O'Rielly Votes on AT&T/DirecTV; Official Cites Compliance Officer Importance
FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly voted on a draft order to approve AT&T's planned buy of DirecTV with conditions, a statement indicated Thursday. "After reading the Order as prepared by Commission staff, reviewing the voluminous record in the proceeding, and listening…
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to interested parties, I voted the item this afternoon," he said. "To be clear, this process shouldn’t have taken this long, and we shouldn’t have been so cavalier with the Commission’s merger review ‘shot clock,’ but at least we have arrived at this final stage." The FCC's 180-day nonbinding shot clock remains stopped on Day 170. O’Rielly didn't say how he voted, but industry analysts said this week they expected the order to be approved unanimously or without major opposition in coming days (see 1507220076). FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler on Tuesday said he had circulated a draft order to approve the transaction that would impose various conditions on the postdeal AT&T. Among them are conditions to vastly increase its fiber-based broadband deployment and "build on" the network neutrality order by preventing the company's fixed broadband data caps from discriminating against online video rivals and requiring it to file interconnection agreements and network performance reports, he said. Some critics said the draft order, based on what was known, wasn't demanding enough of AT&T, which could "game" the conditions, but Wheeler also said, "Importantly, we will require an independent officer to help ensure compliance with these and other proposed conditions." An FCC official told us Thursday that the latter compliance condition shouldn't be underestimated. "The independent compliance monitor will be looking over AT&T's shoulder to make sure they comply -- including by reporting back to us to help ensure compliance -- and that's extremely significant, given the resources necessary to enforce merger conditions," the official said. While Comcast and NBCUniversal in 2011 accepted FCC and Justice Department conditions requiring the combined company to comply with network neutrality rules for seven years if they are thrown out in court, no such condition was imposed on AT&T/DirecTV, said an informed source.