Recently Charter Communications struck an agreement with Comcast to pay an estimated $7.3 billion for 1.4 million existing Time Warner subscribers. As a result, Charter Communications, will leapfrog from being the fourth to the second biggest player in the cable industry. If the deal is approved, Charter would manage 8.2 million subscribers.
In connection with the deal, Comcast will receive current Charter systems serving approximately 1.6 million subscribers in the states of New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, California, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington, Maryland, and some smaller areas.
Comcast and Time Warner claim this merger won’t create a monopoly because they don’t currently compete.
Upton is part of the Massachusetts swap and will see their cable provider server switch from Charter to Comcast.
According to Town Manager Blythe Robinson Comcast has to honor the current contract Charter holds with the Town. At this time it is unknown when the transfer will take place. According to Robinson the Town believes Comcast is qualified to take over the license and determined a hearing on the matter is not necessary.
When the transfer takes place Upton may see channel line up changes.
How does Comcast rank for customer satisfaction compared to Charter. According to the American Consumer Satisfaction neither company does well but Comcast ranks below Charter. American Consumer Satisfaction Index.
In a recent survey by Consumer Reports 56% of Americans oppose the merger.
UPTON DAILY 
Good question Cyndy, why are we allowed only one choice? I would drop Charter if it wasn’t for my husband who love to watch sports. I could go without cable. Charter is the worse cable company I ever had. And I’m paying a lot for it. I feel they know we can’t go anywhere else so they charge us a lot and give us the worse cable service you can get..
I am pretty sure we are swapping out the devil for the devil. Customer service is outrageous with Charter and from what I have heard, not much better with Comcast. It varies from day to day, phone call to phone call. Why are we only allowed ONE choice?
So I’m not sure if this means we’re swapping one devil for another, but I won’t be sorry to see the back and of the Charter bus.
great reporting Jen! Good to know. I know a lot of contracts end in October, wonder if this deal will go through before then. Could take months.