Chater Communications cleared a step to acquire U.S. cable operator Cox last week, securing a greenlight from FCC regulators for the proposed $34.5 billion deal.
The FCC on Friday approved the merger, which will create the largest internet service provider in the U.S., combining Cox’s approximately 6.3 million customers and Charter’s 31.4 million customers across broadband, cable, mobile and other services.
First announced in May 2025, Charter will acquire Cox, including its residential cable, commercial fiber and managed IT and cloud businesses.
In approving the deal, the FCC order said after reviews, it did not find significant likelihood that a merger would result in transaction-related public interest harms.
“We further find that certain public interest benefits are likely to be realized, including promoting competition and consumer benefits for broadband and other services the combined company will provide,” the Order stated.
Following a merger, the combined company intends to keep the Cox name instead of Charter but will use Charter’s existing Spectrum brand for consumer-facing services.
In announcing FCC approval, the commission said Charter intends to invest billions of dollars to upgrade its network across the services and has committed to onshoring U.S. jobs. Specifically, Charter committed to onshore all job functions currently handled off-shore by Cox within 18 months.
It also made commitments to not pursue Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) efforts, which have come into the crosshairs broadly under the Trump-appointed FCC leadership of Chairman Brendan Carr. Specifically, the FCC said Charter “commits to recruiting, hiring and promoting individuals based on the factors that matter most” including skills, qualifications and experience.
“By approving this deal, the FCC ensures big wins for Americans. This deal means that jobs are coming back to America that had been shipped overseas,” stated Carr in announcing the approval. “It means that modern, high-speed networks will get built out in more communities across rural America. And it means that customers will get access to lower priced plans.”
Charter, meanwhile, has faced increased competition in broadband and over the past few years revamped its own pricing and packaging strategy – including for video with the inclusion of programmer’s ad-supported DTC streaming apps in pay TV plans.
The operators’ footprints have little to no overlap, making them complementary and Charter touting the ability to better compete at a national level.
By merging with Cox, Charter will add 12.3 million passings and the operator’s 6.3 million customers across internet, video and mobile – expanding the Spectrum footprint to cover over 70 million households.
The company has said it intends to introduce simplified, lower Spectrum pricing in Cox’s footprint as one of the first moves of a combination.
On Charter’s latest Q4 earnings – during which it posted positive quarterly net video additions for the first time since 2020 – CEO Chris Winfrey said that given Cox’s low video penetration and Charter’s capabilities, “we expect to grow video in the Cox footprint for a period of time as well.”
In another notable move for Charter in the past week, the operator named Frontier CEO Nick Jeffery as its chief operating officer, effective September 1.
“Nick's leadership, growth mindset and operational expertise combined with his proven ability to improve customer service across residential, mobile, and B2B markets make him the ideal person to help accelerate Spectrum's next phase of growth," said Winfrey, to whom Jeffery will report. “He successfully reinvented the consumer and business services reputation of both Frontier and Vodafone by systematically strengthening the customer experience and implementing innovative go-to-market strategies that delivered significant revenue, profitability and customer growth.”