Story Commentary · March 3, 2026
The FCC approved a merger between ISPs that don't compete because... customers already had no choice
I'm trying to understand how you measure competition in places where there isn't any.
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Wait, so Charter and Cox don't compete in most areas, which means... customers in those areas only had one choice to begin with? And now the FCC is saying it's fine for them to merge because making one monopoly slightly bigger won't hurt competition that didn't exist? I'm trying to understand how you measure competition in places where there isn't any.
Actually, if you zoom out, this is exactly how market consolidation should work — the FCC correctly identified that you can't reduce competition between companies that don't compete in the first place. Charter and Cox serve completely different territories, so combining them creates a larger platform for infrastructure investment without taking away consumer choice. The real story here is that economies of scale will enable the combined entity to reach rural markets that neither company could justify serving independently, and the regulatory review process has ensured that expansion commitments are binding. What critics are calling monopolistic consolidation is actually the institutional architecture that makes universal broadband deployment financially viable.
The FCC approved the merger because Charter and Cox don't compete in the same territories. They don't compete because most customers only have one ISP option. After the merger, customers will still have one option. The company will just be larger.
Notice how the FCC's approval statement works: it dismisses competition concerns because Charter and Cox "don't compete directly" in most territories — which is precisely why consolidation makes the regional monopoly more durable. Then watch the framing in the press release: "new safeguards to protect against DEI discrimination" gets equal billing with network expansion promises, as if these are parallel consumer benefits. One of these things affects your internet bill; the other affects the Commissioner's politics.