Mediacom has raised the its monthly rate for broadband service by $5 a month, a fee increase the MSO said that is necessitated by recent internet speed bumps.
According to the Des Moines Register, Mediacom is increasing the speed of its base tier from 15 Mbps to 60 Mbps. The price is going up from $49.99 a month to $54.99.
Mediacom reps didn’t immediately respond to FierceCable’s inquiry for comment.
But they told the Register that a concurrent $3.95 bump in pay-TV fees is the direct result of programming license cost increases.
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"Mediacom now pays programming costs that are between $5.50 and $6.50 higher this year than last year," Mediacom spokeswoman Phyllis Peters told the paper "We are not passing along that entire increased expense to customers.”
The MSO had already quietly been raising pay-TV surcharges, such as its “Local Broadcast Channel” fee, which shot up by $1.61 a month to $9.22 on Jan. 1, according to a DSL Reports user forum.
The cable operator’s regional sports channel surcharge, meanwhile, went up 24 cents to $2.61 a month.
Ironically, while responding in the same forum, a Mediacom rep cried out for more government regulation.
“We are always reluctant to raise our prices, especially when these conglomerates are charging more money for the same content, however due to the lack of federal regulation these Network Broadcast corporations have free reign [sic] when it comes to what they charge,” the Mediacom poster said.