“A Reordering of the Competitive Universe as We Know It”

We're usually not so dramatic at Headlines, so we borrow our title this week from a quote from Craig Moffett, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. It is how he described the biggest news of the month to his client. On December 2, SpectrumCo -- a joint venture between Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks -- entered into an agreement to sell to Verizon Wireless the cable companies’ 122 Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) spectrum licenses for $3.6 billion. Comcast owns 63.6% of SpectrumCo and will receive approximately $2.3 billion from the sale. Time Warner Cable owns 31.2% of SpectrumCo and will receive approximately $1.1 billion. Bright House Networks owns 5.3% of SpectrumCo and will receive approximately $189 million. The companies also announced that they have entered into several agreements, providing for the sale of various products and services. Through these agreements, the cable companies, on the one hand, and Verizon Wireless, on the other, will become agents to sell one another's products and, over time, the cable companies will have the option of selling Verizon Wireless’ service on a wholesale basis. Additionally, the cable companies and Verizon Wireless have formed an innovation technology joint venture for the development of technology to better integrate wireline and wireless products and services. That would allow, for example, a consumer to walk into a Comcast store and get a Verizon Wireless plan tacked on to his television, Internet and landline phone service.