America’s most costly large cable internet service provider is Sparklight, formerly known as Cable One. Its internet plans are usually data-capped and it barely offers new customers a pricing break before high regular prices apply. Sparklight primarily services small cities and towns, many income-challenged, in the middle of the country. Customers do not have much to rave about, because Sparklight puts its own profits far ahead of its customers. The cable operator was among the first to slap on data caps and was the nation’s most aggressive at getting rid of costly cable television channels.

About the only thing that does move Sparklight’s pricing is the presence of a formidable competitor. In Meridian and Garden City, Ida., TDS Fiber (formerly TDS Telecom) has been bringing gigabit fiber to the home service to area residents at prices low enough to motivate Sparklight customers to abandon the cable company. That motivated Sparklight to improve their plans and lower prices.

First, let’s examine the internet rate card for ordinary Sparklight customers typically stuck choosing either the cable company or DSL from Frontier, AT&T, or Windstream:

Sparklight regular pricing nationwide

Notice the entry-level internet plan (100/10 Mbps) costs $55 a month, does not mention the $10.50/mo modem rental fee (required if you choose the company’s Wi-Fi service), an internet service surcharge of $2.75/mo (not charged in all areas), and a stingy data cap of just 350 GB, which is at least 100 GB less than what the average U.S. broadband household now consumes each month. Internet overlimit fees are $10 for each additional block of 100GB of data in excess of your allowance, up to a maximum of $50 a month. Unlimited service costs an extra $40 a month.

When you add it all up: for an unlimited (100/10 Mbps) internet service plan with in-home Wi-Fi, Sparklight charges $108.25 a month.

If you happen to live in a competitive service area, such as Meridian and Garden City, Ida., speeds are faster, prices are lower, and data caps are nowhere to be found:

Pricing for Sparklight in Meridian and Garden City, Ida.

Customers still face a $10.50/mo charge to lease a cable modem, and that $2.75/mo internet surcharge fee might also apply.

The prospect of competition could cut dramatically into company profits, which is one reason telecom companies are fiercely lobbying the Biden Administration not to fund municipal broadband projects or supply funds to a new competitor as part of the 2021 Infrastructure Plan.

President Biden

Large cable and telephone companies are applauding the Biden Administration’s compromise $65 billion broadband infrastructure plan, designed to reduce the number of rural Americans without access to broadband service.

Many industry lobbyists and Wall Street analysts were wary of earlier plans by the Administration to spend $100 billion or more on internet infrastructure expansion, because amounts that high were seen to likely attract major proposals from municipalities to construct their own independent broadband projects, some in direct competition with cable and phone companies. The Biden Administration had sought preferential treatment to fund public broadband projects, suggesting the direct competition they could bring would lower prices. Unlike for-profit phone and cable companies, municipal projects were “less pressured to turn profits” and would have a natural incentive to commit to serve entire communities.

Heavy lobbying from for-profit phone, cable, and wireless companies, largely directed at Republicans in the Senate, sought a much lower budget for broadband expansion in the $35 billion range and a commitment to discourage municipal broadband.

Last week the Administration and a small group of Senate Republicans settled on a $65 billion compromise measure, with many of the details still unavailable early this week. But big ISPs are already breathing a sigh of relief, convinced a slimmed-down compromise measure will choke off any existential competitive threat from municipal providers invading their turf.

Wall Street analysts predict the compromise measure will be too small to provide funding for competing major city municipal broadband networks and would continue the tradition of targeting funds on unserved, high-cost rural areas. Historically, this has resulted in funding going to nearby cable and telephone companies to subsidize expansion of existing networks into areas currently deemed too unprofitable to wire for service. But ample funds are still likely to be awarded to rural telephone and electricity co-ops to expand internet access.

Analysts expect the final measure will include a requirement to offer service at minimum speeds of 100 Mbps, which would be a challenge for wireless companies and rural phone companies seeking to expand DSL service. Most providers would likely have to use fiber optics to build networks consistently capable of delivering that speed. If the compromise measure only insists on 100 Mbps download speed, expect the cable industry to be relieved. If the minimum speed requirement is substantially relaxed to as low as 25 Mbps, that would also benefit wireless ISPs offering fixed wireless access.

Also unknown is whether the compromise measure still contains language overriding state laws that restrict or prohibit municipal broadband projects.

In an era when cable companies love to tout increasing internet speeds, one cable company is headed in the other direction, turning the clock back by announcing dramatic cuts in upstream internet speeds beginning in mid-July.

Altice USA’s Optimum made the announcement quietly in a footnote on their website, notifying new and existing customers that change service tiers after July 12, 2021 will experience upload speeds formerly as high as 40 Mbps cut in half or more. In one instance, customers that used to get 35 Mbps for uploads will now see that speed reduced to just 5 Mbps:

Optimum’s new downgraded speed plans.

This speed change affects customers still serviced by Optimum’s legacy coaxial cable network. Parent company Altice USA has been gradually replacing that older copper wire network with an all-new fiber to the home network, but customers that live in neighborhoods not yet reached by fiber will have to live with slower upload speeds or switch to Verizon FiOS, the fiber to the home network offered by Verizon in much of Optimum’s service area in suburban New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

You would never know about Optimum’s speed downgrades unless you carefully read the fine print.

Sen. Portman

Three moderate senators will reintroduce the latest in a line of broadband funding initiatives later today that would allocate $40 billion to expand rural internet access and provide subsidies to make service more affordable for income-challenged Americans.

The Broadband Reform and Investment to Drive Growth in the Economy Act (BRIDGE Act), is a bipartisan measure sponsored by Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, Democrat Michael Bennet of Colorado, and independent Angus King of Maine. Originally introduced in 2020, the measure has been expanded this year to combine rural funding of broadband projects with direct subsidies to keep service affordable for poorer Americans. The measure is considerably smaller than the Biden Administration’s own proposal to spend $100 billion on broadband initiatives, the $94 billion broadband proposal from Congressional Democrats, and the $65 billion compromise plan Republicans tentatively reached with the Biden Administration before talks were called off.

Funding would be provided to internet providers prepared to expand broadband service, but only using technology capable of providing speeds starting at 100/100 Mbps — gigabit being even better. The bill would also invalidate state laws that impede or prohibit the development of municipal/public broadband projects. This could eventually lead to additional competition in rural areas not adequately served by existing providers. Funding would also be used to reduce the retail cost of internet service for those qualified as economically disadvantaged.

The reduced cost of the bill would limit the number of rural subsidy projects and would likely not be enough to provide service to all unserved Americans.

Urgent CALL TO ACTION for ALL OHIO RESIDENTS!

The Ohio Senate has inserted an amendment (AM4546-1) into the state budget bill that, if adopted, would ban almost all community and municipal broadband projects in the state.

We need everyone to make a quick phone call to their state senator to demand the amendment be removed immediately! A full vote on this is expected tomorrow, so you MUST make that phone call today or early tomorrow morning. It will take less than five minutes of your time.

Here is what you can say:

“Hi, I’m calling to ask Senator _________ to vote no on Amendment AM4546-1 that has been attached to the budget bill. This amendment would seriously harm efforts to get broadband service to rural residents of Ohio and is essentially a project killer amendment. If it is adopted, municipalities that have been contemplating bringing internet access to their communities would find it nearly impossible to do so. This amendment is nothing more than protectionism for big cable and phone companies and I object to it. We need more broadband service in this state, not less. Please ask the senator to reject this amendment.”

Contact information:

If you do not know who represents you, visit the Ohio Senate website and enter your address information and you will be given details.

Because time is short, please CALL your senator at the number below. Just ask the secretary to take a message for the senator and, if you need to know what to say, see the above sample script. Always be polite, professional, and persuasive and thank the secretary for their time. 

Ohio State Senators 

Antani, Niraj

Senator – 6-R

614-466-4538

Antonio, Nickie J.

Assistant Minority Leader – 23-D

614-466-5123

Blessing III, Louis W.

Senator – 8-R

614-466-8068

Brenner, Andrew O.

Senator – 19-R

614-466-8086

Cirino, Jerry

Senator – 18-R

614-644-7718

Craig, Hearcel

Assistant Minority Whip – 15-D

614-466-5131

Dolan, Matt

Senator – 24-R

614-466-8056

Fedor, Teresa

Senator – 11-D

614-466-5204

Gavarone, Theresa Charters

Senator – 2-R

614-466-8060

Hackett, Robert

Senator – 10-R

614-466-3780

Hoagland, Frank

Senator – 30-R

614-466-6508

Hottinger, Jay

President Pro Tempore – 31-R

614-466-5838

Huffman, Matt

President – 12-R

614-466-7584

Huffman, Stephen

Senator – 5-R

614-466-6247

Johnson, Terry A.

Senator – 14-R

614-466-8082

Kunze, Stephanie

Senator – 16-R

614-466-5981

Lang, George

Senator – 4-R

614-466-8072

Maharath, Tina

Minority Whip – 3-D

614-466-8064

Manning, Nathan

Senator – 13-R

614-644-7613

McColley, Robert

Majority Whip – 1-R

614-466-8150

O’Brien, Sandra

Senator – 32-R

614-466-7182

Peterson, Bob

Senator – 17-R

614-466-8156

Reineke, William

Senator – 26-R

614-466-8049

Roegner, Kristina Daley

Senator – 27-R

614-466-4823

Romanchuk, Mark

Senator – 22-R

614-466-7505

Rulli, Michael

Senator – 33-R

614-466-8285

Schaffer, Tim

Senator – 20-R

614-466-8076

Schuring, Kirk

Majority Floor Leader – 29-R

614-466-0626

Sykes, Vernon

Senator – 28-D

614-466-7041

Thomas, Cecil

Senator – 9-D

614-466-5980

Williams, Sandra

Senator – 21-D

614-466-4857

Wilson, Steve

Senator – 7-R

614-466-9737

Yuko, Kenny

Minority Leader – 25-D

614-466-4583