Charter Lobbyists Sneak Language Into NY State Budget Bill To Hamstring Community Broadband

Lobbyists for Charter Communications (Spectrum) have snuck some sneaky language into New York State's latest budget bill in an effort to undermine popular community-owned broadband networks.

Part of the budget bill addresses the state's ConnectALL Initiative, which waslaunched in 2022to help direct the billions in broadband funding contained in the 2021 COVID relief and infrastructure bills. Because Charter wants the lion's share of that money for itself, they've seemingly managed to include language that prohibits use of this funding if an area is already deemed served."

The problem: U.S. cable providers have long falsely overstated the reach of their broadband networks in a bid to disguise their monopoly power and the resulting lack of competition. That's largely mirrored in historically awful FCC broadband maps those same cable providers have worked hard to ensure remain inaccurate.

Numerous New York State communities have responded to market failure and monopoly power by building their own fiber networks. Dryden, New York, for example, is currently delivering fiber to every last city resident. The town is offering symmetrical 400 Megabits per second (Mbps) for $45 a month, symmetrical 700 Mbps for $75 a month, and symmetrical gigabit broadband service for $90 a month.

But even these communities often have some modest broadband presence by giants like Charter, even if spotty. But this language would effectively declare parts of their own cities off limits for broadband deployment, undermining these projects' ability to expand and recoup their full investment.

Like most major ISPs, Charter has received billions of dollars to deploy broadband that's always mysteriously never quite fully delivered. The company was almost kicked out of New York State back in 2018 for substandard service, and for failing to live up to promises it made when it acquired Time Warner Cable. Prices are high, speeds are low (especially on the upstream), and customer service stinks.

Their lobbyists don't much like the fact that communities have started doing something about Charter's monopoly stranglehold on broadband access. So they often harass and sue community broadband initiatives, and in some states have even created fake consumer groups designed to pummel local voters with misinformation, usually under the pretense that they're just really concerned about taxpayers.

Gigi Sohn, whose nomination to the FCC was recently scuttled thanks to sleazy telecom industry lobbying, had this to say about the language insertion:

There they go again - incumbent cable lobbyists are trying to stop the inevitable growth and popularity of public broadband networks through last minute and non-transparent legislative tricks. That they are attempting to stop competition and community choice is especially outrageous as those same companies are taking, and will continue to take, billions of taxpayer dollars to build and sustain their networks."

There's been a big push by big ISPs to restrict the billions in federal broadband grants only to areas technically deemed unserved." But a big obstacle to broadband adoption is affordability. And broadband isn't affordable (or consistently available) in regions where unchecked monopoly power has been allowed to elbow out all meaningful competition.

If Charter really wanted to nip community broadband access in the bud, they could deliver faster, cheaper, better service. Instead it's usually cheaper to file lawsuits, spread misinformation, or lobby corrupt state officials keen on undermining their own constituents' quest for affordable access.