A Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) call center in Colorado Springs, Colo., was evacuated Wednesday following a bomb threat.
Authorities searched the call center facility at 4900 Centennial Boulevard and determined it was safe. Employees were let back into the building in the mid-afternoon, according to reports from local TV news.
Police responded to a call at about 10:15 a.m. reporting that a Comcast employee had found a suspicious note inside the building, which is a secure facility, equipped with a security guard and limited public access.
"My understanding is it said 'a bomb threat' or 'bomb inside building,'" said Colorado Springs Police Lt. Mike Lux to KRDO-TV. "An employee of Comcast found that, brought it to their superiors."
Police scoured the building with a bomb-sniffing dog and a bomb squad, then searched again after Comcast officials requested a more strident check.
"We don't know of any trouble here previously that would lead to a threat like this," Lux said.
The Comcast event follows a series of similar threats to cable companies. In March, for example, a 23-year-old Lincoln, Neb., woman was accused of threatening to blow up a local Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) facility after she was allegedly stood up for an appointment.
And in July of 2014, a 71-year-old Quincy, Mass., man was indicted for making his own bomb threat to a local Comcast facility.
Going back further, a 27-year-old man was arrested in 2012 for threatening to "blow up and burn" a Charter Communications (NASDAQ: CHTR) payment center in Duluth, Minn.
Speaking at last week's Business Insider conference in New York, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts gave some insight as to why he believes cable companies rank at or near the bottom of consumer satisfaction surveys.
"We're up to well in excess of $13 [billion] to $14 billion a year at this one company to procure content on behalf of the consumer, and it's grown on average as an industry about 8 percent to 12 percent a year compounded for a decade," Roberts said. "If you drop a channel, you're incredibly unpopular, and if you pass along a rate increase, you're incredibly unpopular. So I think that is the essence, in my opinion, of why the category is perceived and then you make foot faults: You didn't show up on time or it didn't work."
For more:
- read this KRDO-TV web story
- read this Colorado Springs Gazette story
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