New York Orders Charter Out of State (arstechnica.com) 94
Yesterday, it was reported that Charter Communications could lose its license in New York because of its failure to meet merger-related broadband deployment commitments. Today, according to Ars Technica, the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) voted to revoke its approval of Charter Communications' 2016 purchase of Time Warner Cable (TWC). "The PSC said it is ordering Charter to sell the former TWC system that it purchased in New York, and it's 'bring[ing] an enforcement action in State Supreme Court to seek additional penalties for Charter's past failures and ongoing non-compliance," reports Ars. From the report: Charter has repeatedly failed to meet deadlines for broadband expansions that were required in exchange for merger approval, state officials said. The PSC has steadily increased the pressure on Charter with fines and threats, but Charter never agreed to changes demanded by state officials. As a result of today's vote, "Charter is ordered to file within 60 days a plan with the Commission to ensure an orderly transition to a successor provider(s)," the PSC's announcement said. "During the transition process, Charter must continue to comply with all local franchises it holds in New York State and all obligations under the Public Service Law and the Commission regulations. Charter must ensure no interruption in service is experienced by customers, and, in the event that Charter does not do so, the Commission will take further steps, including seeking injunctive relief in Supreme Court in order to protect New York consumers." The five types of misconduct that the commission cited to support its decision include: the company's repeated failures to meet deadlines; Charter's attempts to skirt obligations to serve rural communities; unsafe practices in the field; its failure to fully commit to its obligations under the 2016 merger agreement; and the company's purposeful obfuscation of its performance and compliance obligations to the Commission and its customers.
Nelson says (Score:3, Funny)
HA! HA!
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FCC and the interstate commerce clause tells NY state to go fuck itself.
Re:Nelson says (Score:5, Insightful)
FCC and the interstate commerce clause tells NY state to go fuck itself.
Neither has any bearing. Charter bought a legal entity that exists in New York State. They must comply with state law in the operations of that entity. They didn't. They lose.
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Charter can buy how ever it wanted where ever it wants. NY has zero authority to prevent this.
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Charter should refuse to sell the system and simply shut the thing off and pay all the applicable FCC fines and tell New York to suck it. The government has been over regulating wireline communications since the 1980s. BRING BACK THE BELL SYSTEM!
Win for Municipal broadband in the Empire State? (Score:2, Interesting)
Anybody care to comment on the odds of municipalities being able to pick up some of these assets to run on their own?
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that would be awesome but highly unlikely
Meet the new boss same as the old boss. (Score:5, Insightful)
My first thought is what does ordering out of state mean? The fiber they own, the Right-a-ways they own, any contractual monoplies they own and existing service contracts they own are property with value. Will they be able to sell these assets? If not it's a seizure of private property. Perhaps they will be allowed to continue service providing just not solicit new bussiness? Perhaps they will be allowed to lease these to another service provider?
What I might guess is that they spin off a company called "not-Charter" and then sell or lease these assets to this wholly separate company. A holding company is created to hold both Charter and "not-charter" so one company now owns both companies (like Alphabet).
Municipalities might try to fit to edge into this but how? not-charter has a competitive advantage of the customer base and existing lines. Municipalities might try to lease the lines but then they are just leasing charter stuff. They could start building out their own but things like right-aways on poles and properties will be a difficult thicket. Witness how Google fiber got screwed out of space on poles and conduits because they were not a registered telecom or lacked monopoly grants.
Ironically the thicket of regulations that might seem like limits of cable companies are lobbied for by these companies to create entry barriers. THey like paying for rights of way because it denies others. There are often state wide laws that prohibit a municipality from competing with private enterprise. Municipalities are not allowed to favor one company over another by gifting them anything (anti-donation clauses to avoid graft).
Thus charter exits, and non-charter enters. The customer's ID number on their bills doesn't even change. The profits all go to the holding company and the same share holders as before.
Cuomo moves on to the senate, and then charter donates to the campaign for his replacement. three years from Now charter buys out "non-charter".
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I think it's likely that Charter really would sell the assets to a distinctly different cable company rather than a subsidiary created for the purpose of evading NY's order. It's entirely possible that those assets would be purchased by a company like Comcast or Cox, neither of which is much of an improvement over Charter. It's also possible that a company like Verizon might want into the cable business, something that's been discussed previously. I doubt that Verizon would be a significant improvement,
Re:Meet the new boss same as the old boss. (Score:5, Insightful)
It means the State of New York revokes Charter's ability to carry on public utility business within the State. More importantly, it must divest itself of those business units that are under the PSC's regulatory discretion and do so in a manner that does not interrupt service to the customers. Failing to do so will incur additional penalties, for which the PSC is ready to take those proceedings all the way to the Supreme Court if needed.
In other words, a corporation is going to find out very quickly that you just don't fuck with the regulatory bodies of a sovereign power.
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They're required to sell the infrastructure to someone else. If they fail to do so in a timely manner, then eminent domain-style action will probably take place.
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Not eminent domain, they will simply setup their own public auction and give the proceeds to the Company.
Re:Meet the new boss same as the old boss. (Score:5, Interesting)
My first thought is what does ordering out of state mean? The fiber they own, the Right-a-ways they own, any contractual monoplies they own and existing service contracts they own are property with value. Will they be able to sell these assets? If not it's a seizure of private property.
Which is entirely legal in New York State. After Kelo v. City of New London several states amended their constitutions to prevent economic takings. Others passed laws forbidding it. New York did neither [castlecoalition.org]. If Charter refuses to do as ordered, NYS can and will use eminent domain to force them to, and they will succeed, very quickly by modern judicial standards, because of Kelo. It won't even make it out of federal circuit court.
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Equally likely is Cuomo moves on to the federal penitentiary adjoining Shel Silver's cell.
Re:Win for Municipal broadband in the Empire State (Score:5, Insightful)
The state spelled out exactly what Charter had to do in order to be allowed to purchase Time Warner. Charter agreed to the conditions. Now, Charter is being punished for not adhering to the specific details of the agreement (and for lying and saying that they had). The state tells them to GTFO and sell back the property, per their agreement
This is exactly how this should work, and good on New York for following through.
Politicians are too dumb to even politic (Score:1)
We see how stupid politicians end up being when they try to do their own job. Imagine them trying to run an ISP! ROTFL
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Fail (Score:2)
>> municipalities being able to pick up some of these assets to run on their own?
> not trying to run an ISP dipshit
Reading comprehension fail.
The NYS PSC (Score:5, Interesting)
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The phrase I believe you're looking for is "pour encourager les autres", which yes... one would hope that this will do.
OTOH, if Charter isn't filing for an injunction in court by Monday to stay the order pending, uh... "negotiation of financial instruments which definitely aren't going to the politician over there watching from the corner" I will be *shocked*.
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You sign an agreement then either you abide by it or you get hit with the hammer.
Re:fuck new york (Score:4, Insightful)
The US would go broke, and your local military base in Buttfuck, Nowhere would shutdown. Go fuck yourselves, traitor Putin bitches.
Shoud the win (Score:2)
Charter told Ars that it plans to fight the PSC's order to sell the former Time Warner Cable system
Should charter take this to the Federal supreme court, where they will probably win, I hope NY adds a 99% revenue tax (not profit) on charter. An ACA court case seemed to say if it is a tax the state can do what it wants
I wish my state had the balls NY seem to have now in reeling in this corrupt industry/p?
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can charter take this particular case to SCOTUS?
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can charter take this particular case to SCOTUS?
I would think so, the article states charter will be visiting the NY Supreme Court for this already. So where else would they be able to appeal to ?
Re:Shoud the win (Score:5, Informative)
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In New York, the Supreme Court is the bottom--the actual trial court. Sounds impressive and looks it on a business card, I suppose.
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Re: Shoud the win (Score:2)
Well itâ(TM)s the supreme law of the land so if they can come up with a constitutional reason they can certainly try. Whether the court will hear it is another matter.
IANAL and all that... (Score:2)
This is a state case in the state system. It can only go to the SCOTUS if they can get into the federal system. This requires them to show some kind of federal jurisdiction or a constitutional issue.
If they can make this showing, they can go to the US District Court. If they lose there, they go to the US Appeals Court for that district. If they lose there, they appeal to the SCOTUS (and good luck with that; they decide less than 150 cases each year out of about 7000 requests).
However, the issues at play
Contract dispute; Charter failed to honor. (Score:2)
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Charter claims that they "did" fulfill those obligations. This is just saber-rattling by lawmakers for the November elections, once December rolls around, this will all be 'resolved'.
Charter has directly given $556,970.60 in the last two years to the same people that are complaining, most of it right before the Charter/TWC merger was approved.
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If Chgarter did fulfill the obligations then it can present this in court. If the court decides that they broke the agreement though then tough luck for them.
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I'm sure they could structure it so it just happened to only apply to Charter. Say a tax on promised services that haven't been delivered or some such.
The Supreme Court will just declare the tax (Score:1)
It's going to take 50 years to undo the damage, longer if we don't wake up.
Cable (Score:3)
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i am just waiting to be disappointed when verizon comes in to buy the leftovers,
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Wow, a cable company failing to live up to its promises and obligations and actually being smacked hard for it? I am shocked and amazed. Which is sad.
We'd be better off without a PUC preventing competition, but since they're there it's amazing to see them actually enforce their rules. The regulatory-capture revolving door must be temporarily out of order.
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Smacked hard? Lol: Charter was a big "donor" to Cuomo for both AG and Governor.
Cuomo received $116,957,462.05 from corporations in the last 10 years (he also has his PAC and "Friends of Cuomo" entities which I haven't even included). Top of the list: Charter/TWC.
Nice! (Score:4, Insightful)
It's good to see these soulless corporations held to account for their bullshit. I hope NY now tries to make it easier for smaller telecomm companies to provide services to would-be consumers.
Re: Nice! (Score:5, Insightful)
Gotta love the folks who just skip over the "failure to meet deadlines", "failure to serve rural areas as agreed", and "failure to meet obligations they agreed to in TWC merger" parts.
How DARE these evil regulators require a business do what it said it would do. This must be all about unions.
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They failed to meet their deadlines and other commitments before the union fight started.
And there's things like pulling permits which do not require union work, and the lack of such activities demonstrates they aren't particularly gung-ho on actually meeting those commitments.
Re: Nice! (Score:5, Insightful)
Chances are, Charter was probably going to slip under the radar, then they started the union fight. The union reacted by filing a complaint with the PSC which led to an investigation and all the charges.
Charter was probably hoping to skirt by doing crap and having no one noticed, then they started fighting with the union and someone there realized Charter isn't quite on the up and up.
Usually it's just a pressure tactic, but I guess this time it backfired on Charter
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Charter and the PSC agreed to them as part of the approval for the TWC purchase.
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Also: Elections in November.
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Now if only Seattle would do that (Score:3)
Most of the city has a government-granted monopoly given to Comcast and as far as I know, they haven't expanded service in years. I have a few friends that live in the Wave area, and I'm jealous of the prices they pay and the bandwidth they have.
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Seattle's broadband problems are entirely self inflicted.
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Most of the city has a government-granted monopoly given to Comcast and as far as I know,
Then you know wrong, since exclusive franchises have been illegal by federal law for more than 20 years.
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And yet there are all sorts of ways to allow or even encourage a de facto monopoly without violating that federal law.
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Only if you're being pedantic.
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If you're criticizing and not taking legal action, it makes precisely no difference at all.
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If you're criticizing and not taking legal action, it makes precisely no difference at all.
Of course it makes a difference. The solution is different. For a "government-granted monopoly" for a cable company, you send the information to the federal DOJ and they can prosecute. Also, as specifically mentioned in the law, if YOU are denied a competing franchise, YOU can sue. I cannot sue on your behalf. You cannot sue on behalf of anyone else.
If it is a de facto monopoly, there is no lawsuit. No law is being broken. If nobody wants to compete, that's their FREE CHOICE. You can't force another compan
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There are also many reasons for de facto monopolies, none of which have anything to do with franchising or federal law. Of COURSE a municipality can ALLOW a de facto monopoly. It isn't against the law for a de facto monopoly to exist.
But this has NOTHING to do with ISPs, because there has NEVER been a gov
Not a death penalty... (Score:2)
... but it is "a humiliating kick in the crotch". I can think of a few other cable companies that deserve one.
Holy farukin crap (Score:3)
Then again, my 60 y/o cynical self thinks it's more like they didn't grease enough palms.
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Why should California get all the wierdos like Maxine and Pelosi? We have to balance out the west coast.
Gee, thanks! (Score:2)
After 12 years of trying to get cable service 5 power poles up my road via 3 diff companies (Adelphia, Time Warner, and now Spectrum), there was some hope this March. On a whim I called the # for Spectrum I just saw on TV, the CSR says "Oh yeah, we just opened up that service area to new orders and you are the first!". "Great, Let's do it!" I said. "2 weeks....blah blah blah". 3 weeks later, no return call, so I call... "Oh, your address is un-serviceable," they say. "Three weeks ago you said I was," I rep