Predatory Pricing Or Plain Old Competition?

from the interesting-debate... dept

With all of the debates going on about muni broadband, there's another issue that's clearly going to come up concerning pricing. It's already happening in places that offer muni-TV apparently. Broadband Reports points to an article accusing Charter of predatory pricing on their cable TV service. It turns out that in Ashland, North Carolina -- where there is muni competition -- Charter was offering service for $24.15 per month. In neighboring communities where there was no muni service, the same package ran $45.99 per month. That's quite a difference. When alerted, Charter claimed they didn't know about it, and contacted local managers to kill the "promotional" program. The question, then, is whether or not this is "predatory pricing," as the article implies? One person is quoted saying: "They are either underselling for the sake of competitive pricing or gouging the heck out of everybody else. Either way, it's not a pretty picture. I'm very concerned about the pricing issue." However, if the presence of a muni helped drive down prices, that's probably a good thing for residents. In fact, thanks to this story, now people are paying more. Admittedly, if the super low prices were designed to drive the competition out of business, that might be a different story -- but if it's simply forcing more competitive pricing, that's good.