Bigger is better -- for telecom companies, not Internet users

Charter Communications' merger any consolidates Associate in Nursing trade characterised by scant competition and intolerably slow net access speeds.

"Bigger is better" is the reigning trope among U.S. broadband companies, as Charter Communications this week gobbled up Bright House Networks for $10.4 billion. But better for whom? Certainly not U.S. Internet users, as the latest broadband reports peg lack of competition for causing high prices that have stalled Internet adoption rates and left more than 60 percent of Americans with unacceptably slow access speeds.

Charter, the fourth-largest cable company, and Bright House, the sixth largest, would along type the second-biggest cable operator within the u.  s., behind solely Comcast. Charter's deal, in turn, is depending on Comcast's acquisition of your time Warner -- which might transfer three million subscribers to Charter as a part of that mega-billion-dollar consolidation -- and therefore the expiration of your time Warner's right of initial provide for Bright House's a pair of.5 million subscribers. Is it any surprise that users square measure left feeling like mere pawns in an exceedingly high-stakes Game of Cable Thrones?

But whereas U.S. medium giants wheel and deal, Akamai's quarterly report on the state of broadband shows the u.  s. falling any behind the world broadband elite. wherever the u.  s. was, on average, hierarchic twelfth globally within the half of 2014, by year's finish it had been sitting at No. 16.

Mighty Delaware boasts the country's prime average speeds and prime penetration (68 percent) of access speeds at 10Mbps or higher than. however overall, the u.  s. comes in seventeenth for national net access speeds, with solely thirty-nine p.c of U.S. connections meeting a threshold of a minimum of 10Mbps.

In different words, fewer than 2 out of 5 Americans have broadband connections that permit them to seamlessly participate in an exceedingly 21st-century economy that includes teleworking, long-distance learning, or remote drugs. Granted, that figure represents a twenty p.c increase from last year, however it still does not likened to meeting the FCC's new minimum threshold of 25Mbps for broadband net.

What's worse, a replacement Center for Public Integrity analysis shows the adoption rate for broadband access within the u.  s. has slowed over the past many years, "due to the high price of broadband and therefore the lack of competition that results in those high costs."

The analysis of net costs in 5 U.S. cities and 5 comparable French cities found U.S. costs were the maximum amount as three.5 times over those in France for similar services. Not coincidently, net users in France usually will opt for among a minimum of six suppliers for high-speed net access; users in yank cities square measure lucky to possess 2. The report, complete with fulgurous maps of the service areas of U.S. providers, found that "telecommunications firms seem to divide territory to avoid competitory with quite one different supplier."

Charter corporate executive Tom Rutledge has explicit  that any consolidation is very important to the cable trade as a result of it "would facilitate cable firms management prices." however do not hold your breath looking forward to those lower prices to be passed on to users.

A clear link between competition and lower costs was on show in the week, as AT&T unrolled its secure gigabit broadband in geographic region -- albeit "for a steep value premium compared to the price of its GigaPower service in cities with gigabit net competition." In those regions of the country wherever AT&T competes with Google Fiber -- like Kansas town, Austin, and Raleigh, N.C. -- AT&T's costs square measure $40 not up to it's charging in Cupertino, Calif. It looks "Google Fiber's absence from geographic region is also smart for AT&T, however it [is] unhealthy for the wallets of Cupertino residents."

There's additionally a hitch: That lower cost is just accessible to users World Health Organization sign in for AT&T net Preferences -- a watching service that collects users' search and browser history so as to deliver targeted ads. because the Verge notes, "the message looks to be that while not competition, you not solely pay a lot of, you furthermore may offer a lot of away."

The introduction of Google Fiber is pushing the likes of AT&T to finally deliver on guarantees of quicker service. Another path to raised service is to encourage the unfold of municipal broadband. The FCC last month voted to overturn state laws that ban the building of municipal networks, however telecoms have lobbied laborious against municipal competition -- even in places wherever they need no interest in providing service -- and general assembly Republicans did not take long to attack the FCC's vote.

The FCC's call on whether or not to approve the Comcast/Time Warner merger is anticipated the center of this year. Charter's try at any consolidation would be Associate in Nursingother step within the wrong direction for an trade that painfully wants a lot of competition.

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