Charter, Former Executive End Lawsuit
Charter said the executive was no longer employed by Metronet.
Jake Neenan
WASHINGTON, April 21, 2025 – Charter and a former executive ended last week a legal battle over the cable provider’s trade secrets, they said in a court filing
Charter had sued its former vice president of IT device activation, Prashanth Myla, alleging he violated stock option agreements and a Connecticut trade secrets law by taking the chief information officer job at fiber provider Metronet. Myla, a Colorado resident, filed a counterclaim arguing Charter’s agreements were too restrictive under Colorado law and seeking damages for the company’s attempted enforcement.
Charter and Myla agreed to voluntarily dismiss both claims, they told the Connecticut District Court Thursday.
The exact terms of the parties’ agreement were not clear, but Charter said Myla is no longer working for Metronet. The court filing sought the dismissal of both actions with prejudice, meaning they couldn’t be brought again in the future, and said each party would “bear its own attorneys’ fees and costs.”
“The matter has been resolved to Charter’s satisfaction and Mr. Myla is no longer employed by Metronet,” a Charter spokesperson said in a statement.
Myla’s lead attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Myla left Charter in October 2024 and joined Metronet in December. Charter asked the court to block him from the role, claiming he misappropriated, among other things, knowledge of “technologies used in the activation, administration, and integration of fiber and mobile services.”
T-Mobile is pursuing an acquisition of Metronet through a joint venture with investment firm KKR. The deal is still waiting on government approval, but T-Mobile’s purchase of Lumos, another regional fiber provider, was cleared last month.
Like the other major carriers, T-Mobile is looking to expand its wireline footprint in a bid to offer bundled home and mobile broadband services, which appear to keep customers around longer. Charter claimed T-Mobile’s partnership with Metronet would "undoubtedly leverage Myla's expertise in optimizing the interoperability of traditional internet services with mobile offerings.”
The cable giants are also pursuing a convergence strategy. Charter counts more than 10 million subscribers to its mobile service, and Comcast recently said it would redouble its efforts to pick up mobile subscribers. Both companies offer the service via a deal with Verizon but offload much of the traffic via Wi-Fi.
Myla’s Metronet job focused on “Information Technology (IT) support for wireline fiber services, including fiber construction, field operations (installation and repair), and customer technical support,” he wrote in his counterclaim. “This work has no connection whatsoever to mobile technology.”
