Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE: TWC) confirmed today that it intends to close down its National Division later this year, a move that could affect as many as 350 MSO employees in Colorado.

Of that number, about will 100 involve management positions, with the balance affecting customer care jobs that are currently serving the systems that make up the National Division, according to TWC spokesman Jim Gordon.

Time Warner Cable says the process of closing the National Systems headquarters in Denver and its supporting call center operations will start in about 90 days, "and continue for several months." The MSO plans to host on-site job fairs with local companies.

Following the closure, TWC says it will still employ 800 in five locations in Colorado, including the systems it operates in Gunnison and Telluride. The MSO will also keep its two facilities just south of Denver open, maintaining several functions there, including corporate marketing, design, finance, and engineering.

Gordon also confirmed that TWC's Advanced Technology Group, which operates out of Broomfield and spawned new services like "Start Over," and a call center in Colorado Springs, which currently serves the MSO's West region, aren't affected by the decision.

Although a label like "National Division" might lead some to assume that it's TWC's largest, it's not. The division comprises several small systems serving pockets of 15 states (Alabama, Arizona, Southern California, Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia), but they serve fewer than 1 million TWC customers combined. TWC's aggregate subscriber base is north of 14 million.

Gordon says systems in the National Division will be aligned with TWC's East, West, and Midwest regions (the MSO's other two divisions are Texas and New York City). For example, TWC's system in Dothan, Ala., will end up reporting into the East region, which is based in Charlotte, N.C.

Gordon says it's all part of an ongoing regionalization and standardization process. "We firmly believe that bringing [those systems] into the regional structure will have a positive impact on the customer experience."

Time Warner Cable is scheduled to report fourth-quarter results Thursday morning.

— Jeff Baumgartner, Site Editor, Cable Digital News