Charter Communications today said it has closed its acquisitions of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks following approvals from the Federal Communications Commission and regulators in California, the final state that had to sign off on the deal.

Charter has nearly quadrupled in size as a result of the transactions, going from 6.8 million customers to about 25.4 million in 41 states, second in the US after Comcast's 28 million. The merger drew opposition from some advocacy groups, including one that took to calling the new Charter "Mega Cable." The cost of the acquisitions was originally expected to be about $67.1 billion, though Charter will reportedly end up paying a bit more than that.

Charter's announcement today said, "The completion of the transactions will drive investment into the combined entity's advanced broadband network, resulting in faster broadband speeds, better video products, more affordable phone service, and more competition for consumers and businesses."

Charter CEO Tom Rutledge will continue to lead the expanded company, while Time Warner Cable CEO Rob Marcus will exit, reportedly with $92 million in severance pay after two and a half years at the helm.

Federal regulators imposed conditions on the deal to boost broadband competition and prevent the newly expanded Charter from trying to shut out competition from online video. Within five years, Charter is required to bring broadband of at least 60Mbps download speeds to an additional 2 million customer locations, of which 1 million must be in competition against at least one other high-speed provider. Other conditions prohibit the combined company from imposing data caps and overage fees on Internet customers and from charging large online content providers for network interconnection. Charter also will not be allowed to enforce clauses in contracts with programmers that prevent the programmers from making video available to online services. The conditions will be imposed for seven years.

Comcast previously attempted to buy Time Warner Cable, but the merger was stopped last year by federal regulators who detailed concerns about potential harm to online video services.

Disclosure: Bright House was owned by the Advance/Newhouse Partnership, which is part of Advance Publications. Advance Publications owns Condé Nast, which owns Ars Technica. Advance/Newhouse now owns 13 percent of Charter as a result of the merger.