Is Comcast’s Awful Service Grounds For Blocking The TWC Deal? Yes, Actually.

[Commentary] Does Comcast’s awful customer actually provide legal grounds for the Federal Communications Commission to block the Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger? Actually, yes.

And I don’t just mean in the political “so many people hate Comcast the FCC can designate for hearing and survive Comcast’s political pushback.” I mean in the legal “the FCC has jurisdiction over this and should designate, as an issue for hearing, whether Comcast’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable is contrary to the public interest and in violation of various provisions of the Communications Act” sense. And yes, I get that customers are pretty much equally dissatisfied with TWC, which would prompt one to think this should be a wash as “not merger specific” (i.e., service is crappy before merger and crappy after merger, so who cares -- other than customers?) However the unique nature of Comcast’s pervasive problems -- combined with several other factors -- makes this a rare (but not unprecedented) case where the nature of the problems is both merger specific and subject to FCC review.