PK Files Petition to Deny on Comcast/Time Warner Cable Merger

Public Knowledge and the Open Technology Institute filed a Petition to Deny asking the Federal Communications Commission to stop the merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable.

The groups demonstrate that the FCC typically analyzes large broadband and cable mergers through the lens of distribution. If it buys Time Warner Cable, Comcast would have about a 50 percent share in the market for truly high-speed residential broadband distribution.

This would make Comcast the most dominant communications company in the United States since the breakup of the Bell System. Under its public interest standard, the FCC cannot permit a single company to have such control over the marketplace.

“The FCC needs to stop this merger. The tough questions the FCC has already put to Comcast show that the agency is skeptical that this merger serves the public interest,” said John Bergmayer, Senior Staff Attorney at Public Knowledge.