Dish files protest opposing Time Warner/Charter merger

[dishcomm]

Looks like Dish is going to throw some spike strips in the road on this proposal.
Dish is claiming this merger will reduce competition, give "New Charter" significant if not unfair leverage and allow it to create "choke points"....
Courtesy dish.com..

DISH Petitions FCC to Deny Charter/Time Warner Cable Merger




ENGLEWOOD, Colo. --(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Citing substantial harm to competition and consumers, DISH Network Corp. (NASDAQ: DISH) petitioned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to deny the proposed merger of Charter Communications, Inc. and Time Warner Cable, Inc. The petition to deny, available here, outlines, among other things, the critical role that high-speed broadband plays in the video industry and the potential for the merger to significantly damage competitive development of over-the-top (OTT) video and limit consumer access to online video programming. Some key points from the petition on the following topics include:

MERGER PRESENTS RISK OF SIGNIFICANT HARMS:

• New Parties, Same Harms: The proposed transaction would be no better for the public interest than the one proposed between Comcast and Time Warner Cable. (p.2)
• A Suffocating Duopoly: The transaction will create a suffocating duopoly. Where a Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger would have created one behemoth, this transaction will result in two broadband providers (Comcast and New Charter) controlling about 90 percent of the nation's high-speed broadband homes between them. (p.3)
• Threats to Online Video: The top two cable providers post-merger will not need to collude in order to bring their collective weight to bear on an online video distributor (OVD). Parallel foreclosures, with one of the two following the other, would be enough for an OVD to be shut off from most of the homes in the country. (p.3)
• Concentration of Broadband Subscribers: The impact of New Charter would cause a significant proportion of the combined company's high-speed broadband subscribers to lack access to alternative high-speed broadband options. Indeed, Charter admits that almost two-thirds of households in the New Charter footprint will not have access to at least one alternative high-speed broadband provider. For these customers, switching ISPs is not just an inconvenience, but an impossibility. (p.3)
• Choke Points on the Charter/TWC Broadband Network: New Charter would have a panoply of foreclosure techniques at its disposal. It would be able to foreclose or degrade the online video offerings of competing MVPD and OTT video providers at any of three "choke points": (1) the points of interconnection to the combined company's broadband network, in effect the "on ramp" to the New Charter network; (2) the "public Internet" portion of the pipe to the consumer's home; and (3) managed or specialized service channels, which can act as super HOV-lanes and squeeze the capacity of the "public Internet" portion of the New Charter broadband pipe. In addition, New Charter would have increased leverage that it could use to coerce third-party content owners and programmers to withhold online rights from online video platforms, thereby stifling a source of competition and innovation in the video industry. (p.4)

As Roger Lynch , CEO of Sling TV, states in his accompanying declaration: "I believe that the proposed merger.... would cause significant and irreparable harm to emerging competitive online video products and services, as well as the performance of traditional satellite television service, ultimately reducing competition and choice for consumers. Accordingly, I believe that the merger as currently constructed is not in the public interest and should be denied."

A copy of the full petition to deny is available here: https://dishnetwork.newshq.businesswire.com/sites/dishnetwork.newshq.businesswire.com/files/doc_library/file/2015-10-13_As-Filed_DISH_Network_Corp_Petition_to_Deny_Charter-Time_Warner_Cable_Merger.pdf

About DISH
DISH Network Corp. (NASDAQISH), through its subsidiaries, provides approximately 13.932 million pay-TV subscribers, as of June 30, 2015 , with the highest-quality programming and technology with the most choices at the best value. Subscribers enjoy a high definition lineup with more than 200 national HD channels, the most International channels, and award-winning HD and DVR technology. DISH Network Corporation is a Fortune 250 company. Visit www.dish.com.

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View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20151013006982/en/

 

[whitewolf8214]

Dish Network files FCC petition to deny Charter-TWC merger
Oct 13 2015, 20:57 ET | By: Jason Aycock, SA News Editor
Breaking ranks with interconnectors like Netflix and Cogent, Dish Network (DISH -0.7%) has officially petitioned the FCC to deny the merger of Charter (CHTR +0.5%) and Time Warner Cable (TWC +0.8%) on "risk of significant harms," including a "suffocating duopoly."In the petition, Dish focused primarily on the critical role of high-speed broadband in video's future, and the likely effects on online video and over-the-top service.The deal would be no better for the public interest than the failed Comcast-TWC merger, it said, and the Charter-TWC deal just creates two behemoths instead of one: Comcast and "new" Charter would control about 90% of the nation's high-speed Internet homes between them.The two won't need to collude to pressure online video distributors, Dish says; their acting in parallel is enough to shut providers out of the system. http://seekingalpha.com/news/282787...etition-to-deny-charter-twc-merger#email_link

 

[dishcomm]

http://www.fiercecable.com/story/di.../2015-10-14?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal
Other providers have jumped into the fray.
I oppose any merger where the consumer is to be the loser.
And in this case, not only is the consumer the loser, so are on line providers( referred to as linear) as well.
This is a lose lose.....it must be stopped

 

[DishSubLA]

Unfortunately, considering how small Charter is and how poor their system is and how they don't have the mountains of money to upgrade their MSO's, and considering the stupid Comcast NBC/Universal merger was approved, I, begrudgingly, support the TWC/Charger merge only because we have created such huge MSO's and this merge is probably the only way Charter subscribers can have a ROBUST alternative to satellite and get a lot of tech that the other MSO's offer but NOT available at Charter.

 

[dishcomm]

Unfortunately, considering how small Charter is and how poor their system is and how they don't have the mountains of money to upgrade their MSO's, and considering the stupid Comcast NBC/Universal merger was approved, I, begrudgingly, support the TWC/Charger merge only because we have created such huge MSO's and this merge is probably the only way Charter subscribers can have a ROBUST alternative to satellite and get a lot of tech that the other MSO's offer but NOT available at Charter.

Ok...MY take is this. I oppose any merger of companies where the consumer ends up with less service and or higher prices...
This merger crap has to stop sometime. This should be that time.....