Even Behavioral Conditions, Open Internet Rules Don't Make Charter/TWC/BHN Palatable, Dish Says
From the harm it could bring to the online video distribution (OVD) market to "the suffocating duopoly" it would create in the nation's broadband market, with New Charter and Comcast controlling too much of the residential broadband marketplace, Charter Communications'…
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buying of Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable can't be allowed to go through, Dish Network said in an ex parte filing posted Wednesday on a meeting between Dish CEO Charlie Ergen and top company executives and a variety of FCC staff, including Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake. At the meeting, according to the filing in docket 15-149, Dish repeated its major talking points in opposing the merger. Not even the open Internet rules would be adequate to restrain New Charter, especially since adjudicating disputes takes time and new OVDs "are fragile as they try to grow into maturity," Dish said. Dish also said behavioral conditions would be inadequate as OVD protection since "OVD sabotage can be achieved in many opaque and subtle ways." In a statement Wednesday, Charter said, “With minimum broadband speeds of 60 Mbps and no data caps, no usage-based billing, no contracts and settlement-free interconnection, Charter is an industry leader in how to treat broadband consumers and online video distributors like Netflix. Claims that New Charter and Comcast would create a duopoly are baseless; New Charter would serve only 23 percent of broadband subscribers -- a smaller percentage than Comcast serves today and less than half of the percentage Comcast/TWC would have served, and the companies have different strategies on issues including data caps, usage-based billing, contracts, interconnection and customer equipment.” Dish has been a constant opponent of Charter/TWC/BHN (see 1511300049).