Oil rigs make a little more money than residential neighborhoods.

I thought they were currently operating at a loss?

Plus com-cash has exclusive rights to those telephone poles.

Offtopic joking serious: Be careful about mixing oil rigs and residential neighborhoods, because communities like Los Angeles are forced to deal with health problems and contaminated air and drinking water where environmental controls and inspections are weak.

http://la.curbed.com/2014/7/29/10067206/mapping-all-3000-of-...

http://www.latimes.com/science/la-me-next-door-20160221-stor...

I can say with confidence that they don't run fiber to all their platforms, even the ones that are readily accessible.

no NIMBYs on the bottom of the ocean.

The cost to "make good" the sea floor is much cheaper than the cost to "make good" sidewalks, roadways, lobby community groups and pay contractors to pull fibre. Plus the cost to BP is likely worth it for the reliability over VSAT, vs. what might be a marginal improvement to the ARPU for Comcast.