Charter wants to become the new Comcast.

The company wants to take over Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks — and create a colossus that could hike prices, hurt communities of color and team up with Comcast to kill what’s left of consumer choice and competition.

Opposition to the takeover is growing, and for good reason. We don’t want another terrible company like Comcast!

Just this week Demand Progress, Free Press and a coalition of other organizations launched NoMoreMergers.com, a hub for grassroots opposition to the deal. We’re urging the FCC to stand with the people, not greedy cable executives. We shouldn’t be forced to pay higher prices to connect online just so Charter can dominate the marketplace.

Steeper prices would mean that fewer people would be able to afford Internet access in the first place. Many of us have a hard time paying our cable and Internet bills as it is. Yet New Charter, as the merged company would be called, would force customers to select pricier plans that would make accessing broadband even more difficult.

New Charter would also take over the New York City and Los Angeles markets, where price increases would hit low-income communities of color the hardest, further isolating them from the Internet’s economic opportunities. This would exacerbate the digital divide by concentrating market power in areas where many people are already struggling to afford broadband.  

If this mega-merger goes through, New Charter and Comcast would wield even more control over our lives. They’d offer Internet service to nearly 8 out of every 10 U.S. homes and would set industry-wide trends that would dictate broadband and cable costs across the board. These two companies would have monopoly-level control over the broadband market, which means that prices would soar.

What’s more, Charter and Comcast are literally rivals for the worst customer service award. Charter was at the bottom of a recent customer-service survey, ranking below hundreds of other companies — including Comcast. It’s hard to believe that any company could be worse than Comcast, but New Charter could defy expectations. This is why we’re working with our allies to stop the merger in its tracks.

Join us and tell the FCC to stop Charter before it crushes competition, raises prices and broadens the digital divide.

Original photo by Flickr user Hector Garcia