Comcast is raising fees for cable TV in the Portland area by 4 percent, a move it says is needed to cover investments to improve service. It isn't charging more for Internet or telephone service, markets where it faces competition.
In the Portland area, the cost of Comcast's standard service has increased every year for the past decade at several times the rate of inflation, according to the Oregonian. Satellite and fiber-optic systems are still too small to compete, said David Olson, director of the Mt. Hood Cable Regulatory Commission.
With the latest rate increase, Olson said the cost of standard cable has ballooned 117 percent from a decade ago, when Congress deregulated most price controls over the cable industry under the provisions of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. General consumer prices in the Western United States increased about 33 percent over the same period, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.