Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/07/27/15-gigalies-per-second.html
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So basically they counted 14K homes they were already required to service as part of their 36K under served or unconnected homes they agreed to provide service to in addition to their existing commitments got caught, then kept doing it? Wow, that’s some shady stuff right there.
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But really, what’s more important - progress, which serves only a few? Or the appearance of progress, which benefits everybody?
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ftfy 
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I’m so happy, and it’s Friday to boot.
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I was involved in a few CRTC proceedings here in Canada (think the FCC with more Quebecois accents). ISPs here always liked to point to the US market as a shining example of how light-touch regulation and a commitment to the pressures of the free market would lead to a telecommunications wonderland of happy, connected consumers. They made this argument even though at the time the US telecommunications industry had the lowest customer satisfaction ratings of any industry. (They managed to do worse than the airlines, although this was before United starting literally assaulting its passengers).
When I read an article like this, I think about Canadian ISPs making that argument and I laugh and laugh and laugh… and then I stop laughing because I realize that what they really want is permission to get away with the same crap.
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LOL. Allow me to offer my services as an expert witness as to our low customer satisfaction.
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Holy crap, it took about a day for them to follow through. Wow. I wonder if Charter will just leave everything hanging out of spite…
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So they’ll create some legal entity holding company and sell it back to themselves. Probably won’t accomplish a heck of a lot.
As someone who’s current provider is this very merger, I can only hope whoever picks up the former Time Warner assets is actually an improvement over Charter rather than a return to status-quo or worse.
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Yeah. Spectrum has me over a barrel. My only other choice for communications at home is satellite. I don’t even have a wireline phone - a few years ago, my copper failed and Verizon put in a cell terminal instead. My only other choice at the time would be to pay many thousands of dollars for them to dig up several blocks of street, or to sue. Even before the failure, I couldn’'t get DSL, or more than about 14.4k on dialup, because the neighborhood was on a subscriber carrier - there was more than one house per twisted pair.
My prediction: Spectrum will force the issue by retaliating against customers like me, while this issue is tied up in state courts. The Federal government will take over and say that New York State has no right to regulate broadband. There will be no consequences to Spectrum, beyond a few million to the lawyers. They’ll make it up in raised rates over the ensuing few years. The consequences for me will be the possibility of going from one carrier to zero.
And I’m in pretty dense suburbia, not out in the boonies somewhere (unless you’re a Downstater who thinks that everything north of Yonkers is ‘the woods’).
I have no desire to see the operators of Sonic.net nor MonkeyBrains (two ISPs in my area who support net neutrality and generally have sane, customer-friendly policies) beaten publicly.
My landlord, who will not permit them to install service in my building, on the other hand…
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