Multichannel News

The Justice Department has minced no words in its reply to AT&T's defense of its purchase of Time Warner, telling a federal court that the company's brief was "little more than a revisionist 58-page summary of the district court’s opinion." Antitrust chief Makan Delrahim said AT&T's brief "never resolves the district court’s erroneous rejection of the economics of bargaining and the principle of corporate-wide profit maximization, which are the basis of our appeal.” DOJ sasy the court's main error was "that the merger will not increase AT&T’s bargaining leverage."

Brett M. Kavanaugh has won Senate confirmation to become an associate justice of the Supreme Court and will take his seat on Tuesday, October 9. Although Judge Kavanaugh has discussed his dissent on network neutrality, the Supreme Court's agenda for the coming term now has very few cases dealing with technology, telecommunications or media. Several cases scheduled to come before the Court may produce decisions that affect these sectors though -- especially the regulatory aspects.

Comcast's Internet Essentials broadband subsidy program was initially targeted to families with children eligible for government assistance, but it has been expanded to include low-income seniors (a pilot program in DC) and military veterans in its service area, the latter which Comcast says totals almost a million vets.  In an extension of that veterans assistance program announced Sept.