Charter Spectrum Tells FCC Broadband Caps Are 'Popular' As It Tries To Kill Merger Conditions Preventing Them

Charter Spectrum Tells FCC Broadband Caps Are 'Popular' As It Tries To Kill Merger Conditions Preventing Them

4 years ago
Anonymous $qOHwDUKgAF

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200812/07572945098/charter-spectrum-tells-fcc-broadband-caps-are-popular-as-it-tries-to-kill-merger-conditions-preventing-them.shtml

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're 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 is currently in the middle of trying to get the FCC to kill the merger conditions applied as part of its 2015 $79 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks. 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.

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