/PRNewswire/ -- EarthLink, Inc. (Nasdaq: ELNK), one of the nation's leading Internet service providers, has presented an economic report to the Federal Communications Commission on the proposed merger of Comcast Corp. and NBC Universal. The findings demonstrate that control of NBC Universal's content and assets will result in Comcast raising the prices that consumers pay for standalone broadband service. This report was prepared by Professor Simon J. Wilkie, Former Chief Economist of the Federal Communications Commission, and is available at http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=7020915403.
The report shows that an increase in the price of standalone broadband service will harm consumers in several ways. In response to higher prices, existing subscribers may be forced to drop their broadband service subscription and new subscribers may not be able to afford Comcast's broadband service. Further, Comcast customers who wish to "cut the cord" from the higher-priced Comcast cable television subscription in order to access lower-cost online video and voice services via standalone broadband or simply "break the bundle" and subscribe only to broadband services will face increased charges. As a result, the market for innovative online video services will be stifled and the nation's goals of ubiquitous broadband adoption and usage will be dampened.
In June, EarthLink asked the FCC to deny the merger or adopt a condition requiring Comcast to offer wholesale standalone broadband access service to independent Internet service providers. Professor Wilkie determined that allowing consumers to have a choice for broadband services will allow consumers to "break the bundle," promote and discipline Comcast's pricing and protect the development of online video. This remedy will impose little or no costs on Comcast while at the same time generating significant benefits.
"Professor Wilkie has confirmed through substantial findings that the Comcast-NBCU transaction will result in a real and significant harm to consumers," said EarthLink General Counsel Samuel R. DeSimone, Jr. "The FCC must step in to ensure that consumers have access to affordable standalone broadband service."
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Showing posts with label comcast. Show all posts
Showing posts with label comcast. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
EarthLink Files Reply in Comcast-NBCU Merger; Urges FCC to Require Wholesale Standalone Broadband Access Condition
/PRNewswire/-- EarthLink, Inc. (NASDAQ:ELNK) , one of the nation's leading Internet service providers, on August 18 filed at the Federal Communications Commission a response to the opposition of applicants to conditions proposed in the Comcast-NBCU merger. In June, EarthLink asked the FCC to deny the merger or adopt a condition requiring Comcast to offer wholesale standalone broadband access to independent Internet service providers.
EarthLink urged the FCC to adopt the condition to ensure the merger does not result in anti-competitive activity that will reduce consumer choice, restrict content diversity, and interfere with Internet competition. In addition to providing consumers a choice for broadband access service, the condition would allow consumers to "break the bundle" and take advantage of video programming available on the Internet without subscribing to cable television service, thereby encouraging broadband investment, competition and adoption.
"The Comcast-NBCU transaction raises the substantial risk that Comcast will use its market power to stifle competition, growth and innovation of online video and other broadband content," said EarthLink General Counsel Samuel R. DeSimone, Jr. "The access condition proposed by EarthLink is a cost-effective solution to these concerns and will benefit U.S. consumers."
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EarthLink urged the FCC to adopt the condition to ensure the merger does not result in anti-competitive activity that will reduce consumer choice, restrict content diversity, and interfere with Internet competition. In addition to providing consumers a choice for broadband access service, the condition would allow consumers to "break the bundle" and take advantage of video programming available on the Internet without subscribing to cable television service, thereby encouraging broadband investment, competition and adoption.
"The Comcast-NBCU transaction raises the substantial risk that Comcast will use its market power to stifle competition, growth and innovation of online video and other broadband content," said EarthLink General Counsel Samuel R. DeSimone, Jr. "The access condition proposed by EarthLink is a cost-effective solution to these concerns and will benefit U.S. consumers."
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Tuesday, June 22, 2010
EarthLink Files Opposition to Comcast-NBCU Merger; Seeks to Enhance Consumer Choice of Internet Services
PRNewswire -- EarthLink, Inc. (NASDAQ:ELNK) , one of the nation's leading Internet service providers, today filed at the Federal Communications Commission a Petition to Condition or Deny the proposed merger of Comcast Corporation and NBC Universal. (See http://www.earthlink.net/go/merger for EarthLink's Petition.)
EarthLink believes the transaction would result in Comcast engaging in a range of anti-competitive actions that will reduce consumer choice, restrict content diversity, and interfere with Internet competition. To remedy these harms, EarthLink proposed the FCC adopt a condition requiring Comcast to offer wholesale standalone broadband access to independent Internet service providers. EarthLink's successful and long-standing wholesale relationship with Time Warner Cable demonstrates that merger conditions implementing competitive broadband access can enhance consumer choice and create commercial benefits for all parties.
"The access condition that EarthLink proposes today for the Comcast-NBCU merger will be a win for consumers and a win for online competition," said EarthLink Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rolla Huff. "The condition essentially enables Comcast customers to 'break the bundle' and purchase only the services they need or want. We look forward to working with the FCC and the U.S. Department of Justice to ensure the transaction results in greater consumer choice and competition."
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EarthLink believes the transaction would result in Comcast engaging in a range of anti-competitive actions that will reduce consumer choice, restrict content diversity, and interfere with Internet competition. To remedy these harms, EarthLink proposed the FCC adopt a condition requiring Comcast to offer wholesale standalone broadband access to independent Internet service providers. EarthLink's successful and long-standing wholesale relationship with Time Warner Cable demonstrates that merger conditions implementing competitive broadband access can enhance consumer choice and create commercial benefits for all parties.
"The access condition that EarthLink proposes today for the Comcast-NBCU merger will be a win for consumers and a win for online competition," said EarthLink Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rolla Huff. "The condition essentially enables Comcast customers to 'break the bundle' and purchase only the services they need or want. We look forward to working with the FCC and the U.S. Department of Justice to ensure the transaction results in greater consumer choice and competition."
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Friday, May 7, 2010
FCC's Third Way Would Transfer Costs for Digital Expansion to the Un-served and Underserved
/PRNewswire/ -- The CEO and Chairman of the Alliance for Digital Equality (ADE), Julius Hollis, issued the following statement regarding FCC Chairman Genachowski's announcement yesterday that the FCC will seek to reclassify broadband providers as common carrier services under certain provisions of Title II of the Communications Act, in order to restore a legal foundation to their regulatory authority following the recent FCC vs. Comcast lawsuit:
"Yesterday's announcement by Chairman Genachowski is both perplexing and concerning. The FCC, after conferring with various stakeholders, crafted a comprehensive National Broadband Plan which seeks to guide the build out of high speed Internet and stimulate much-needed job growth. The FCC's National Broadband Plan provides a level and competitive landscape across all networks allowing for the spread of broadband to all American consumers. All this while maintaining an open Internet.
However, the Chairman's "third way" approach constricts economic development, particularly in communities of color that have been economically marginalized for decades due to the absence of private sector investment. This "third way" that the Chairman speaks of could further perpetuate economic inequalities by restricting consumers' choice and access to affordable broadband as our society moves towards a digitally-based economy.
"The Alliance for Digital Equality fully supports an open Internet and a regulatory environment that incentivizes the private investment necessary to bring digital technology to our currently un-served and underserved communities, leading to economic equality. ADE calls on the FCC today to focus on the critically important task of getting all Americans connected as delineated in the National Broadband Plan by promoting a more balanced regulatory environment. The ADE encourages Chairman Genachowski to reconsider his plans to implement a third way."
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"Yesterday's announcement by Chairman Genachowski is both perplexing and concerning. The FCC, after conferring with various stakeholders, crafted a comprehensive National Broadband Plan which seeks to guide the build out of high speed Internet and stimulate much-needed job growth. The FCC's National Broadband Plan provides a level and competitive landscape across all networks allowing for the spread of broadband to all American consumers. All this while maintaining an open Internet.
However, the Chairman's "third way" approach constricts economic development, particularly in communities of color that have been economically marginalized for decades due to the absence of private sector investment. This "third way" that the Chairman speaks of could further perpetuate economic inequalities by restricting consumers' choice and access to affordable broadband as our society moves towards a digitally-based economy.
"The Alliance for Digital Equality fully supports an open Internet and a regulatory environment that incentivizes the private investment necessary to bring digital technology to our currently un-served and underserved communities, leading to economic equality. ADE calls on the FCC today to focus on the critically important task of getting all Americans connected as delineated in the National Broadband Plan by promoting a more balanced regulatory environment. The ADE encourages Chairman Genachowski to reconsider his plans to implement a third way."
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Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Tennis Channel Files FCC Complaint Against Comcast
/PRNewswire/ -- On Tuesday, January 5, Tennis Channel filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission demonstrating that Comcast Cable Communications is violating the FCC's program carriage rules, which prohibit cable system operators from discriminating against unaffiliated cable programming services in favor of networks they own. According to the complaint, Comcast isolates Tennis Channel on a premium sports tier received by a small fraction of Comcast subscribers while it carries Comcast-owned networks that compete with Tennis Channel on basic tiers available to far more subscribers at no additional charge.
"We did not want to file this complaint, but Comcast has left us with no choice," said Ken Solomon, chairman and CEO of Tennis Channel. "After steadily building the most comprehensive single-sport network in television over the past few years, in the first half of 2009 we had numerous discussions with Comcast. We made offers with added incentives for it to move us to a competitive, broadly penetrated service tier, as it has done recently with the MLB, NHL and NBA channels, in which it has financial interests. But Comcast declined to do so."
According to evidence included in the complaint, Tennis Channel's ratings performance is comparable in its service area to that of Comcast's leading sports services, the Golf Channel and Versus; it offers coverage of all four of tennis' Grand Slam events, while the Golf Channel and Versus offer little or no comparable coverage of the major events in the sports they cover; it charges a per-subscriber rate that is about half the rate charged by the Golf Channel and Versus, but broadcasts more than 2,700 hours per year of event coverage - compared to 2,400 hours on the Golf Channel and 1,350 hours on Versus; and it offers a full-time high-definition service.
Comcast's Golf Channel and Versus are among the most broadly distributed channels on Comcast systems, reaching almost all of Comcast's 23.8 million subscribers, according to the complaint, while Tennis Channel is limited to the added-cost premium sports tier that reaches only about 2.6 million homes. "This ten-to-one disparity in carriage seriously impedes our ability to grow and compete in the sports cable marketplace," said Solomon. "It results solely from Comcast's decision to protect the services it owns from legitimate competition."
The complaint notes that Comcast executives have conceded that they give special carriage consideration to their owned services and that advertiser-supported services like Tennis Channel cannot succeed if they are carried on the Comcast sports tier. The complaint also establishes that only unaffiliated sports networks are carried on that tier and that all of the services in which Comcast has an interest enjoy considerably broader coverage.
"This case is truly the litmus test for unaffiliated programmers everywhere, and the future of the public's interest in having a wide variety of voices and choice in the media marketplace," said Solomon. "Ultimately, we simply want to be treated comparably to the way Comcast treats the sports program services it owns."
Tennis Channel (www.tennischannel.com) is the only 24-hour, television-based multimedia destination dedicated to both the professional sport and tennis lifestyle. A hybrid of comprehensive sports, health, fitness, pop culture, entertainment, lifestyle and travel programming, the network is home to every aspect of the wide-ranging, worldwide tennis community. It also has the most concentrated single-sport coverage in television, with telecast rights to the US Open, Wimbledon, Roland Garros (French Open), Australian Open, Olympus US Open Series, ATP Masters Series, top-tier Sony Ericsson WTA Tour championship competitions, Davis Cup and Fed Cup by BNP Paribas, and Hyundai Hopman Cup. Tennis Channel is carried by nine of the top 10 MSOs, Verizon FiOS TV, and has a national footprint via DIRECTV and DISH Network.
The sport of tennis itself is currently enjoying major growth. Thirty million Americans played tennis last year, the most in two decades, according to study commissioned by the United States Tennis Association and Tennis Industry Association. A Sports Illustrated list of the top 10 athletes of the past decade included two tennis players and named a tennis player No. 1. Additionally, Tennis Channel's ratings for top-level tennis events are competitive with those for programming on the highest-ranking cable networks.
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"We did not want to file this complaint, but Comcast has left us with no choice," said Ken Solomon, chairman and CEO of Tennis Channel. "After steadily building the most comprehensive single-sport network in television over the past few years, in the first half of 2009 we had numerous discussions with Comcast. We made offers with added incentives for it to move us to a competitive, broadly penetrated service tier, as it has done recently with the MLB, NHL and NBA channels, in which it has financial interests. But Comcast declined to do so."
According to evidence included in the complaint, Tennis Channel's ratings performance is comparable in its service area to that of Comcast's leading sports services, the Golf Channel and Versus; it offers coverage of all four of tennis' Grand Slam events, while the Golf Channel and Versus offer little or no comparable coverage of the major events in the sports they cover; it charges a per-subscriber rate that is about half the rate charged by the Golf Channel and Versus, but broadcasts more than 2,700 hours per year of event coverage - compared to 2,400 hours on the Golf Channel and 1,350 hours on Versus; and it offers a full-time high-definition service.
Comcast's Golf Channel and Versus are among the most broadly distributed channels on Comcast systems, reaching almost all of Comcast's 23.8 million subscribers, according to the complaint, while Tennis Channel is limited to the added-cost premium sports tier that reaches only about 2.6 million homes. "This ten-to-one disparity in carriage seriously impedes our ability to grow and compete in the sports cable marketplace," said Solomon. "It results solely from Comcast's decision to protect the services it owns from legitimate competition."
The complaint notes that Comcast executives have conceded that they give special carriage consideration to their owned services and that advertiser-supported services like Tennis Channel cannot succeed if they are carried on the Comcast sports tier. The complaint also establishes that only unaffiliated sports networks are carried on that tier and that all of the services in which Comcast has an interest enjoy considerably broader coverage.
"This case is truly the litmus test for unaffiliated programmers everywhere, and the future of the public's interest in having a wide variety of voices and choice in the media marketplace," said Solomon. "Ultimately, we simply want to be treated comparably to the way Comcast treats the sports program services it owns."
Tennis Channel (www.tennischannel.com) is the only 24-hour, television-based multimedia destination dedicated to both the professional sport and tennis lifestyle. A hybrid of comprehensive sports, health, fitness, pop culture, entertainment, lifestyle and travel programming, the network is home to every aspect of the wide-ranging, worldwide tennis community. It also has the most concentrated single-sport coverage in television, with telecast rights to the US Open, Wimbledon, Roland Garros (French Open), Australian Open, Olympus US Open Series, ATP Masters Series, top-tier Sony Ericsson WTA Tour championship competitions, Davis Cup and Fed Cup by BNP Paribas, and Hyundai Hopman Cup. Tennis Channel is carried by nine of the top 10 MSOs, Verizon FiOS TV, and has a national footprint via DIRECTV and DISH Network.
The sport of tennis itself is currently enjoying major growth. Thirty million Americans played tennis last year, the most in two decades, according to study commissioned by the United States Tennis Association and Tennis Industry Association. A Sports Illustrated list of the top 10 athletes of the past decade included two tennis players and named a tennis player No. 1. Additionally, Tennis Channel's ratings for top-level tennis events are competitive with those for programming on the highest-ranking cable networks.
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