While some mayors are making it a priority to provide high-speed wireless Internet access to all or to court alternative broadband providers like Google to bring truly high-speed broadband Internet to their communities, Lancaster City mayor Rick Gray is throwing his support behind two mega-corporations his constituents truly and justly hate. (For starters, the companies are incredibly powerful proponents of killing the freedom of the Internet by ending Net neutrality.) Let me introduce them by way of a recent report from the American Consumer Satisfaction Index:

High prices, slow data transmission and unreliable service drag consumer satisfaction to record lows, as customers have few alternatives beyond the largest Internet service providers. Customer satisfaction with ISPs drops 3.1% to 63%, the lowest score in the Index.  … Customers rate Comcast  and Time Warner Cable even lower for Internet service than for their TV service. In both industries, the two providers have the weakest customer satisfaction.

And yet, on Thursday, Mayor Gray joined fifty-one other city mayors to sign a letter which, in my paraphrase, says, “Go, corporate oligarchy, go!” and in actuality spews a load of corporate double-speak that our mayor should be deeply ashamed to have put his name to. You can read the letter for yourself (pdf).

I want to be very clear that putting more power in the hands of Comcast and Time Warner is a terrible idea for Lancaster city, especially for its citizens and its businesses. I call on Lancaster city council to pass a resolution that makes this argument — in clear opposition to Mayor Gray — against a merger of these two corporate monopolies into a single super-monopoly.

If you agree with me, please sign the Change.org petition, share this blog post, and comment below.

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