Former FCC Chairman and GTCR Fund See Strong Rural Cable Future

Former FCC Chairman and GTCR Fund See Strong Rural Cable Future: Former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt hopes this week’s acquisition of tier 2 cable company NewWave Communications by investment firm GTCR will be “the first of many.” Telecompetitor spoke this week with Hundt, who headed up the FCC during the Clinton administration and is now an advisor to GTCR.“We believe cable is the universal American communications medium,” said Hundt. “Cable is the essential connection for everyone, especially in rural America.”

 The Telecompetitor article continues:

GTCR’s strategy is interesting, considering that service providers have had difficulty finding a business case for deploying broadband in some rural areas – particularly as distances from population centers increase.

When I asked Hundt about that he said, “Technology keeps producing breakthroughs.”

Indeed it does.  But has it reduced the labor costs associated with deployment and maintenance of wireline Internet infrastructure, which rule of thumb estimates place at about 70 percent of the total?  I haven't heard of of any such technology breakthroughs unless Hundt is talking about using drones to spool and drop cable from the sky and robots to bury and install it on poles.