Charter Spectrum Funds Front Group To Try And Kill Small Maine Town's Plan For Better Broadband

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

For decades regional U.S. telecom monopolies have often refused to deploy broadband into low ROI areas, despite billions in subsidization. At the same time, they've fought tooth and nail against towns and cities that attempt to improve their own regional broadband infrastructure. Often by using a bunch of sleazy and disingenuous arguments, or, in some cases, literally buying and writing state laws that block locals from deciding what they can and can't do with their own local infrastructure. The only real goal: protect giant regional monopolies from disruption and competition.

In Maine, Charter (which sells broadband and TV under the Spectrum brand) has been waging a not so subtle war against the town of Leeds, which is contemplating a community broadband network. Charter took the time to help create a phony grass roots group dubbed Maine Civil Action, which bombarded locals with pamphlets telling them such a project would be an inevitable taxpayer boondoggle resulting in worse service (that's false, if you were unaware, not only do plenty of community broadband operations operate in the green, data suggests they routinely provide significantly cheaper, better broadband):

"McLean says town officials suspected that the pamphlets were linked to the broadband provider Spectrum, owned by Charter Communications, which has 31 million customers in 41 states, with revenues of nearly $50 billion last year. "There's little precedent for this on any other town issue. Very small town. And so to have the expense of a color, double-sided pamphlet being hand-delivered to people's homes was surprising for a lot of people," McLean said."

Creating bogus grass roots opposition to improving local infrastructure has long been a favored pastime of regional telecom monopolies. They hide their identity when running such marketing and disinformation campaigns, because if they pushed the pamphlets as themselves, nobody would (quite justly) believe that they have the best interests of the community at heart. Such local town initiatives are often being run on a shoestring budget, so a company with $50 billion in annual revenues can have a meaningful impact on the discourse.

In Maine, as is usually the case, when some local reporter presses the telecom giant about their involvement, they often lie:

"McLean said he confronted Spectrum's government affairs liaison Melinda Kinney about the pamphlets and that she denied that the company had any involvement. Maine Public attempted to contact Kinney, but instead received a statement from Charter's regional spokeswoman Lara Pritchard acknowledging that the company had provided funding to the Maine Policy Institute, the Portland-based conservative advocacy group that created Maine Civic Action."

As we've long illustrated, there are two reasons U.S. broadband is expensive, spotty, and slow: regional monopolies and the state and federal corruption that protects them. As we've also noted, community broadband is an organic response to decades of obvious market failure. If ISPs truly wanted to thwart community broadband, they could offer better, faster, more widely available service. Instead, they resort to dodgy games and scare mongering through bogus proxy organizations, all in a bid to protect the broken status quo. And, thanks to their massive budgets, it often works.

Filed Under: astroturf, broadband, competition, leeds, maine, municipal broadband
Companies: charter, charter spectrum

Cable Giant Spectrum Endangered Its Employees And Screwed Its Technicians During COVID

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

Most broadband providers saw a major uptick in both subscribers and revenue during the COVID crisis, as working and schooling at home exploded. But at the regional monopolies that dominate the U.S. telecom sector, revenue most assuredly didn't go to employees at most of these major companies. In fact, Gizmodo has a new report highlighting how cable giant Charter (whose broadband and TV services are sold under the Spectrum brand) doubled its revenues last year thanks to COVID, yet found a way to dramatically reduce pay for its field technicians:

"Like countless other corporations, Charter amassed new pandemic-era wealth— $3.2 billion, nearly double the previous year. Charter did so, in part, by widely expanding its “self-install” program, which it touted as a major “cost-saving” measure. But contract workers say the “savings” came straight out of their pockets through a systematic scheme to mislabel their jobs as lower-paying emergency fixes."

Charter was widely criticized for putting both the public and its own employees at risk in the early months of the pandemic. Workers whose jobs could be done remotely were blocked completely from being able to work at home -- despite repeated instances of positive COVID tests at the office (a stark contrast from Comcast). Meanwhile subcontractors complained consistently they weren't being given the PPE necessary to enter consumer homes safely. The company has also come under fire for exploiting an FCC COVID broadband discount program to drive customers to more expensive tiers.

At the same time, pay dropped significantly thanks to a procedural classification trick. During COVID, Charter's new self-install option reduced the need for an on sight technician visit, allowing the customer to connect and install the cable modem themselves. Inevitably cable technicians have to visit these homes anyway, either because the user screwed something up, or because there were inherent problems in the local building or block wiring that the customer couldn't fix. But Charter used this opportunity to classify these visits as somehow less important than traditional installs, reducing subcontractor pay significantly:

"Under William’s contract company, a TV, phone, and wireless hookup for Spectrum would normally pay a contractor about $64. But the same job reclassified as a self-install pays around $35 through his contract company. He and fellow contractors sent their managers emails with photos showing that they’d done four or five hour jobs for only $35, but it didn’t change a thing. William said that he’s lost 60% of his pay since Spectrum took over his local market five years ago."

For many years cable and broadband companies have distanced themselves from a lot of dodgy dysfunction by outsourcing work to third-party contractors. These companies are often dodgy as hell, and the employees are treated even worse than traditional contract employees, Gizmodo notes:

"Rob claimed that he lost his house and can’t afford to date because he can’t pay for dinner. He has to cover all of his own work expenses, which include surprises like a $2,000 meter that his company, which has a contract with Spectrum, forced him to buy, only driving him deeper into debt. That’s on top of the $300 per month for required liability insurance and the $8,000 to $10,000 in annual fuel costs. This summer, he couldn’t go to the hospital when he suffered heat stroke, a potentially fatal illness that can lead to organ failure. He worries that he’s one accident away from breaking down. “I feel brittle,” he said."

Most regional broadband monopolies don't see enough real competition for the "free market" (which U.S. telecom decidedly isn't) to apply any real pressure to do better. Charter union employees have been boxed out and are currently engaged in the longest strike in US history because they wanted better pay and health care. And because for the last 30 years the U.S. has generally operated under the idea that mindlessly deregulating U.S. telecom somehow produces near Utopian outcomes (it's abundantly clear this isn't true), regulators have largely become defanged and feckless. Then there's Congress, which is so slathered with telecom campaign contributions as to be largely useless.

As a result, nothing meaningfully changes, and it's not that hard to exploit a pandemic to grab more revenue without ever seeing regulatory or policy accountability.

Filed Under: covid, employees
Companies: charter

U.S. Broadband Growth Slows As the Profit Party Grinds To A Halt

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

For years we've watched major cable TV providers lose traditional cable TV subscribers hand over fist to cheaper, more flexible streaming alternatives. It was a trend that only accelerated during COVID. Don't feel too badly for companies like Charter and Comcast however; the companies' growing monopoly over faster fixed-line broadband across huge swaths of the country have allowed them to recoup their pound of flesh via broadband fees (or unnecessary usage caps) without much in the way of repercussion.

But there's signs that the cable broadband party could be slowing down. Both Comcast and Charter (Spectrum) reported the usual number of cable TV subscriber losses, but also reported significantly fewer broadband subscribers than usual:

"Charter on Friday reported 25% fewer new broadband subscribers than analysts estimated and said the overall number of new customers would fall back to 2018 levels. Comcast, which had earlier cut its subscriber forecast, reported 300,000 new internet customers Thursday, less than half the number added a year ago."

What's the reason for the slowdown? For one thing, the COVID telecommuting boom had artificially been boosting subscriber uptick as people struggled to work and learn from home. That's ending as people return to something vaguely resembling normal school and work life. Charter and Comcast largely blame a slow down in the new home market, leaving them trying to wring more subscribers out of a fairly saturated subscriber base (they often don't want to expand into new, often more rural areas because it's not profitable enough, quickly enough, for Wall Street).

Consumers also struggling during the pandemic aren't spending as much on services, which means downgrades to slower tiers, or cancelling service altogether and going cell phone only:

"Other factors could include a dropoff in lower-paying customers as government assisted broadband funds dry up. “There’s clearly softness in consumer spending,” said Maribel Lopez with Lopez Research. “They are making choices on tiers and downgrading services.”

This is where it gets interesting. With a saturated market and slowing growth, cable giants like Comcast will be forced to find a revenue boost from somewhere else to satisfy the insatiable appetite for quarter over quarter growth. Streaming isn't going quite as they planned (Comcast took a $520 million loss on its streaming service Peacock last quarter) due to intense competition. That means increased pressure to do a lot of the dodgy shit (arbitrary usage caps, overage fees, prioritizing certain services over others) that got them in trouble in the net neutrality wars.

With the FCC effectively crippled courtesy of the Trump administration, and Comcast lobbyists busy trying to scuttle Biden appointments to mire the agency in perpetual gridlock, I wouldn't be shocked to see Comcast and Charter come up with some aggressively idiotic new nickel-and-dime money making scheme in the next year. When a monopoly's growth gets restricted and Wall Street grows impatient for its blood sacrifice, there's almost always one person who winds up paying the price: the consumer. Especially when there's neither competition nor competent regulators capable of reining in the monopoly's worst impulses.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, fcc, growth
Companies: charter, comcast

ISPs Already Fighting FCC Plan To End Anti-Competitive Landlord Broadband Deals

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

Earlier this month we noted how the FCC announced it would be taking a closer look at the dodgy deals big ISPs make with landlords to hamstring broadband competition. While the FCC passed rules in 2008 outlawing strict exclusivity agreements, big ISPs have, for years, tap-danced around the loose wording of the restrictions, often by simply calling what they're doing... something else. ISPs also still do stuff like charging door fees just to access the building (making it tougher on less wealthy, small ISPs), or striking deals that ban any competitors from even advertising in the building.

Obviously the broadband industry loves these sorts of deals, as they effectively give them a building-by-building monopoly over broadband access. As such they're already trying to apply pressure on the FCC while claiming such arrangements are secretly a really good thing:

"Comcast, Charter, Cox, and NCTA–The Internet & Television Association (the cable industry's primary lobbying group) met with FCC staff to discuss the topic on September 2, according to an ex parte filing submitted last week by NCTA. During the meeting, NCTA "described the benefits of continuing to allow providers to enter into exclusive wiring agreements with MTE owners. Exclusive wiring agreements do not deny new entrants access to MTEs. Rather, exclusive wiring agreements are pro-competitive and help ensure that state-of-the-art wiring will be deployed in MTEs to the benefit of consumers," the filing said."

Granted this is the same industry that has a severe allergy to acknowledging that the U.S. broadband market has any flaws whatsoever, so of course Comcast's policy and lobbying arm thinks anti-competitive building deals are covertly a great thing. While the FCC's original rules tried to open up competitor access to in-building ISP wiring (often the property of a cable giant like Comcast), ISPs simply tap-danced around the restrictions by deeding ownership of those wires to a landlord in exchange for exclusive access to the wires. Because they're no longer technically owned by the ISP, exclusivity deals no longer violate the FCC rules.

It's all a very stupid affair, and highlights not only the lengths ISPs are willing to go to to hamstring competition, but the perpetual failure of U.S. telecom regulators to maintain baseline levels of competency. Not only were the original rules terribly written and constructed, ISPs have been exploiting that initial failure for more than a decade with absolutely no meaningful penalty. And while FCC does occasionally admit there's a problem here, the net result is usually little more than a few meetings.

This time the FCC is opening up the public commenting system for input from the public and ISPs that are harmed by these practices. But again, there's no guarantee the process actually survives ISP lobbying and ends with meaningful improvements to the rules. And because the Biden camp still hasn't appointed a permanent boss, the agency still lacks the voting majority necessary to implement actual reform anytime soon anyway.

Filed Under: apartment buildings, broadband, competition, fcc, isps, landlords
Companies: charter, comcast, cox, ncta

Glitches And Greed Mar Effort To Bring COVID Relief To US Broadband Users

from the band-aids dept

As part of a recent COVID bill, the government announced that folks struggling economically during COVID would be getting some temporary help. Under the EBB (Emergency Broadband Benefit program), U.S. consumers can nab a $50 discount off their broadband bill, or $75 if you live in tribal areas. The program ends when its $3.2 billion in federal funding expires, or six months after the government has declared an end to the pandemic.

To be clear the program is bringing some helpful aid to struggling consumers, with more than 2.3 million users signed up through the voluntary program's 825 participating ISPs. But this being the busted US broadband industry overseen by fairly feckless federal leadership, the efforts aren't going without a hitch.

For one, some ISPs like Verizon exploited the program to force consumers onto even more expensive plans (not too surprising for a company that thought it would be a good idea to cap, throttle, then upsell firefighters during an historical California wildfire). Other ISPs like Charter Communications, Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T greatly restricted which plans qualified for the program. A few ISPs, like Charter, rejected users who didn't agree to sign up for more expensive broadband tiers once the program ends. This violated FCC rules designed to prevent bill shock among poor people, but it's not clear the agency did much about it.

Charter and Comcast also appear to be rejecting qualified applicants based on incompetence and some dumb database issues. One qualifying Comcast user, for example, was rejected four times by Comcast despite being approved for the program by the FCC:

"Over the last several weeks, Corsaro said he's reapplied and been rejected by Comcast another three times. He's followed the circuitous trails of automated FCC phone lines that all lead to dead ends and appealed to the kindness of mystified Comcast agents, who have told him again and again that he needs to finish the FCC's verification process. "I keep telling them, 'I've been approved. There's nothing to finish,'" Corsaro said."

Such complaints are common over at Reddit for both Comcast and Charter. Some of the problems stem from something as simple as "street" versus "St." not matching between FCC and ISP databases, something it took several months to notice:

"It turns out even the smallest differences in how people enter their data into the different systems can trip them up — for example, writing Elm St. in one and Elm Street in the other. "We've learned in these early days of the program that the information consumers provide to an Internet provider must exactly match, to the letter, abbreviation, and number, the information they enter in the National Verifier," Comcast spokesperson Joel Shadle said in a statement. He noted that Comcast is "continually working with the FCC and USAC to make the process easy to navigate."

Again the EBB program is certainly a useful, if temporary, band aid, providing immediate relief to millions of Americans. But the program doesn't really do much to address the regional monopolization and lack of competition that makes US broadband so mediocre and expensive in the first place. Nor does it address the fact the Trump FCC gutted its own consumer protection authority because a bunch of telecom monopolies asked them to, using completely bogus justifications (something the Biden administration seems in absolutely no rush to remedy).

Instead of fixing the real causes of US broadband dysfunction (monopolization and the state and federal corruption and regulatory capture that protects it), we seem intent on applying layers of cumbersome bureaucracies on top of the problem. It's like applying a dozen band aids upon a severe arm wound, then wondering why a bunch of plastic strips aren't truly fixing the problem.

Filed Under: broadband, covid, digital divide, discounts
Companies: at&t, charter, comcast, t-mobile, verizon

Big Telecom Sues New York State For Trying To Bring Cheap Broadband To Poor People

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

If there's one thing that the U.S. broadband industry is terrified of, it's price regulation. The idea that the government might eventually cap the rates regional monopolies can charge in the absence of meaningful competition keeps a lot of executives up late at night. But despite a lot of fear mongering by telecom industry folks on this front, the U.S. has never really gotten even close to that reality. Repeatedly, even the most modest of non-price related regulatory telecom oversight efforts (from net neutrality to privacy) are routinely and easily dismantled by powerful lobbyists either before they can take effect or not long after.

Recently New York State passed a new law (pdf) demanding that regional broadband providers (Verizon, Charter Spectrum, and Altice) provide low-income consumers $15, 25 Mbps broadband tiers to help them survive COVID. The goal: to try and help struggling Americans afford the high cost of broadband. Under the proposal ISPs are also allowed to offer $20, 200 Mbps tiers, with any price increases capped at two percent per year.

Regulators engaging in anything even close to price regulation of regional monopolies is, again, said monopolies' worst nightmare. As a result the broadband industry quickly sued New York, insisting that the state is forbidden from passing such a law thanks in part to the Trump administration's net neutrality repeal. While many folks think that repeal just killed net neutrality rules, that was never true. It also killed much of the FCC's consumer protection authority, including its ability to adequately respond to billing fraud (which happens a lot in residential broadband thanks to misleading surcharges and fees).

The repeal even went one step further in claiming that states also aren't allowed to protect consumers from telecom industry shenanigans. The problem: the courts haven't been looking too kindly upon this argument so far. In part because once the FCC abdicated its regulatory authority over telecom, it lost any authority to tell states what they can or can't do. The industry has used similar arguments to try and attack state-level net neutrality rules, and it hasn't gone particularly well for them:

"An agency that has no power to regulate has no power to preempt the states, according to case law,” Stanford Law Professor Barbara van Schewick told Motherboard. “When the FCC repealed the 2015 Open Internet Order, it said it had no power to regulate broadband internet access providers. That means the FCC cannot prevent the states from adopting net neutrality protections because the FCC’s repeal order removed its authority to adopt such protections."

Basically, the broadband industry has spent four years having its cake and eating it too, demanding that nobody on either the state or federal level has any authority to tell broadband providers what to do, whether we're talking about basic rate regulation or even the most basic of consumer protections. While the Trump and Ajit Pai FCC thought that was just nifty, it's an argument that's not being taken particularly seriously by the States, which have simply doubled down on their own regulatory efforts to fill the giant consumer protection void left by Trump-era apathy:

"I knew giant telecom companies would be upset by our efforts to level the playing field, and right on cue, they're pushing back," New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a statement. "Let me be abundantly clear—providing internet in the Empire State is not a god-given right. If these companies want to pick this fight, impede the ability of millions of New Yorkers to access this essential service, and prevent them from participating in our economic recovery, I say bring it on."

Keep in mind New York is simply trying to force ISPs to offer low-cost service to low-income families. Despite the posturing here by Cuomo, the state likely lacks the political courage to take this idea one step further and regulate prices for all New York State residents truly upsetting deep-pocketed campaign contributors.

Again, none of this would be necessary if we had adequate competition in residential US broadband. But because pushing policies that increase competition upsets AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Charter, a corrupt Congress and captured regulators aren't willing to really do that. Meanwhile, the US telecom sector continues to whine about a "fractured landscape of state-level requirements," hoping you'll ignore the fact that they created this entire mess by repeatedly, brutally attacking absolutely every effort at even the most modest federal consumer protection oversight.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, digital divide, fcc, low income, new york
Companies: altice, charter, verizon

Striking Cable Techs Build Their Own ISP In NYC

from the build-it-yourself dept

Shortly after Charter Communications (Spectrum) acquired Time Warner Cable in 2016, the company simply stopped negotiating with its unionized employees in the New York City region. Not long after in 2017, around 1,800 Charter employees went on strike over a lack of any traction on healthcare and pensions... and they've been on strike ever since. At four years and counting, it's technically the longest strike in US history, and there's absolutely zero indication that Charter has any real interest in negotiating with the striking employees.

That said, they've been productive in their free time. Many members of IBEW Local #3 have been busy building their own broadband internet service provider (ISP) in the New York City region. Like the 750 other US towns and cities that have explored community broadband, the effort was born out of frustration with entrenched regional telecom monopolies:

"Watching every elected official constantly talk about finding a way to fix a problem while ignoring the solution we were already giving them motivated us,” (union worker and project lead Troy Walcott said). “Having elected officials thank us quietly for our sacrifice but not say anything about our strike publicly motivated us. Seeing customers denied service during COVID because they had outstanding bills motivated us."

So the union employees built an ISP, dubbed People's Choice Communications, that uses both fixed and wireless to deliver broadband for as little as $10 to $20 per month. It's so cheap because the model is effectively a cooperative, where the profits are shared by local customers. From the outfit's website:

"After we build out a network in your building, it transfers to cooperative ownership, so profits are returned to users,” the organization’s website states. “We are able to provide high-speed service in most cases for $10 to $20 a month. No more cable company ripping you off, and as an owner, you have a vote in policies like data privacy."

Granted, like other similar ventures like NYC Mesh, we're not talking about massive scale here. Such options lack the political and financial power to seriously challenge an entrenched regional monopoly like Charter, which is only growing more powerful as US telcos effectively give up on upgrading their residential networks in many markets because it's not profitable enough, quickly enough, for Wall Street.

But collectively, community broadband remains an undeniable movement as a growing roster of US towns and cities, pissed off after decades of monopolist dysfunction, eye building their own networks. That's not only bringing faster, cheaper options to market, but it's also the only thing really forcing many entrenched monopolies to try harder given the lack of US broadband competition and competent regulatory oversight. That's why said monopolies have effectively bought laws in 18 (soon to be 17) states hamstringing or banning local voters from pursuing the option.

Filed Under: broadband, community broadband, competition, nyc, striking workers
Companies: charter, people's choice communications, spectrum

With Trump Loss, Charter Backs Off FCC Request To Allow Broadband Caps

from the you-can't-always-get-what-you-want dept

To be very clear: American consumers don't like broadband usage caps. At all. Most Americans realize (either intellectually or on instinct) that monthly broadband usage caps and overage fees are little more than monopolistic cash grabs. They are confusing, frustrating price hikes on captive customers that accomplish absolutely none of their stated benefits. They don't actually help manage congestion, and they aren't about "fairness" -- since if fairness were a goal you'd have a lot of grandmothers paying $5-$10 a month for broadband because they only check their email twice a day.

Enter U.S. cable giant Charter (Spectrum), which has spent a good chunk of the last year trying to get the FCC to kill the merger conditions applied as part of its 2015 $79 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable. Those conditions, among other things, required that Charter adhere to net neutrality (despite the fact that the GOP has since killed net neutrality rules), and avoid usage caps and overage fees. Both conditions had 7 year sunset clauses built in, and Charter, eager to begin jacking up U.S. broadband consumer prices ever higher, has been lobbying to have them killed two years early.

To get its way, Charter petitioned the FCC, falsely claiming that such caps are "popular" among consumers. They even employed the help of the Boys and Girls Club, which was apparently happy to petition the FCC on Charter's behalf even if that meant selling out their constituents. Unfortunately for Charter, COVID has brought renewed attention on the fact that usage caps are glorified price gouging bullshit. And with industry BFF Ajit Pai headed for the exits, Charter has been forced to back off its request:

"Spectrum internet customers can be assured of an additional two years of unlimited internet service after Charter Communications dropped its petition Tuesday with the FCC to allow the cable company to introduce data caps. The FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau acknowledged receipt of Charter’s withdrawal of its petition to end a prohibition on the company imposing data caps and usage-based pricing mechanisms two years before the original agreement with the regulator expires on May 18, 2023."

Granted this doesn't mean that Charter won't simply turn around in two years when the conditions sunset and impose the restrictions anyway. The problem so far has been the optics of imposing predatory price hikes in the middle of a pandemic where broadband is seen as essential to survival. Even then, such concerns certainly didn't stop Comcast from recently expanding its own caps, or AT&T from restoring theirs despite the accelerating pandemic and millions of Americans still struggling to get online for work or education.

Even during COVID US broadband monopolies have tried to claim that such monthly usage restrictions are about "fairness." But they've never been about fairness. ISPs love to insist they just want to "experiment with price differentiation," but you will never see a giant ISP offer a super cheap plan for people like your grandma who only check the Weather Channel website and their email a few times a day. And they don't do that because the goal is to drive up the costs of everybody's connection over the longer haul to please investors' needs for higher quarterly returns.

Cable giants like Comcast and Charter can get away with this because in most U.S. markets, their only competition is a phone company that hasn't seriously upgraded its DSL lines since 2004 or so, or there's no competition at all. If the market actually saw competition and had functional regulatory oversight, you might see plans more closely tailored toward your actual usage. But in a market absent of real pricing competition and overseen by fecklessly captured regulators, what you get instead is endlessly higher prices, usually in the form of sneaky, misleading fees.

Filed Under: broadband caps, competition, fcc
Companies: charter, charter spectrum

U.S. Cable Broadband Monopolies Close In On 70% Broadband Market Share

from the Do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

The U.S. telecom industry's monopolization problem shows no sign of slowing down.

According to the latest data from Leichtman Research, the cable industry is nearing a 70% market share over fixed line broadband. That's thanks to many reasons, not least of which being that most U.S. phone companies have effectively given up on seriously upgrading their aging DSL lines, driving a greater portion of Americans to the only companies actually offering modern broadband speeds: Charter (Spectrum) and Comcast. Phone companies collectively lost another 150,000 subscribers last quarter, while cable providers added about 1,400,000 users in just three months.

For the cable industry, this is all a wonderful thing. Less competition from phone companies, combined with a Trump FCC that couldn't care less about the sector's competition problems, means they can get away with charging higher rates than ever for a service that comes (not coincidentally) with some of the worst customer service ratings of any industry in America (seriously stop and think about that for a moment).

With COVID-19 making it clear that broadband is an essential utility, users are flocking to cable connections if they want to remain tethered to their jobs, education, and friends. Charter (Spectrum), as a result, saw 850,000 new customers in one quarter alone, a quarterly record for any broadband provider, at any point in U.S. history:

"With the continued impact of the coronavirus pandemic, there were more quarterly net broadband additions in 2Q 2020 than in any quarter in eight years,” said Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for Leichtman Research Group, Inc. “In the first half of 2020, there were over 2.4 million net broadband additions. This is the most net adds in the first half of any year since 2008."

That's great news for cable giants, but not so great for consumers, smaller competitors, or the health of the internet.

Less competition overall means not only higher flat-rate prices, but more annoying fees, usage caps, and overage surcharges. It also means less incentive than ever to behave on subjects like net neutrality or privacy, improve customer service, or expand service into lower ROI areas (despite billions in tax breaks, subsidies, and regulatory favors). What exactly exists to curtail these companies' worst impulses or motivate them to do better? They face no competition, and U.S. regulators and lawmakers are potentially the most captured they've been at any point in the last 50 years.

There's a small glimmer of hope that low-orbit satellite ventures (from the likes of Space X and Amazon) and fifth-generation wireless (5G) could help shake things up, but the former lacks the capacity to seriously disrupt denser markets, and the latter still is far from being a direct competitor to fixed-line broadband due to high prices and nickel-and-dime connection restrictions. Meanwhile one of the more disruptive aspects of U.S. telecom, community-owned or public/private partnerships, have been under steady assault by the Trump FCC.

U.S. monopolization is not a bug, it's a feature. There is no panacea here, and nothing changes without both a dramatic shake up in American leadership, and major reform to rein in AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon's political influence over both state and federal lawmakers and regulators.

Filed Under: broadband, cable, competition, market share, monopolies
Companies: charter, charter spectrum, comcast

Boys And Girls Club Backtracks After Folks Ask Why It's Helping A Cable Monopoly Lobby The FCC

from the fake-plastic-enthusiasm dept

Last month we noted how the Boys and Girls Club was one of several organizations cable giant Charter (Spectrum) was using to lobby the FCC in a bid to kill off merger conditions affixed to its 2015 merger with Time Warner Cable. Many of those conditions actively protect consumers from monopoly price gouging (a 7 year temporary moratorium on arbitrary and unnecessary usage caps, for example). Other conditions worked to expand broadband into less affluent areas. Despite the conditions actually helping, you know, boys and girls... the club's letter opposed them.

In a letter to the FCC, the Boys and Girls Club insisted that a recent $5,000 donation by Charter to the organization helped it weather the COVID-19 storm, and that "lifting these conditions will level the playing field for Charter while having zero impact on the online video marketplace." But after activist and reporter Phil Dampier pointed out that wasn't true (garnering local press attention), both the Boys and Girls Club and Charter appear to have quickly pivoted to damage control mode.

In a statement to a Rochester, New York NBC affiliate, the Club acknowledges that after getting a big donation they signed off on a letter to the FCC that was written by Charter -- without reading it:

"The Niagara Falls Boys & Girls Club received a request and prepared letter from Charter Communications affirming their charitable gift of $5,000 to support our summer programming. After quick review of the letter we submitted it. Unfortunately, upon closer review we see that the last paragraph of the letter states that we support 'Charter’s petition to sunset merger conditions.' It was never our intention to officially support anything. The Niagara Falls Boys & Girls Club does not take a stance either way. We thank Charter Communications for their support of the youth development services we provide to Niagara Falls children."

Whoops-a-daisy! I not only accidentally lobbied the FCC on behalf of a local cable monopoly, I supported policies that actively harm the entire stated mission of our organization! Charter, for its part, issued a statement that fails to acknowledge much of anything, then tries to brush aside the gross quid pro quo as a "misunderstanding":

"Charter has supported the life-changing work of the Boys & Girls Clubs across the state for many years and we regret this misunderstanding. As an inherently local business with more than 10,000 employees in the state, we strengthen the communities we serve through employee volunteerism, in-kind support and technology, and philanthropic giving. We work in partnership with hundreds of local leaders and organizations, such as the Niagara Falls Boys & Girls Club and the 1,400 young people whose lives they enhance each year, and will continue to do so."

That's a non-answer and a dodge.

A wide variety of groups take telecom cash to repeat whatever they're told, whether it's rural school associations, the U.S. Cattlemen's Association, civil rights advocacy organizations, or even balloonist clubs. Sometimes entirely fake groups are created. Sometimes existing groups are "co-opted" to varying degrees to support bad policy. It was a common tactic in the net neutrality repeal. Hell, it was a major AT&T tactic in its bid to block the 1984 break up of AT&T.

For lobbyists the overall goal is simple: to create the illusion of broad support for bad ideas the actual public -- including these target groups' actual constituents -- otherwise oppose. One time out of twenty the press notices (reporting on unsexy but important merger filing minutiae doesn't generate many ad impressions), and everybody involved pretends it was just some accidental oversight. Because it's legal, nobody does anything. Rinse, wash, repeat.

Filed Under: astroturf, boys and girls clubs, donations, fcc, lobbying
Companies: boys and girls club, charter, charter spectrum