Time Warner Cable has long had a rotten reputation, but now that the cable company is facing a takeover from rival Charter Communications, executives are promising that they're working to turn TWC around. A big part of that plan involves significantly upgrading its services in New York and Los Angeles under a new brand by the end of the year.

Newly-minted CEO Robert Marcus added on the earnings call that Maxx means "more reliable, better quality video, all digital signals and better, newer HD set-top boxes." That includes continuing the rollout of a "cloud" TV guide that — finally — offers a faster, native 16:9 HD interface. And they're going to offer a new box with 1TB of storage and six different tuners.

Lastly, the plan calls for improved customer service. Marcus said during the call that "the fact is that no one in the communication services space gets great marks for service — we intend to be the first." The rebranding might work side-by-side with these changes. The new name for the residential cable services is reminiscent of Comcast's "Xfinity" brand and Cablevision's "Optimum" service, and it's likely designed to show that it's a different and better TWC than you knew before.

The news follows a rough year for Time Warner Cable. The company's subscriber numbers were described by the CFO as "dismal." It lost 833,000 cable TV subscribers over the year compared to 532,000 the year prior — a result which was due in part to a spat with CBS. Rival Charter made a public bid for the company earlier this month, and alongside the offer executives like COO John Bickham trashed TWC's management, saying that they "failed to be a competitive company." Part of the criticism targeted the firm's limited technology investments. TWC thinks Charter's bid undervalues the company, and the CEO said that Charter's executives "see a chance to force a trade before the public realizes what we can achieve with our standalone plan." In either case, it seems the takeover attempt has pushed TWC to be more aggressive with its network upgrades.