Now, it’s not too surprising that the FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler recommended that the commission approve Charter Communications’ plan to buy Time Warner Cable, but we were hoping that maybe he would come to his senses and realize just how STUPID that would be.
We were wrong. Anyone who thinks this is a good idea is obviously lacking sense.
Wheeler claims that the proposal “outlines a number of conditions in place for seven years that will directly benefit consumers by bringing and protecting competition to the video marketplace and increasing broadband deployment.”
Breaking that down into English, for just seven years, this evil megacorporation will not be allowed to have data caps or usage-based pricing, as well as cannot charge special fees to those heavy traffic providers. But, that is only for seven years. Then what? Then they can charge whatever they want and punish those high usage folks? That’s when people will be in a world of hurt.
It gets even worse. Time Warner Cable/Charter has promised to acquire two million more customers, and they will do this in some areas where other service providers already exist. This means that people will have a grand total of…drumroll please…two choices. Yay!
Let’s hope that the Commission has better sense and judgment. If they don’t, there will be some horrible consequences. We will be on standby.