At the national Cable Show, National Cable and Telecommunications Association CEO Michael Powell argued against those who think broadband internet access should be regulated as a public utility and deemed it so “because the internet is not regulated as a public utility it grows and thrives, watered by private capital and a light regulatory touch.”
Of course he didn’t mention the fact that customers continue to rate their broadband/cable providers almost unanimously dead last in just about every customer satisfaction survey.
Justin Fox of the Harvard Business Review took a look at specifically how Comcast has been investing over the last few years and found that they are simply making big acquisitions and giving lots of cash back to shareholders:
When I looked at a single company, industry leader Comcast, the story was one of a long, steady decline in cable investments as a percentage of cable systems revenue over the past decade and a half (I calculated it that way to reduce distortions from the acquisition of NBC Universal in 2011).