Comcast protests we’re not cherrypicking, it’s our cherry that’s been picked

Comcast tried to paint itself as a champion consumer choice, as its lawyers clashed with those representing Ponderosa Telephone at the California Public Utilities Commission last week. The question is whether Comcast should be allowed to compete as a telephone company against Ponderosa, which is a small, heavily subsidised rural telco. But the core issue is whether allowing wireline telephone competitors to target high revenue potential customers in rural telco service areas will lead to even greater taxpayer subsidies for less affluent and less densely populated communities that companies like Ponderosa are required to serve.

In this case, the wrangling is mostly about Tesoro Viejo, a new, upscale master planned community of 5,200 homes in Madera County, although Comcast also hinted that other areas that are lucrative enough to meet its return on investment model will likewise be targeted. Ponderosa wants Comcast’s application for permission to enter its market to be iced until the CPUC makes a cosmic decision as to whether the dozen or so rural telcos remaining in California will face such competition. The commission’s concern is that competitors will cherrypick customers on the high side of the digital divide and leave the rest even worse off than before.

In a completely disingenuous argument – and that’s the kindest way to characterise it – Zeb Zankel, a lawyer representing Comcast, tried to make the administrative law judge hearing the case to believe that corporate strategy has nothing to do with it

We didn’t reach out. We didn’t pick. Comcast did not pick. We were picked. And we were picked presumably because Comcast has service offerings that presumably Tesoro Viejo just sought its service offerings in addition to Ponderosa, as it should. Consumers should have choice. So I think this repeated allegation of cherry picking is simply untrue.

What Zankel, um, neglected to mention was that redlined communities routinely reach out to Comcast and other cable companies for service, and are just as routinely turned down. Unless the potential customers can afford a sufficiently hefty monthly bill and they are densely packed enough to keep the cost of delivering service low.

If what Zankel said is true, then Comcast would be jumping on the chance to extend service throughout southern Madera County. But it’s not. It wants to serve Tesoro Viejo, with the income levels and household density of a suburb, and ignore the surrounding rural residents.

That’s cherrypicking.

Collected documents regarding Comcast’s expansion into Ponderosa’s territory are here.