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The Federal Communications Commission approved the merger of CenturyLink and Qwest Communications International. The merger will create the third largest traditional phone service provider in the nation, behind AT&T and Verizon.

The FCC imposed protections against the risk of harm to competition and ensured the merged entity will live up to its commitments to significantly expand its network and launch a major broadband adoption program for low-income consumers. The transaction is expected to close soon after the companies have obtained their final state approval. Based on the companies' agreement to certain conditions, the FCC found that the potential public interest benefits of the merger are likely to outweigh the potential harms.

Binding and enforceable conditions include:

Broadband adoption program for low-income consumers

• Launch major broadband adoption program focused on connecting the millions of low-income consumers in the combined company's 37-state territory.
• Offer qualifying households broadband starting at less than $10 per month and a computer for less than $150, and keep the window open for five years for qualifying consumers to sign up.
• Make a significant annual commitment to marketing, outreach, and digital literacy training, and include detailed reporting on outcomes and an independent analysis of the program's effectiveness.

Broadband deployment

• Significantly increase the capacity of the Qwest network, bringing broadband with actual download speeds of at least 4 Megabits per second (Mbps) to at least 4 million more homes and businesses, and at least 20,000 more anchor institutions, such as schools, libraries, and community centers.
• Significantly increase availability of higher-speed broadband: The company will more than double the number of homes and businesses that can get 12 Mbps broadband, and more than triple the number that can get 40 Mbps broadband.
• Advancing Universal Service Fund reform
• Phase down three forms of support designed for smaller companies, which the company currently receives from the federal Universal Service Fund.

Protection against potential transaction-related harms

• No increase in enterprise service prices for 7 years in a few dozen buildings where the companies currently compete (Minneapolis (MN), and Olympia (WA)).
• Safeguards for smooth transition of operations support systems, to protect wholesale customers.
• Ensuring the merger does not harm interconnection agreements with competing phone carriers.
• Maintenance of wholesale service quality.

Smartphone makers (and even those who make more traditional, feature-phone handsets) would be wise to incorporate easy access to social networks if they want to increase customer satisfaction.

According to the latest Wireless Smartphone Customer Satisfaction Study from J.D. Power and Associates, owners who used their devices to access social media sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook had higher satisfaction rates (783 on a 1,000-point scale, about 22 points higher) than those who do not often access the sites on their handsets. (Though social media usage for traditional phone owners is lower, satisfaction rates among those who access the sites from their handsets also reported higher customer satisfaction.) Those higher satisfaction rates can generally be attributed to an overall ease-of-use for the phones, says Kirk Parsons, senior director of wireless services for J.D. Power. According to the study, consumers who engage in mobile social media activity are also more likely to use their phones more often for calls, texts and data, are more likely to purchase additional wireless services in the future and are more likely to provide positive recommendations for their handset brand and service provider.

After a few days of rumors, Netflix has made it official -- the company has purchased House of Cards, a new television series to be produced and directed by David Fincher. The company has committed to a minimum of 26 episodes; initial speculation about the price ran as high as $100 million but later reporting threw some cold water on that figure, with an executive close to the action telling the NYT the deal was likely to close for “significantly less.” Production on the show’s will begin until spring 2012, and it won't actually be made available to Netflix subscribers until late in that year. Netflix moving in to fund content directly is a fairly radical step, even though Sarandos played that down in an interview today with All Things Digital. Sarandos called the deal “traditional in its windowing, it’s just that Netflix owns the first window.”

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT could include in the requirements for the next stage of meaningful use some functions that would build toward the comprehensive information exchange system that a presidential commission recommended last year.

These functions could include a patient’s ability to download information to a personal health record (PHR), simple search by providers and sharing immunization data, according to an advisory panel that is examining the report of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Meaningful use in 2013 could promote the use of patient portals, which give individuals access to their electronic health records. Patients could then send or “push” their information or specific data elements to their PHR, which they control, said William Stead, co-chair of the Health IT Policy Committee’s PCAST work group.