Comcast, which is planning to buy Time Warner Cable in a $45 billion deal, won’t commit to keeping Time Warner Cable’s upstate New York call centers open, including one in Rotterdam.

So the company says in documents submitted to the state Public Service Commission as part of its review of the merger – although companies rarely make such commitments in advance of a merger closing.

A consumer rights group called New York’s Utility Project sought the documents through state freedom of information laws.

Time Warner Cable, which has about 300,000 Capital Region customers, has fought the release of some of the documents related to rural broadband expansion (see a TU story here about that fight). But the two companies did not fight the release of others, although they have been redacted to protect trade secrets.

The issue of call centers is important to the PSC because most complaints about service and outages come through call centers. Time Warner Cable has call centers in East Syracuse, Rochester, Cheektowaga and on High Bridge Road in Rotterdam. The company redacted the staffing levels to protect trade secrets.

Time Warner Cable also has a call center in Vestal in the Southern Tier that serves the New York City market.

However Comcast , which only serves a small number of customers in Putnam County, does not have a call center in New York state. Comcast’s existing call centers serving residential customers are located in Massachusetts, Vermont and Connecticut.

The PSC asked Comcast how it planned to reduce the number of complaints that Time Warner Cable gets about outages and service problems in New York state.

“Comcast has not made any determinations regarding the specific steps it may take to address post-transaction service issues and consumer complaints in New York state,” the company wrote.

Companies like Comcast rarely know exactly what staffing cuts they will make in advance of a merger. While Comcast has likely set up a team to look at different scenarios for cost-cutting programs, they rarely know the true value of the other company’s assets until the deal is completed.

Comcast went on to say that its installation of “fiber optics and other technological advancements” has improved service quality. The company also said that it has “made improved customer service a key focus over the past several years.”

The PSC has promised to vote on the Comcast merger by the end of the month. However, no vote has been scheduled yet. There are only eight days left in the month, excluding Christmas. Commission staff was considering requiring Comcast agree to a variety of economic development and low-income service measures that would cost the company about $300 million.

Comcast did say in another response to PSC questions about staffing levels that Comcast “does anticipate that the merger will have some impact on headcount – although not so-called “customer-facing jobs.”

Comcast noted that during testimony before the U.S. Senate judiciary committee, Comcast Executive V.P. David Cohen said:

“Most of our jobs are – are the customer-facing jobs of technicians in call centers and local management, and we don’t anticipate any reductions in those jobs.”

Time Warner Cable also has a large in-bound sales call center that employs hundreds of workers on New Karner Road in Colonie. That center was not included in the PSC questions because it is not the call center that generally handles complaints.