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Comcast discloses attempt at one-on-one back room negotiations in California

28 May 2015 by Steve Blum
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You call those suits?

As it said it wanted to do, Comcast did in fact try to bargain directly with the commissioner assigned to handle the California Public Utilities Commission’s review of its bid to take over Time Warner and Charter cable systems in California. In a disclosure filing that was made public last week, Comcast detailed how a posse of its suits met with commissioner Carla Peterman and two aides for an hour – twice the time originally expected – in March to detail its objections to the conditions the commission was considering if it approved the deal…

Comcast described how the conditions in the Proposed Decision could be improved by revising them to be within the parameters of Commission programs with preexisting rules or by establishing metrics that are clearer and easier to measure than what has been proposed.

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A new cable mega-deal for Charter and Time Warner

27 May 2015 by Steve Blum
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I said I’d pull myself back together.

Now it’s Charter Communications’ turn to try to buy Time Warner Cable. The latest mega deal would have Charter hanging onto its deal to buy Bright House, and paying $57 billion for Time Warner’s cable systems and 15 million subscribers. If successful, it would make Charter the second largest cable company in the U.S. and the largest in California.

Federal Communications Commission chairman and lobbyist-in-chief Tom Wheeler wasted no time in reassuring the world that this latest deal won’t necessarily meet the fate of the Comcast-Time Warner-Charter mega-deal that was killed by federal regulators…

The FCC reviews every merger on its merits and determines whether it would be in the public interest.

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Frontier tells CPUC to stay away from broadband issues


Don’t go there.

Frontier Communications and Verizon are trying to make the same argument that Comcast made, and lost, when it tried to restrict the California Public Utilities Commission’s review of its proposed mega-merger to some very narrow, telephone-centric considerations.

In this case, Frontier wants to buy out Verizon’s wireline systems in California. The CPUC’s office of ratepayer advocates is urging the commission to decide if that’s in the public interest, in part, on whether it’s good or bad for the broadband market here.… More

FCC's unwritten privacy rules will have an equally ill-defined effect on Internet business

25 May 2015 by Steve Blum
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We can hope.

Your Internet service provider collects a lot of information about you and they use some of it for marketing purposes. AT&T is getting particularly aggressive about doing so, offering a discount on its GigaWeasel service to customers who agree to let it watch what they’re watching, and target ads accordingly..

Assuming that the Federal Communication Commission’s new, common carrier Internet regulations go into effect next month, the restrictions on what ISPs can do with their knowledge of you will get tighter.… More

FCC issues Catch-222 advisory

23 May 2015 by Steve Blum
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I’m glad we had this chat.

In case you were still wondering, the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to bring Internet service and infrastructure under common carrier regulation was not simply about whether Comcast can block you from watching Netflix. As a statement from the FCC’s enforcement bureau emphasises, there are a lot of other rules involved, particularly those that deal with how Internet service providers use and/or safeguard information about you.

Except, no one, not even the FCC enforcement bureau, knows what those rules are.… More

Another day, another cable deal in California

21 May 2015 by Steve Blum
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Click for a list of communities in California and elsewhere, and a bigger map.

Altice, a European cable company with roots in France and headquarters in business-friendly Luxembourg, is buying 70% of Suddenlink for $9.1 billion. The announcement follows news that Charter is still intent on acquiring Bright House Networks.

Both Charter and Altice are considered possible candidates to buy Time-Warner, which would be a much bigger play than either Suddenlink or Bright House.… More

Charter pushes ahead with bid to expand California footprint via Bright House purchase

20 May 2015 by Steve Blum
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Not dead yet.

Well, the deal lives. Charter Communications is still in the hunt to take over Bright House Networks. Reuters reported that the deal was off, following the crash of the Comcast-Time Warner-Charter mega-merger. But if anything was actually broken in the first place, it’s now been fixed, according to a press release from Charter…

The companies remain committed to completing their previously announced transaction on the same economic and governance terms.

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Verizon tries to leave California before anyone finds out how bad its network is

19 May 2015 by Steve Blum
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Vanishing point.

The California Public Utilities Commission doesn’t need facts, it just needs to wave good bye and assume Frontier Communications will pick up the crumbling pieces of Verizon’s copper network. That’s what Verizon is claiming, anyway, in comments filed with the CPUC, endorsing a proposal by commission president Michael Picker to spike a technical evaluation of the condition of Verizon’s and AT&T’s decaying copper networks.

The [advocacy groups supporting a network study] claim that before the Commission can authorize the transfer of Verizon to Frontier, it must know the physical condition of Verizon’s facilities to determine whether Verizon bears responsibility for any “neglect of the network before the transfer is approved.”

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FCC muni broadband preemption challenged by North Carolina

18 May 2015 by Steve Blum
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Now, go home.

North Carolina is joining Tennessee, sorta, in challenging a decision by the Federal Communications Commission to negate laws in the two states that put tight restrictions on municipal broadband enterprises. Last week, North Carolina attorney general Roy Cooper asked a federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia to throw out the preemption, saying the FCC was butting in where it had no authority to do so…

In the Order, the FCC preempts North Carolina’s statutory law…governing municipal provisioning and operation of broadband communications services.

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Comcast tells CPUC to unring the bell

17 May 2015 by Steve Blum
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Coming from Philadelphia and all, Comcast thinks it knows about bells.

The California Public Utilities Commission is scheduled to vote on Thursday on whether or not to deny Comcast permission to take over Time Warner and Charter cable systems in the state. On the one hand, it is pretty pointless because the companies have cancelled the mega deal. On the other, it matters because the basis for rejecting the merger rests on a particular interpretation of federal law that, if accepted, gives the CPUC authority to “encourage the deployment on a reasonable and timely basis of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans” by evaluating the effect of corporate telecoms deals and other transactions on broadband infrastructure and services in California.… More