Charter Communications consummated its purchase of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks.
The deal worth an estimated $88 billion creates the second-largest cable operator in the U.S. after Comcast.
Customers of all three companies “won’t see many changes right away,” though a few months down the road they will hear more about “the Spectrum brand, product improvements and consumer friendly prices that come with it,” said Charter President/CEO Tom Rutledge, ho now adds chairman to his title.
The entity will be called “New Charter,” we’ve reported. Bloomberg reports Charter will phase out the Time Warner Cable and Bright House brands over time and market its cable TV and broadband services under the “Spectrum” name.
The FCC okayed the deal with several conditions, including not being able to charge customers based on how much data they use or cap their data consumption for seven years in order to spur competition in the marketplace.
Observers say the size of the new entity could chip away at the bargaining power of content creators.
Charter is taking on $27 billion in debt to pull off the merger, buying out the shareholders of the larger Time Warner Cable and the smaller Bright House Networks.
