Cable and wireless companies are getting into bed together. And it’s bad news for the rest of us.
Verizon has struck a backroom deal with a cartel of cable companies — including Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications — to stop competing against one another and instead divvy up the spoils of the growing mobile market. And they’re keeping mum on the details of this arrangement.
Whether you use a mobile phone or a desktop to access the Internet, this secret deal poses a threat to anyone wanting online communications to be affordable and open to all. The public must know the specifics about these shenanigans — and the FCC should block any deal that harms consumers.
Tell the FCC to expose Verizon’s backroom shenanigans.
Verizon is already the largest wireless provider in a consolidated market. If there’s no competition to keep carriers in check, prices will continue to spiral upwards and services will decline. If this deal goes through, the cable giants will hand Verizon a giant chunk of the public airwaves, or spectrum, allowing it to grow even bigger while its wireless competitors wither away.
In return, Verizon will promise not to eat into the cable cartel’s broadband business.
This is nasty stuff. These companies are meeting — like the five families in The Godfather — to discuss how to divide up our Internet connections and to stop competing with each other. They’re carving up the Internet without disclosing their plans to any of us.
If this deal goes through, the United States will fall even farther behind on every global measure of broadband access, speed and affordability. Sky-high wireless and broadband bills will rise even higher, even if you’re not a Verizon or cable cartel customer. And even fewer people will be able to afford Internet access.
Tell the FCC it must expose these agreements and stop this deal.
These companies aren’t talking about trading sports players back and forth. The product they’re trading is our very ability to access information and engage in our democracy. This translates into a sacrifice of the open Internet.
There’s more. In just a few years more of us will get online with our mobile phones than with a desktop or laptop. If this deal goes through, Verizon will have an unprecedented amount of control over what we access online, and how.
Do you really want Verizon to have that kind of power? Tell the FCC to shine a light on Verizon’s shady backroom deal.
The future of the Internet is too important to be left to a handful of giant companies. Make sure the FCC hears from you before it’s too late.