FCC Should Consider Forming Video-Buying Co-op in Charter/TWC/BHN, Incompas Says

The FCC should explore forming a video-purchasing cooperative to "mitigate the harm to local residential broadband Internet access service competition" that would come from Charter Communications' buying Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable, Incompas said in an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 15-149. Such a cooperative would aid small multichannel video programming distributors in competing against larger incumbent MVPDs, "including by incentivizing competition in New Charter's proposed footprint," the telecom association said. "A market-based solution such as the Cooperative is superior to any proposed build-out commitment that could be imposed upon Charter" because such a commitment wouldn't address the lack of competition for residential broadband service, it said. Some cable operators already use the National Cable Television Cooperative.

Incompas said Charter is willing to modify its interconnection policy, based on talks with some edge providers. Those changes should be reflected in the published policy and that policy should be an enforceable condition of Charter/TWC/BHN for seven years, the association said. It recapped a meeting between its officials including CEO Chip Pickering and FCC representatives including General Counsel Jonathan Sallet. Charter in response pointed to a company blog post. It said the FCC previously determined in AT&T's buying DirecTV that lower programming prices for an MVPD are a merger benefit because its customers see savings pass-through. Meanwhile, Charter said, "Incompas makes the classic merger analysis mistake of confusing harm to New Charter’s competitors with harm to competition."

Dish Network reiterated its arguments (see 1601050039), in a separate filing posted Thursday in the docket, that New Charter would have the ability and incentive to harm online video distributors. In the heavily redacted filing, Dish also said despite Charter's arguments to the contrary, internal Charter documents indicate New Charter "seems poised" to implement usage-based pricing once the company's voluntary three-year commitment is up. In a statement, Charter said, "There is no better partner for [online video distributors] than Charter... We offer the fastest minimum broadband speed in the industry at 60 Mbps, with no data caps, no usage based billing, no modem fees and no [early termination fees]. One would think that Dish, like industry leader Netflix, would strongly support our transactions which will create an even better platform for OVDs including Sling.”