Dana Floberg

Block this mega merger: Opposing view

[Commentary] AT&T’s proposed buyout of Time Warner already has raised serious concerns from public interest groups and bipartisan lawmakers alike. “Too much concentration of power in the hands of too few,” says Donald Trump. “Less concentration, I think, is generally helpful, especially in the media,” says Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Sen Tim Kaine (D-VA). They have good reason to be worried.

This huge merger would put unprecedented media power — over the Internet, mobile phones, satellite TV, cable channels like CNN and HBO, movie studios and more — under one roof. If this mega merger goes through, AT&T will be saddled with more than $350 billion in total liabilities. What does that mean for subscribers? Higher monthly bills. That’s not idle speculation: It’s exactly what AT&T did after merging with DirecTV. Higher broadband prices will put essential Internet access further out of reach for too many families. Policymakers in Washington are starting to realize what the rest of us already knew: These media mega mergers don’t serve anyone besides Wall Street bankers and overpaid media execs awaiting their golden parachutes. There’s only one thing for the next administration to do: Block this deal.

[Craig Aaron is the president, and Dana Floberg is a policy fellow, at Free Press.]

Next-Generation Investments Do Not Depend on Killing Net Neutrality

The Federal Communications Commission took a highly touted step toward the future of wireless communications by opening up huge blocks of spectrum for “5G” broadband uses. (5G stands for “5th Generation” technology, a generic term for the evolution to follow today’s 4G smartphones.) These next-generation networks promise to be faster, denser and more robust than what we have today. They could help usher in an era of innovative services and applications such as self-driving cars and smart-city technology. 5G technologies are still in the testing phase, but the FCC’s decision makes room for early deployment efforts that could offer enormous benefits to the national economy. Unfortunately, as advocates for Internet users point out, the FCC’s decision is by no means perfect. It doesn’t do enough to guarantee that shared use of spectrum — think Wi-Fi — will be a big part of the 5G equation. Giving exclusive use of these frequencies to carriers like AT&T and Verizon would strengthen their stranglehold on valuable spectrum assets, and it could prevent these new technologies from flowing to everyone, especially those who are on the wrong side of the digital divide: rural residents, low-income neighborhoods and communities of color. Nonetheless, everyone agrees that the technological advances are crucial, even if there’s debate about how to make those leaps forward.