Skip to main content

FCC said to be close to approving Charter bid for Time Warner Cable

net neutrality in jeopardy trump administration fcc tom wheeler 2
Chairman of the FCC Tom Wheeler. Image used with permission by copyright holder
Regulators weren’t too keen on the idea of Comcast, the nation’s largest cable provider, merging with behemoth Time Warner Cable, but they seem a bit more open to the idea of a smaller acquirer. The Wall Street Journal reports that Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Tom Wheeler is fully supportive of Charter Communication’s $55 billion bid to buy Time Warner Cable, and could circulate a draft order as soon as this week.

But Charter’s not exactly getting off scot-free. The order under consideration would prohibit Charter from making contracts with content providers that preclude those providers from offering their programming online, according to Wall Street Journal sources. It would require, too, that Charter both make investments to its current customers’ broadband services and expand the availability of those plans beyond the regions which it currently serves.

Recommended Videos

Beyond the above, it would ink Charter’s historical, three-year agreement with the FCC to adhere to a series of pro-consumer tenets regarding high-speed broadband. These include a promise not to charge content providers such as Netflix and YouTube for interconnection (arrangements which can have a noticeable impact on customers’ streaming speed and quality), a promise not to introduce usage-based Internet billing or data caps, and a promise to abide by the Net neutrality rules the FCC introduced last year even if they don’t pass legal muster.

The order as written is multifaceted, the Journal reports, but aimed primarily at leveling the playing field for Internet-based video platforms that compete with traditional pay-TV, a priority for Chairman Wheeler. Sling TV, a service of satellite company Dish Network, is projected to reach two million subscribers by the end of this year, and Sony’s PlayStation Vue launched nationwide in March.

The order’s secondary motivation is to foster broadband competition in regions served by incumbent phone companies. According to the Journal, the FCC may require Charter to offer Internet services in the service areas of carriers like Verizon and AT&T.

Many details have yet to be hashed out. It’s unclear for how long Charter would be bound to the terms of the arrangement, for example, and whether or not the company would retain an independent monitor in charge of evaluating Charter’s compliance (a common condition of such mergers). The cable provider may be subject to additional concessions before the order becomes binding, too — the order must undergo review by the FCC’s four other commissioners and California’s state regulator, all of which will have a say in its final form before it’s approved. Journal sources expect the process to take “a few weeks.”

The draft order represents a significant milestone for Charter, which began laying the groundwork for an acquisition of Time Warner Cable following its purchase of Bright House Networks last year. It launched a $15, 30Mbps Internet plan for low-income families in December of last year, made a promise in January to hire a chief diversity officer and add more minorities to its board of directors, and in May of 2015 secured the support of streaming services like Fuse Media and Netflix by, in part, agreeing to waive interconnection fees.

The moves have garnered Charter the goodwill of regulators, who’ve eyed the provider’s Time Warner Cable bid far less critically than Comcast’s attempted buy last year. Comcast pulled the plug on its plans when it became clear that the FCC and Justice Department, concerned about the merger’s potential impact on online video and broadband service, would move to block the deal in federal court.

Charter’s acquisition, if approved, would create America’s second-largest Internet provider behind Comcast. It would boost the company’s total customer count to 17.4 million pay-TV subscribers and 19.4 million Internet subscribers, representing a respective 35 percent and 36 percent share of those markets.

The bid faces opposition from industry and consumer advocacy groups including Dish Network, Public Knowledge, the Writers Guild of America, USTelecom One, and the Stop Mega Cable Coalition, which contend that the deal represents a threat to both broadband competition in markets without alternative choices in broadband and Internet-based video services that compete with Charter’s lucrative channel bundles. “Comcast was a category 5 hurricane; Charter is a category 4. It is still really bad,” Deputy General Counsel for Dish Network Jeff Blum told Variety.

Charter has dismissed those claims, calling them “baseless” and accusing opponents of the deal as “engaging in tired PR tactics to further their self interests.”

Kyle Wiggers
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Kyle Wiggers is a writer, Web designer, and podcaster with an acute interest in all things tech. When not reviewing gadgets…
The best data recovery software
toshiba mn series hdds hard drive disk computer storage

If you accidentally delete important files or photos, your hard drive crashes, or some glitch damaged data on your SSD, all hope is seemingly lost. Fortunately, advanced data recovery software exists that may help get your data back.

It's important to stop using the faulty drive, if possible. The only time you should use it is during the recovery process. After you've extracted as many files as you can, you can try reformatting the drive to test if it's still usable.
EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard

Read more
The Intuit QuickBooks Summer Savings sale is so good we may never see it again
Intuit QuickBooks Online used to collect payments for small business

Just in time for the biggest deals season of the year, Intuit QuickBooks is hosting an unprecedented sale— so wondrous and massive that we may never see anything like this again. Dubbed the Summer Savings Sale, now's your chance to get up to 70% off Intuit's connected tools. As a leader in small business fintech, you've likely heard of QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Payroll before. Helping over 7 million customers worldwide, QuickBooks is an excellent companion for small business growth, from startup to scaling up. You'll gain access to a comprehensive ecosystem of products and services for accounting, payroll support, payments and invoicing, capital management, marketing and much more. The current promotion drops the prices considerably for your first three months, with Simple Start at just $9 per month versus $30, the Plus tier at $27 per month versus $90, and the Advanced tier at $60 per month versus $200.

 
Why you should shop the Intuit QuickBooks Summer Savings sale

Read more
Intuit QuickBooks summer savings have us excited for bookkeeping and more
Intuit QuickBooks Online and Payroll Indepence Day deals used by business owner

Being honest, accounting, bookkeeping, and various administrative tasks aren't exactly what most people would call exciting, even if they own a business. It's something you have to do, but not that you necessarily want to do. But you absolutely have to stay on top of it; otherwise, things could get out of hand later, like when you're filing taxes or trying to calculate expenses. As a leader in small business fintech, Intuit QuickBooks is helping over 7 million customers worldwide do precisely that. From a startup to scaling up, the Intuit QuickBooks ecosystem delivers products and services that are a core component of small business growth. Accounting, payroll, payments, capital, and even marketing assistance via Mailchimp are just a few examples of what you can expect from a QuickBooks subscription. Thanks to its current Summer Sale, you can save a never-before-seen 70% off Intuit QuickBooks plans. That offer and these prices excite us for something that, typically, wouldn't be considered exciting.

 
These Intuit QuickBooks Summer Savings are unprecedented
This is the first time we've ever seen prices this low, and it may actually be the only time it happens. Time will tell, but the point is that you can save big on QuickBooks plans that you need for your business. The deal offers 70% off QuickBooks Online for your first three months. With Simple Start -- the base plan -- you get your first three months for just $9 per month instead of $30. That saves you $21 monthly for $63 across your initial three months of service. By comparison, the Essentials tier is only $18 per month instead of $60, and the Plus tier is only $27 per month instead of $90. If you want to splurge and go with Advanced, it's only $60 monthly for your first three months instead of $20h. Those are some incredible savings.

Read more