When Cole Marshall decided to buy an empty lot and build a house, one of his top priorities was getting fast and reliable Internet service. Marshall says he received assurances from Charter, the local cable company, that he could get Internet access to his home in Wisconsin. As it turned out, neither company could deliver.
Last spring, Verizon FiOS rejiggered its pay-TV slate into so-called “skinny bundles,” where customers pay for a small core base of channels and then add on smaller, niche-targeted bundles of channels as they please. The change resulted in a very public spat Disney, but the folks at Charter think it’s a good enough idea to consider.
How does Charter convince us that buying Time Warner Cable is good for people like you and me? Infuriatingly. One of the consumer benefits of the merger, according to Charter, is that they’ll actually obey the FCC’s net neutrality rules if it passes. How gracious! Were they planning to disobey if they don’t get their way?
In the heated lead-up to the FCC’s vote on new net neutrality rules, the cable and telecom industry repeatedly made claims that the new regulations would harm investment and curb innovation. But yet another top cable CEO is now saying that no, net neutrality isn’t having a negative effect on its network investments.
