In response to recent letters regarding Charter Communications’ price increases and digital conversion, which now requires a rental box, the following information is offered for your consideration:

In my position as franchise coordinator for the city of South Portland for 21 years, I saw the Telecom Act of 1996 passed by Congress in exchange for promises by cable lobbyists of lower cable prices and more competition. This move deregulated the cable industry.

Mergers and acquisitions since have resulted in the opposite effect, as recent letters to the editor have pointed out. Municipal governments are no longer allowed to regulate pricing or services in the franchises they negotiate with the cable operator, and Big Cable is not regulated by the Maine Public Utilities Commission.

While it is marginally profitable to operate in rural areas, it is immensely profitable to operate in metropolitan areas. Charter’s gross profit margin is consistently over 35 percent. Charter could use those profits to subsidize rural cable and broadband (also unregulated), but public funding incentives are what Charter seeks, and any pretense at expansion should be viewed with caution. The New York Public Service Commission has ordered Charter out of the state for failing to deliver on similar promises there.

They want huge profits and a one-way conversation from them to their subscribers with as little regulation as possible. Their service folks are great, but Charter Communications and its product line, Spectrum, have also made it more difficult to see your local municipal meetings and events by moving the public, educational and governmental channels from their 30-year locations next to the local broadcast channels, up to digital Siberia in the 1300 block.

This was done to be able to lease the lucrative single-digit channels to the highest bidder – another win-win for corporate greed. Beware, state regulators!

Tony Vigue

Standish

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