How the new AT&T could bully its way to streaming domination

AT&T plans to launch its own streaming service in 2019, drawing on content from DC Comics and Harry Potter that was acquired as part of the recent Time Warner deal. But telecommunication companies have a unique advantage: they control the content and the networks that content travels over, presenting a wonderful opportunity to hamstring competitors and unfairly advantage their own services. Heavy-handed tactics like throttling and usage caps would have been blocked by the 2015 network neutrality rules. But the rules were rolled back by Trump Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, and those networks could be a crucial advantage in the streaming wars. “The repeal of net neutrality — and more importantly, the abdication of the FCC’s duty to protect consumers and competition in the broadband market — ensure that AT&T will have carte blanche to discriminate in favor of the video content it owns,” says Benton Senior Fellow Gigi Sohn. “Whether it means freeing Time Warner and DirecTV content from restrictive data caps to the detriment of other streaming services, or charging cable and satellite rivals more for must see programming, AT&T will certainly take advantage of an absent FCC and weak antitrust enforcement,” Sohn says.