DISH wants FCC to block Comcast deal with Time Warner

DISH Network has approached the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to block Comcast deal with Time Warner.

It cited several reasons. DISH says the merger will harm the industry and competition. Consumers will be harmed from the merger, DISH said.

DISH has approximately 14.053 million pay-TV subscribers.

The combined Comcast/TWC can degrade the online video offerings of competing MVPD and OTT video providers at any of three points: First, the points of interconnection to the combined company’s broadband network. Second is the last mile public Internet portion of the pipe to the consumer’s home. Third, managed or specialized service channels can act as super HOV-lanes and squeeze the capacity of the public Internet portion of the Comcast/TWC broadband pipe.

DISH in a letter to FCC said the combined Comcast/TWC can impose anti-competitive data caps on MVPD and OTT services by exempting Comcast/TWC affiliated content from such data caps and then setting caps so low that consumers are incentivized to choose Comcast/TWC services over competing MVPD and OTT video services.

The combined Comcast/TWC can foreclose access or raise the prices of, its own affiliated programming to harm competing MVPD and OTT services.

The Comcast/TWC combined entity can coerce third-party content owners and programmers to withhold online rights from online video platforms, stifling a source of competition and innovation in the video industry.

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The services provided by DISH and other OTT video providers optimally require a household to have actual and consistent download speeds of at least 25 Mbps. If approved, the combined Comcast/TWC would control 50 percent of the broadband pipes in the United States that have speeds of at least 25 Mbps.

Most households will have no alternative to the combined company’s broadband pipe. As companies such as DISH invest to meet the growing consumer appetite for broadband-reliant video products and services, this chokehold over the broadband pipe would stifle future video competition.

If the merger is approved, the combined Comcast/TWC entity would pass almost two thirds of U.S. households and control 50 percent of the high-speed U.S. residential broadband connections.

If the industry considers threshold of 10 Mbps or faster as the relevant product market for broadband, Comcast/TWC would command more than 42 percent of the market.

If 3 Mbps is the benchmark as proposed by applicants, the merger would still result in the combined company controlling 35.5 percent of the market.

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