Comcast’s plan to buy Time Warner Cable should...
Comcast’s plan to buy Time Warner Cable should be denied, Dish Network executives told FCC General Counsel Jonathan Sallet, Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake, several members of the FCC’s Comcast/TWC review team and staff from multiple FCC bureaus in a…
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meeting Wednesday, said an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 14-57 (http://bit.ly/1APiG84). “There do not appear to be any conditions that would remedy the harms that would result from the merger.” Those harms would mainly affect over-the-top video services that might compete with Comcast/Time Warner Cable, the filing said. Choke points are the Internet channel to the consumer; the interconnection point; and any specialized service channels acting as high-speed lanes and restricting the bandwidth available for “the public Internet portion of the pipe,” Dish said. “Each choke point provides the ability for the combined company to foreclose the online video offerings of its competitors.” Comcast/Time Warner Cable would also be able “to exercise its enormous size to leverage programming content in anti-competitive ways,” said Dish. The low prices the new company would require from programmers would force them to make up the difference from companies like Dish, it said. “A combined Comcast/TWC will have the incentive and ability to restrict programmers’ ability to grant digital rights to competing pay-TV and OTT video providers.” Meanwhile, members of Congress sought FCC conditions on deals like Comcast/Time Warner Cable. (See separate report above in this issue.)