Comcast Accidentally Admits It's Unsure Of The Competitive Impact Of Its Own Merger

from the trust-us-we're-the-cable-company dept

While debate over the Comcast merger had hit a bit of a lull for Thanksgiving, it was revived this week with the launch of a group calling itself the Stop Mega Comcast Coalition. Formed by a combination of companies like Dish and consumer advocacy groups like Public Knowledge, the group is lobbying to stop the merger on the grounds it harms competition, price and innovation across a number of markets, including broadband, television, and advertising. Of course, group participants Fairpoint Communications and Dish would likely give a limb to wield the kind of market power Comcast enjoys, but you're apparently supposed to ignore that and just applaud their selfless dedication to consumer welfare.

The unveiling of the group resulted in Comcast penning a blog post in which it slammed the new group for trotting out complaints that "weren't found to be credible" in the company's past transaction reviews (like when Comcast acquired NBC, then ignored the merger conditions crafted by itself). To hear Comcast tell it, the company found at least 600 "thoughtful and positive" people who think Comcast getting immensely more massive is a great idea:

"While it’s no surprise that the same competitors and special interest groups who’ve gone after Comcast in the past are at it again, the record tells a very different story. Over the last several months, the FCC has received an outpouring of nearly 600 thoughtful and positive comments about the transaction from a wide range of supporters. Unlike most of the criticism, the support has been very transaction-specific.

This support includes more than 100 Chambers of Commerce and business organizations, as well as a wide array of small businesses, start-ups, and technology companies. It includes more than 20 programmers, nearly 200 diversity groups and community partners, and over 150 state and local leaders of both parties."

Did we mention we pay most of these people for their support? I think we might have forgotten to mention that.

Kind of amusingly, Kate Cox at the Consumerist noticed that when Comcast originally blasted telecom reporters and analysts with an e-mail copy of its blog post, the company apparently forgot to proofread it and actually included some internal editing notes. Comcast has proudly and repeatedly stated that because Comcast and Time Warner Cable don't directly compete, the merger can't possibly be bad. Except, in its accidentally-included blog note, Comcast indicates that it wasn't entirely sure of this fact:

"We are still working with a vendor to analyze the FCC spreadsheet but in case it shows that there are any consumers in census blocks that may lose a broadband choice, want to make sure these sentences are more nuanced."

That's essentially Comcast accidentally publicly admitting that, even after a year of merger prep and defense, that it doesn't actually fully understand the impact of its own deal proposal. The note suggests Comcast had to pay an outside vendor to double check FCC data (provided to the FCC by Comcast), and then would have softened its rhetoric depending on what the analysis found. In a follow up e-mail to me, Comcast denies that it doesn't understand its own $45 billion mega-merger, but then adds to truly do so would take actually visiting some neighborhoods:

"Karl, our filings have detailed this issue in the past. It would literally take someone walking the streets or going down to a house by house map to find out if there is any actual overlap - and this would be if any likely in only a very very small number of homes."

Perhaps you should maybe go do that before repeatedly insisting there's no competitive overlap? Sure, it's true that the merger is more about vertical integration, programming leverage and monopsony concerns than direct market competition, but that doesn't make Comcast's stumbling, bumbling defense of the deal any less entertaining.

Filed Under: admissions, competition, fcc, honesty, mistakes
Companies: comcast, time warner cable

AT&T's Regulatory Hypocrisy On Proud Display In Kansas, Where It's Fighting To Keep The State A Broadband Backwater

from the do-as-we-say-not-as-we-do dept

Like any giant, pampered duopoly, AT&T claims to loathe regulation when it has even the remotest potential to hamstring anti-competitive behavior (like Title II on the net neutrality front), but is perfectly fine with it when it protects the company's long-standing stranglehold on the United States broadband market. One of many glaring illustrations of this is in Kansas, where the company recently wrote but failed to pass SB 304, which, like nearly two dozen similar laws around the country, would prohibit towns and cities from wiring themselves for broadband -- even in cases where nobody else will. From the bill:

"Sec. 4. Except with regard to unserved areas, a municipality may not, directly or indirectly offer or provide to one or more subscribers, video, telecommunications or broadband service; or purchase, lease, construct, maintain or operate any facility for the purpose of enabling a private business or entity to offer, provide, carry, or deliver video, telecommunications or broadband service to one or more subscribers."

Like many of these bills, if you then look closer at the bill's definition of "unserved," you'll find it includes very expensive and capped satellite and wireless broadband, making it incredibly hard to gain approval:

"Unserved area” means one or more contiguous census blocks within the legal boundaries of a municipality seeking to provide the unserved area with video, telecommunications or broadband service, where at least nine out of 10 households lack access to facilities-based, terrestrial broadband service, either fixed or mobile, or satellite broadband service, at the minimum broadband transmission speed as defined by the FCC."

Facing an immensely uncompetitive duopoly between AT&T and former Washington Post run CableOne, the city of Chanute, Kansas has been looking to build a citywide fiber network capable of offering 1 Gbps speeds at around $40 per month. After defeating AT&T's attempt to pass new regulations hamstringing the project, Chanute now finds themselves face to face with a 1947 ma-bell era law that requires companies get permission from the Kansas Corporation Commission to sell bonds to fund such telecom projects. With the KCC likely to approve the request, AT&T lawyers have jumped in to intervene, according to the Wichita Eagle:

"Any decision made by the KCC could impact AT&T’s business operations in the area, which is why we asked to intervene in the proceeding," the company said in a written response to questions from The Eagle. “AT&T remains interested in both broadband issues and the work of the KCC."

As I've noted previously, AT&T's also in the process of going state by state paying asking state lawmakers to gut any and all remaining consumer protections (like laws requiring they continue offering 911 to the elderly) so it can back away from aging DSL markets it doesn't want to upgrade. In Kansas specifically, AT&T has promised locals they'll be awash in all manner of miracle broadband improvements, if only they eliminate the Kansas Corporation Commission’s consumer protection regulations and minimum quality-of-service standards. Well, at least the ones that apply to AT&T.

Again, just so we're clear, this is the same company that insists that absolutely any regulatory effort to protect consumers from duopoly power is the very worst sort of government over-reach, but has absolutely no qualms about using government over-reach and regulation to make sure broadband prices remain high and service quality continues to suck.

Filed Under: broadband, chanute, kansas, muni-broadband
Companies: at&t