That would be unthinkable. That has not happened yet. They have not let the kibosh on it yet. I do not think the paperwork has been filed. But they could deny the merger if they want to. I do you think the fcc should stop this merger . Will it . I do not think it well. I am at a think tank right now. I have no dog in this fight. I tried to look at this objectively, not as a commissioner. You do not have to keep calling me mission or by the way. Commissioner, by the way. It can be viewed as an opportunity to implement public all estate how policy. This happens frequently a big mergers. You have the Largest Cable Company buying the second Largest Cable Company. Comcast is the Largest Video distributor and one of the largest comcast asked content companies. Content companies. A big hurdle with them was the integration with the. Nbc. Comcast agreed to stringent conditions. Neutrality, the stringent the sharing of content. If you are sitting at the fcc, and you are in the wake of the Net Neutrality decision by the court. They made a big announcement yesterday, which we will talk about. Im not saying this is the way i would do it, but transactions are frequently used as a way to shape markets. There are a lot of conditions that could be placed on the Internet Service provider. The president has an initiative to upgrade access. Things a whole host of that is similar to conditions comcast agreed to when they bought nbc universal. I could see it being seriously considered, but with a lot of conditions. What do you think of this proposal . I think it is a disaster. It will go straight to their wallets. There were supposed to consume her benefits. Prices will go up. And they will go up rapidly. There is way too much media power to put in one happenings can. They are the biggest i is the. Isp. This deal with comcast that the next this of every major media policy debate that we will have. I do not see it being in the Public Interest. I think the fcc should bought this merger. It is why we have antitrust laws. For most americans, a deal like this teams unthinkable. We have gotten this far, and it is incubated. That says a lot. But there is no condition that is good enough. 33 million customers if this deal goes through. Comcast is art he said that they will be below the dirty percent level. 30 million customers were so. Netflix has 31 million customers. Isnt their competition out there . If you want netflix, you need a connection to the internet. Comcast will be that connection. For half of americans, a giant comcast would be it. The only viable option for highspeed broadband. In some big cities, maybe you could get verizon i have. Maybe you can find verizon fios. This would give comcast so much power. There are other companies that compete with them, at least in the videos theyve. Comcastes contact the gatekeeper for everything. They get to decide who drives on the internet. That is so much power. Once the deal is done, there is nothing in the in their way. That i know and understand the art of the repressed. I am not taking sides. But a lot of what he outlined could be a result of merger conditions. Wanted a 10inally year term on the conditions. The compromise was seven. It has done pretty well. Similar mergerr conditions. Including some price controls. Perspective,rust comcast is not taking down a rival. They are not in the same territory. It is getting bigger. They are trying to stay under that philosophical cap of 30 . With a think is really is overing in general the top video. You have to get that video through a broadband i. From a programming perspective, house of cards is a hot topic lately. Other content that is user generated is quickly being looked at, not the three cable screen, but through other types of screens. Is licensed and unlicensed wireless. There are interesting dynamics in the marketplace right now we talked about buying power for content. Thats also the argument this gives comcast more of a balance of power with retransmission concerns. What about cableonly outfits . Will that actually keep those prices in check . There are a lot of questions to be asked. It will take a while to resolve. But there are a lot of questions to be asked. I am having a hard time seeing the benefits. It will give comcast so much power in so many places. Is a local cable monopoly. I do not think that is a good reason to create a bigger monopoly. We have carved out a cable cartel all across the country. Time warner cable is not a programmer any more. They have a reason to keep down the cost of programming. They are a huge programmer. They can move from one pocket to another. I see why comcast wants to do this deal. There are amazing economies of scale for them. From what we are are you paying verizon, it is a lot of money each month. I want to watch netflix. That is what i am paying for. I have amazon prime. That is where this is going. To ward an on demand world. From a consumer first active, it is a world in which in order to get his contact dust content, you also have to pay for this. From the consumer end, there is no real damage there. Why do i have to pay for channels i dont watch . Give me what i want and i am happy to pay for it. If you are not doing it, you can go somewhere else. What they have already done is limited those choices. Worsees things much more for the average american. And the department of justice have a role in this merger . Certainly. It is about how they draw these markets. Maybe they do not compete head to head, they just moved the paperwork along. We have to look at the broadband market and how dominant it will be when we come to broadband offerings. This newntry company would be the only game in town. That is a problem. We have to look at the trip will play market. Together, this company would be 52 of the market. That is very concentrated. Those are the issues we have to scrutinize and look closely at. The Obama Administration didnt stop the tmobile merger. We need to look out five years ahead. Were do we want to be in five years when these merger conditions go away . What is that market likely to look like . Theres a role for justice, absolutely. Obviously theres a role for the fcc. Is, is this deal in the Public Interest . I do not see how they will make a case for. But it is a very important matter. To questions. In a case like this, how would you work or interact with the department of justice . How much lobbying would be done by different groups, comcast or other groups . The fcc has a dedicated team of career Public Servant and lawyers who work on merger transactions like this. They integrate very closely with the department of justice or the federal trade commission. They work very well together. They are meeting were talking to each other throughout the day for the duration of the review of the transaction. At all sorts of issues. Economic issues, competition issues, Consumer Protection issues, sometimes integration of technology issues. Askedrare i often get what if they went to different ways . I have been in this business for a quartercentury. I do not know when that has happened. I do not think it has ever happened. That is because the teams are integrated. They tend to arrive at the same destination. There is an assistant attorney general in this case who is in charge of president ial ointments. Thus appointments. The fcc appointments are also political. You will see probably the same philosophy given whoever the president is at the fcc. They will come at it from different perspectives. Public interests are more ambiguous. Century ofas over a interest. I cannot think of when the two agencies have diverged. I am sure that they will reach the same inclusion at roughly the same time. Not necessarily exactly the same time, but it has been an interesting process to watch. Will Congress Play a role in this . Absolutely. The signals from the hill will matter. Senatorb sharp Amy Klobuchar has authority called for work on this. Hopefully the fcc will do their own hearings. There are not a lot of for the public to engage. That is key for congress. That is the way that people who are dissatisfied with their and both of these companies regularly ranked among the worst happening in america, they will have their chance to weigh in. They have a really Important Role to play here in elevating this and letting people know just how big a deal this merger is. Thats what is free press . We should have started there. Glad it is a National Nonprofit organization. We advocate on behalf of the public for media and technology issues. We try to give the public a voice in these debate. If you could make the decision, how would you see comcast structure . I think consumers benefit when theres lots of competition. I think we have these Companies Get to bed. Think anything the agencies can do to encourage choice and competition and give people the ability to vote when they are dissatisfied, that is very important and valuable. In cases where there is a natural monopoly, and it is natural to build up, we need the just that been that in step in and play a watchdog role. Comcast has gotten too big already. We were staunch opponents of the previous merger with the. In my fantasy fcc, they are talking about that. Fcc is doing their heart to rain and this incredible power. They are raking it out and encouraging competition. They should not allow this kind of competition to continue. Is there competition in the Telecommunications World today after there is. A is the mobile market divine it depends on how you are defining telecommunications. Americans have a choice of three Cable Companies. Sometimes there are other companies, but theres competition there. There is a growing trend that is interesting. It is dependent on broadband. Wireless broadband is the fastestgrowing in the market. They are not buying a video package. They are just buying a broadband service. They are downloading whatever they can from hulu or netflix or amazon prime. Years, some of the s of its ered at around one hours 1. 0 of household. I thousand data recently that it could be more. No one is sure. Is hard to want to five. It is hard to quantify. As you see more Cable Companies themselves, they are very concerned about this. Weird of the competitive threat go . Have kids and their first green is the mobile screen. When they are watching is user generated content. When i start reading more pure. These, we see these trends bearing up. What we are looking at our Big Companies love divided up. He market they are not competing. They have allowed that splitting up to happen. We have a handful of dominant providers. The Obama Administration stepped in to make sure that there are were major competitors. Wireless is growing. We all wanted. It is not a substitute were the line going into your home. It is not going to be a substitute anytime soon. If they have to choose, youre right, they will readily go mobile. There are interesting things that happened in these debates. Comcast is going to potentially have a very big wifi Network Running off of people off boxes. Competitive it as a substitute. We have few choices in both arenas that customers are tied together. Comcast would control a lot . Alreadye these guys working together. Why dont we just market each others products together . They are not really competing. People cost prices are not going down. Their monthly bills are not going down. All thethat is is evidence we need is market is broken. About are talking Wireless Company owned by Cable Companies that they sold. Involved with another group. Clearwire. Cable senting to see out of the licensed wireless business to hold on to their customers through wifi. See that they have a lot of wifi hotspots. The the the mobile screen is becoming the first green screen. Tmobile, that was seen as to competitors combining. That is different. Christ has the same passion either way. These are geographic markets. That is how we split things up. The companies have agreed, we are going to spread out and carve out our different territories. No one wants to be number two. Most people will experience not in their wallets. It will not be a good outcome. The fcc will have price control. There will be an argument about how long the term will be. It could be for a very long time. Look for that. It should be improved as part of the deal. The swapping for verizon and spectrum back in the day, it is all. He did not work. I am trying to recall, did you at t ande on the tmobile murder . If i did not vote. We did not come to a vote at the fcc. At t tried to take it to court. With a staffout report that was rather damning of the whole idea of the combination. Rat is like unto a vote, how would you have voted . That i dont know. I was not presented with the case now you do not get those files until they had finished the review. The other commissioners, the on staff report. I thought it was not appropriate. It is like a panel of judges discussing a case even if the plaintiff withdrew. I did not think it was appropriate. We have another piece of news to discuss. That is tom wheeler statement on the Net Neutrality decision. This is how i interpreted reading that statement. They want to bring send a Net Neutrality rules strengthen the Net Neutrality rules. And they potentially want to make broadband a common carrier. Is that a new interpretation . That is how they are describing it. It is a disappointing move from the administration. I do not think it will strengthen the neutrality. I think it ignores what the court did. They are trying to salvage a victory out of a defeat. They are trying to piece together the shred that the court left and went. Your concern is Net Neutrality. If you want to stop walking on the internet and discrimination interfering with web services, your only option is reclassification. They made that very clear in their agent. The court rejected it out of hand. They said, it is up to you. We are saying that you cannot do it this way. Here comes the fcc again. Maybe this will work on a casebycase basis. We are not sure. I do not think that is good enough. They are asking for decisive action. That is not what they got. I dissented from that oceeding. I thought it was harmful to the market. The idea was counterproductive. Righte basically former regulation that is similar to what we had in the 19th century. We are forcing that on the internet, which operates in april the different way. We need to rethink that. We need to look at it through the lens of Consumer Protection. Rather than legacy regulations. I agree with craig and part of what he said in terms of the fcc going forward. It will be risky for them. Especially if they tried to reenact a nondiscrimination legislation. That was in the outline yesterday. That looks like, and regulations. Under 706, were not going to stand up on appeal. There are completely different panels of judges. Does silverman wrote a very lengthy and thoughtful piece about why the majority was wrong. Could be a different panel of judges. The fcc does not have any authority here. There is some risk there as well. It is not a guarantee. We may not win our youll either. There are a variety of reasons. Appealould be a tax on attacks on appeal. The courts of painted the picture. They say that if you have to go back and look at how you are classifying broadband, there are crucial important protections. There is an effort to demonize common carrier regulations that is absolutely what helped build so much of this amazing internet that we have. You can get a lot faster internet and pay a lot less for. It is the common carrier at its core. It is about free speech. It is about having what you are talking about reach that audience. It is very dangerous for the fcc to continue to try to conflate the wires and the pathways and and theinto our homes content itself. They are not the same thing and they should not be treated the a motherinlaw. The approach that they should not be treated the same under the law. They are losing support and putting protections in jeopardy. It is murky legal limbo. We are looking at the 1996 act that was written. It the law of the land. It should be on the table. That is what the fcc needs to do. Most observers do not see that. The judges themselves made it very clear to the the that they users, protect internet they can. To pretend otherwise does not give them the authority they need. A quick history. They were reviewed by the fcc. It is not regulated. Under both republican and democratic control, it was considered something different. They operated differently. The path was made to permanently insulate the internet and peer to peer communications. Those communications were never regulated. They did not grow out of title ii. They were always out of title iis reach. That is what has helped grow the internet that we know today. With wireless broadband, it has proliferated precisely because it has not been burdened by these oldstyle regulations. I disagree. We will have to save this for another time. What we are talking about it they tell of Communications Telecommunications issue. If we want to protect internet users, the only viable way to do it is through broadband reclassification. That is what the fcc should do. Do you agree with Robert Mcdonald that it is time to rewrite the Telecommunications Law for this country . The explorations make sense. But i think we should go back and look at that 1990 exact. 1996 act. There is a lot of good law there that can solve a lot of these problems. That should be the starting point right larger conversation about green power law up to date. It says that the internet should be unfettered by regulation. That is cspan, created by