companies agreed on a series of joint re-sale, marketing, and technology development agreements. Beginning in January 2012, Comcast and Verizon Wireless debuted joint promotions in Portland and Seattle, offering customers who sign a two-year contract for both wireless and cable service a prepaid Visa card of up to $300. In addition, Comcast will promote Verizon Wireless service through its call centers and retail stores. [xx] The arrangements are certainly beneficial for companies and shareholders, but not so much for consumers. As Senator Herb Kohl (D-WI) offered in a statement at the Senate hearing on the deal, "Many now wonder if these agreements that we are examining... amount to a truce between one of the two largest phone companies and over 70 percent of the cable TV industry." Though the deal has yet to be approved by the FCC and the Department of Justice is investigating, if it goes through, the end result is likely to mean even higher prices for U.S. consumers over the long term. Cable already has a sizeable lead in high-speed residential broadband, as DSL offered by telephone companies has steadily lost market share. [xxi] A 2012 FCC report indicates that over 82 percent of residential broadband subscriptions above 6 Mbps download and 1.5 Mbps upload are delivered via cable modems. [xxii] In the future, consumers wishing to subscribe to higher speed Internet services will likely face a near-monopoly from cable providers, as telephone providers have halted wide scale upgrades of their networks. AT&T announced after reaching