 gigabyte download with upgrades planned to increase upstream capacity from the current 30-40 megabytes per second, to 200-300 mbps.

The final improvement is upgrading the fiber network to the homes, with the initial focus on the more densely served areas.

"The cable industry is split on where to go," he said. "The largest is Comcast and Charter/Spectrum, who are leaving the coax in place and upgrading. Others like us are more aggressive about pushing fiber to the home."

Rigas spoke of the opportunity to partner with the county to secure some of the federal and state funding being made available to provide broadband service to rural areas.

"There are some areas very close to our current network where we could better serve some of the sparsest areas," he said. "It would make sense to work with the county to develop an extension plan to go after those areas."