The FCC has entered into a Consent Decree with Charter Communications, Inc. (Charter), concluding its investigation into whether Charter operated portions of its cable systems without Emergency Alert System (EAS) capabilities in 2023. The FCC has ordered Charter to pay $1,100,000 and to implement a compliance plan.
In anticipation of a December 12, 2023, compliance deadline, Charter stated that it began the process of upgrading its devices, but because of the large number of devices needing hardware upgrades, Charter was not able to complete the upgrade in time for a October 4, 2023, nationwide EAS test. Consequently, devices that provide alerts to more than one million customers were out of service at the time of the test.
