A coalition of non-profit groups delivered a petition with 300,000 signatures to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday asking the commission to block the pending merger of Charter and Time Warner Cable.
The petition, which was backed by groups like Courage Campaign, Fight for the Future, Common Cause and Working Families, included more than 28,000 signatures from online civil rights organization ColorOfChange, 23,000 signatures from Demand Progress, 37,500 signatures from Free Press. More than 200,000 signatures came from a copy of the petition on NoMoreMergers.com.
According to the petition, the merger presents similar problems to those that were seen in Comcast’s failed acquisition of Time Warner Cable and would create a “duopoly” of companies controlling a vast swath of the country. The negative effects of the merger, the petition said, would disproportionately impact predominantly black markets.
“If this merger passes, New Charter and Comcast together would form a national broadband duopoly controlling nearly two-thirds of existing customers and the telecommunications wires connected to nearly 8 out of every 10 U.S. homes,” ColorOfChange wrote in a Thursday email. “Under this scenario, customers are likely to see industry-wide price increases and other harmful practices designed to stifle online video competition, such as arbitrary data caps and overage penalties. A New Charter and Comcast duopoly could make Internet even more unaffordable for Black communities that need access as an economic lifeline.”
The petition comes on the heels of a meeting this week between Charter and the FCC in which representatives of Charter, Time Warner Cable and Advance/Newhouse Partnership touted the public benefits of the merger.
According to a filing with the FCC, representatives of the merger parties and the commission discussed “the substantial public interest benefits” of the transaction. The conversation also included a recap of New Charter’s “verifiable and enforceable commitments,” which merger representatives listed as “providing settlement-free interconnection under its interconnection policy and broadband service without usage-based billing or data caps.”
In a separate, partially redacted filing, Charter argued the merger will allow it to offer lower prices to businesses by expanding its coverage area. This, it said, will reduce the transaction and marginalization costs currently associated with the coordination of multiple networks and personnel necessary to cover a business with locations both inside and outside its existing coverage area.
Last week, Charter also told the FCC the merger would quicken the pace of residential line extensions and allow for faster upgrades in the four years following the transaction’s closing.
However, the coalition behind Thursday’s petition said it was skeptical of these promises. And they’re not alone.
In filing comments on the proposed merger, AT&T – which acquired satellite company DirecTV last year – expressed concern over the frequency of cable mergers and said the industry is “marked by a lack of head-to-head competition.”
Minnesota Senator Al Franken has also written to the FCC to voice his concerns, questioning whether the debt undertaken by New Charter to close the transaction will allow it to follow through on its promises.
“It is crucial that the reliability of the New Charter applicants’ proposed commitments is examined,” Franken wrote in October. “Overall, I believe the key questions that remain are whether further consolidation is the only or best means of achieving the important goals reflected in New Charter applicants’ public interest statement, and whether the transaction would still serve the public interest if the asserted commitments were not deemed enforceable or reliable.”
