Aside from Halliburton, there is probably no better example of why corporate monopolies do not work than Charter Communications. Dominance in the Madison market, as well as in other areas across the country, has led to complacency, high prices and woeful customer service on the part of the cable goliath.
As a result, legislation that would open the cable market to competition, the oldest of capitalist motivators, is more than welcome. Other operators might be just as greedy as Charter but, given a choice, consumers would simply do away with the frustrating and unfair market control that has gone on for far too long.
Help appears to be on the way in the form of the Cable Competition Bill. Of course AT&T, the driving force behind the bill and the financer of ads over the past several years vaguely calling for a freer cable market in Milwaukee and Madison, is not exactly a model of corporate compassion.
Having already amassed and lost complete control of the telephone industry a generation ago, the company is surely more interested in giving a jump-start to its profit margin than in ensuring cheaper HBO.
Yet in this case, independent supporters of respectable cable service should still get on board. The bill could open the door to actual competition and, despite the small risk of AT&T simply supplanting Charter as a monopoly, would be unlikely to make matters any worse.
Performing more poorly than Charter would be a tall order indeed. Currently, customers are subjected to random service outages, fluctuating cost schedules routinely buried in the fine print of long term agreements and, perhaps worst of all, a customer service department completely incapable of handling the most basic concerns.
Questions or complaints sent to the company's website garner a form reply that directs customers to call for help. Calls, however, are met with long stretches on hold followed by a run-around that fails to produce any real results.
In short, Charter ignores its baseline responsibilities and seems only to be efficient in collecting its money. Then again, that is how heartless monopolies usually work.
As cable prices have risen across Wisconsin while states with various fairness laws have seen them drop, there is a clear impetus to support legislation that would challenge Charter's supremacy. Besides, AT&T is already advertising an agreement with the Big Ten Network that would rectify one of Charter's most glaring, if somewhat trivial, failures.
