Some witnesses plan to air grievances about Comcast’s...
Some witnesses plan to air grievances about Comcast’s proposed buy of Time Warner Cable during Thursday’s House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee hearing. “ACA is most concerned about the competitive effects of the proposed Comcast-TWC transaction in two intertwined industries -- the…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
(downstream) MVPD industry, which distributes video programming to consumers, and the (upstream) video programming industry, which provides this programming to these distributors,” American Cable Association President Matthew Polka will say, according to written testimony (http://1.usa.gov/1j3bCrL). “Comcast is a behemoth in both industries.” The hearing will be at 9:30 a.m. in 2141 Rayburn. The FCC and Justice Department must approve the cable company deal, and these regulators must not “ignore or treat lightly the potential harms or provide inadequate relief” of the deal, Polka will say. Cogent Communications CEO Dave Schaeffer will slam the deal quite strongly, arguing it will hurt consumers and stifle innovation and criticizing the paid peering deals Comcast is seeking: “Fundamentally, Comcast’s strategy is to get everyone to pay them, either through paid peering with content providers like Netflix, paid peering with backbone providers like Cogent, or both,” Schaeffer will say (http://1.usa.gov/1kMpKY3). Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen and Time Warner Cable CEO Robert Marcus will also testify, defending the deal, and will submit a joint written testimony spanning more than 100 pages. The deal would yield “better broadband, video, and voice services for millions of additional consumers, while enabling the combined company to upgrade its broadband network, expand last-mile services, and increase Wi-Fi availability,” they said (http://1.usa.gov/1fUMau8). “It will make Comcast a more viable competitor for advanced business services, especially for the underserved small and medium-sized business segments, but also for regional, super-regional, and national enterprise customers.”