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FCC Limits Order On Charter Extending Broadband Service (reuters.com)
According to Reuters, the FCC has voted on Monday to reverse a requirement imposed under the Obama administration that Charter extend broadband service to 1 million households already served by a competitor. From the report: As a condition of approval for its acquisition of two cable companies, Charter had agreed in May 2016 to extend high-speed internet access to 2 million customers within five years, with 1 million served by a broadband competitor. The decision was a win for a group representing smaller cable companies that sought to overturn the "overbuild" requirement and marked the latest reversal of Obama-era requirements by the new Republican-led FCC under President Donald Trump. Under the new order, Charter, the No. 2 U.S. cable company with 26 million residential and business customers in 41 states, must add service to 2 million additional potential subscribers in places without existing service, FCC spokesperson Mark Wigfield said. Supporters say the move ensures that more people without access to high-speed broadband, especially in some rural and urban areas, will have an option.
...and promptly refilled it with water that smells worse.
High speed internet never comes, only more outages with higher prices. Welcome to the Oligarchy States of America
From TFS, I gleaned the following:
Old - Extend services to cover 2 million more potential customers, 1 million of which must already be served by some other company.
New - Extend services to cover 2 million more potential customers.
Less competition, but more people who had no access will be getting access. Isn't that why you loved the "Affordable" Care Act?
What the hell is wrong with the existing competitor? Why has choice has become as taboo word in our society. :(
From TFS, I gleaned the following:
Old - Extend services to cover 2 million more potential customers, 1 million of which must already be served by some other company.
New - Extend services to cover 2 million more potential customers.
Less competition, but more people who had no access will be getting access. Isn't that why you loved the "Affordable" Care Act?
I'm not even sure why people are complaining about this.
Suppose you have 1 person with no internet access, and 1 person with access from a single provider. Which is more important:
1) Getting access to the person without, or
2) Duplicating access to the person with one already
We've complained for years about how providers ignore low-population-density areas, and the "existing subscribers" are probably already in these areas.
Why is this not a common-sense adjustment? Isn't getting people onto the internet the more important task, and worthy of being done first?
And on the flip side, I note that forcing providers to make useful changes in return for acquisitions is one way of fixing the problem. About 25 million households have no access to high-speed internet, and this one change should reduce that amount by 4%.
Yes, that's a little, but it's a little in the right direction.
What a great thing the FCC has done now to help make sure the cable companies will never face any real competition and will be able to set whatever prices they want.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
> ....The decision was a win for a group representing smaller cable companies....
"A group" would be the American Cable Association, whose representative members include Comcast, Viacom, and Discovery Communications among about three dozen others. "Smaller cable companies" indeed.
States license and permit the cable co opps, why arent they stepping in! States regulating this stuff is better than feds anyhow.
What makes this worse is that Charter essentially used this as an excuse to completely stop extending services anywhere during the lead up to the merger. I lived in a subdivision where Charter ran down the main road going past the subdivision, but not down into it. My neighbor and I got Charter to agree to run cable down to us, but then suddenly their engineer said the deal was off because they got an order to not extend service at all. Meanwhile we had essentially no broadband access because ATT also refused to extend service out that far. All this 35 minutes from Charlotte, NC, where Google is still thinking about running fiber everywhere.
It took 10 months for me to get service with a small, local FTTH. COMCAST is literally a few blocks down the street from me in the same n'hood, but refused to provide service. And AT&T DSL, well, we all know they stopped new service years ago after the FCC ignored their requirements--something I hope doesn't happen again with this deal.
If you live in an area without service, dealing with a monopoly is better than nothing at all. So, if you have service today, QUIT WHINING, SNOWFLAKES!
RRK