California Public Utilities Commission to Meet Over Comcast-Time Warner Cable Deal

The California Public Utilities Commission has called an "all parties" meeting for Feb. 25 to talk about the administrative law judge recommendation that it approve the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger, according to one of those interested parties, the California Emerging Technology Fund. The CPUC is looking at broadband and phone issues, rather than video. In a Feb. 13 decision, the ALJ recommended that the state approve the merger with more than a dozen conditions, including improving customer service, providing backup batteries for VOiP service (one of the issues the Federal Communications Commission is mulling as part of the IP transition), extending Comcast's Internet Essentials low-cost broadband program to TWC customers and upgrading K-12 Internet infrastructure. Comcast has signaled some of those conditions might not be acceptable or achievable.