The FCC on Friday approved Charter Communications’ $34.5 billion acquisition of Cox Enterprises residential cable, commercial fiber, and managed IT and cloud businesses after the two companies agreed to upgrade their networks, increase domestic employment and drop their DEI policies.
The acquisition creates the nation’s largest cable TV and broadband provider with approximately 38 million subscribers, surpassing Comcast. The merger, announced in May 2025, combines Cox Communications, a division of Cox Enterprises—the largest privately held broadband company in the U.S.—with about 6.5 million total residential and commercial with Charter’s reported 31.2 million broadband customers.
The combined company will be renamed as Cox Communications within a year of the deal's close, and Charter's Spectrum will be the consumer brand.
In order for the FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau to approve the deal, the two companies agreed to invest billions of dollars to upgrade its network and deliver high-speed service to homes and businesses nationwide, onshore all of the job functions currently handled off-shore by Cox within 18 months of approval and end what the FCC calls “DEI discrimination.”
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr hailed the approval.
“This deal means that jobs are coming back to America that had been shipped overseas,” he said. “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. On top of this, the deal enshrines protections against DEI discrimination.”
Critics noted that the merger—which is expected to be completed by summer, will result in a broadband monopoly.
“The FCC approved the largest cable merger in nearly a decade and did not require Charter to do anything it wasn’t already planning to do,” John Bergmayer, legal director at the consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge, said in a statement. “Consumers, as always, will bear the costs of reduced competition.”
FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez was more succinct:
Companies in America have always looked to hire based on merit. That’s what’s best for their bottom lines. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) discrimination is a myth.It is shameful that any company would co-sign this lie.February 27, 2026
