Comcast the little guy? There’s competition everywhere, the company argues.

Comcast says it has loads of competition -- everyone from Facebook to Apple, which Comcast says is contemplating a television set-top box to compete with cable service.

Plus, Netflix and Amazon are already giants in online video, which also keeps the company on its toes, Comcast said in a regulatory filing for its proposed merger with Time Warner Cable.

"The difference between all those competitors and us is they have global and national scale,” said Comcast executive vice president David Cohen. That scale allows companies like Netflix and Apple to sell their products globally and invest in research, development and new technology. Comcast needs the merger with Time Warner to reach that level, he argued. But defining its competition in the broadband Internet industry may be harder for Comcast to do, some public interest groups and technology experts say.

And those definitions may be the crux of federal reviews into the company's $45 billion bid to become a national broadband business.