April 28, 2014 — Today Comcast set forth a plan to ensure it will be allowed to acquire Time Warner. Under the terms, Comcast is to sell 1.4 million subscribers to Charter Communications for $7.3 billion. Ostensibly, this move would allow Comcast to divest customers and appease the regulators. Step 1 — sell customers to competitor (Charter) to reduce market share. Ok. Step 2 — Comcast will form a spin off in which Charter will have a 1\/3 stake in \u201cNew Co\u201d and Comcast will contribute another 2.5 million subscribers, with Comcast shareholders maintaining a 2\/3 stake. Ok. The corporate lawyers and regulators believe this proposal will pass muster and reduce the giant\u2019s market share just enough to allow it to acquire Time Warner. Fair enough.<\/p>\n
On the one hand, as a \u201cPhilly\u201d guy, I like seeing Comcast win — a strong Comcast is good for the City. On the other hand this deal, and the pending FCC adjustments to Net Neutrality, give me the chills. The domain and Internet community should pay close attention to the game being played. After all, every business we work with, sell a domain name to, invest in or create relies on open and fair online access and competition. These are turbulent and fast moving times. This, coupled with the IANA \u2013 ICANN transfer of oversight, is enough to make your head spin. The proposed Comcast take over could mean less competition, and the Net Neutrality issue appears to be tracking toward a \u201cpay to play\u201d for better Internet access. If this is true, we may all be in for a rude awakening.<\/p>\n
For those not following this issue, here is a (really) quick bullet point primer:<\/p>\n
1) September, 2005 — FCC Internet Policy Statement <\/a>\u2013 to maintain the \u201cvibrant and open character of the Internet,\u201d the FCC adopts 4 principles for consumer entitlement: to access to lawful content; to run applications and use services of their choice; to connect to choice of legal devices; and to competition among network, application, serviced and content providers;<\/p>\n 2) December, 2010 — FCC issues its Order<\/a> requiring Internet service providers to be transparent about control of network congestion and prohibited carrier blocking and discrimination of internet traffic \u2013 Net Neutrality;<\/p>\n 3) We enjoy 4 years of the \u201cOpen Internet\u201d as we know it;<\/p>\n 4) January, 2014 — the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia strikes down the FCC Net Neutrality Rules<\/a>, affirming FCC authority to regulate broadband providers, but striking the anti-blocking and the anti-discrimination rules;<\/p>\n 5) February 13, 2014 — Comcast announces<\/a> its bid to buy TimeWarner;<\/p>\n 6) February 23, 2014 — After months of reports of slow delivery of its services, Netflix agrees to pay Comcast<\/a> for \u201cfaster more reliable access;\u201d<\/p>\n 6) April 28, 2014 \u2013 Comcast announces offer to divest customers to reduce market share and allow TimeWarner acquisition to occur; and<\/p>\n 7) May 15, 2014 – the FCC will consider a Notice of Proposed Rule Making to Address Net Neutrality \u2013 possibly leading to the \u201cpay to play\u201d option. http:\/\/www.fcc.gov\/events\/open-commission-meeting-may-2014<\/a><\/p>\n In advance of May 15th<\/sup> it has been reported<\/a> that the FCC\u2019s new plan, will require<\/span> Internet service providers to offer a baseline level of service to their subscribers, and prohibit blocking or discriminating against online content. Sounds good so far, however the providers would also be allowed to strike special deals with Internet companies (presumably big content providers) for preferential treatment<\/span>, as long as they act in a \u201ccommercially reasonable manner\u201d and are \u201csubject to review on a case-by-case basis.\u201d<\/p>\n To me, the possibility of this \u201cpreferential treatment\u201d concept is nothing more than a \u201cpay to play\u201d option that will benefit those that can pay at the expense of startups and the \u201clittle guys\u201d that can\u2019t (yet) afford the fee. This affects me, you, any and Internet entrepreneur or start up seeking to grow and compete.<\/p>\n While this appears to be the case, FCC Chairman Wheeler has stated that there has been no “turnaround in [FCC] policy.\u201d On April 24th<\/sup> the Chairman further stated “[t]o be very direct, the [Net Neutrality] proposal would establish that behavior harmful to consumers or competition by limiting the openness of the Internet will not be permitted.” http:\/\/www.fcc.gov\/blog\/setting-record-straight-fcc-s-open-internet-rules<\/a><\/p>\n The new proposal appears to include good rules that will prohibit blocking of legal traffic, and ensure that ISPs “may not act in a commercially unreasonable manner to harm the Internet, including favoring the traffic from an affiliated entity.” However, reported potential for “preferential treatment” creates concern.<\/p>\n Can you afford to pay to reach consumers at the same speeds as well-established companies? With today\u2019s announcement to clear the way for Comcast to acquire TimeWarner, further industry consolidation could mean less competition. Stronger broadband companies armed with the new proposals floating around Washington could make ISPs the true gatekeepers to their subscribers and content. Sure, you would still be able to access all content, but “other” content may get that “extra special boost.” As I said before, I\u2019m rooting for my hometown team, Comcast, but I\u2019d also like to be sure that Net Neutrality remains truly neutral<\/span>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" April 28, 2014 — Today Comcast set forth a plan to ensure it will be allowed to acquire Time Warner. Under the terms, Comcast is to sell 1.4 million subscribers to Charter Communications for $7.3 billion. Ostensibly, this move would allow Comcast to divest customers and appease the regulators. Step 1 — sell customers to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":293,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nysck.com\/nysck-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nysck.com\/nysck-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nysck.com\/nysck-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nysck.com\/nysck-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nysck.com\/nysck-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nysck.com\/nysck-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1109,"href":"https:\/\/nysck.com\/nysck-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions\/1109"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nysck.com\/nysck-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nysck.com\/nysck-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nysck.com\/nysck-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nysck.com\/nysck-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}