Competition in Multi Dwelling Units

Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced plans to introduce a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would expand customer choice in apartments, condos, public housing, and other multi-tenant buildings. The NPRM would allow tenants to opt out of bulk billing arrangements where landlords build broadband or cable TV into the price of rent. It’s an interesting idea and will benefit tenants who don’t want to buy the forced services. In a country where less than half of homes still want to watch linear cable programming, it seems likely that a whole lot of tenants will opt out of cable. Allowing people to opt out of broadband is trickier. There are certainly landlords who buy bulk broadband and mark it up as a moneymaker. But there are many landlords today that recognize that having gigabit fiber broadband is a great marketing tool for their apartments. These landlords buy a bulk broadband connection and provide broadband to tenants at a price lower than what the tenants could find on the market. Nobody should be forced to buy something they don’t want, but if enough tenants opt out of this arrangement, the landlord will likely have to raise the rates for everybody else. I don't know how successful the FCC will be in improving competition in multi-dwelling units, but it's right to keep trying.