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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.
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.