Salon

A Q&A with Harvard professor Susan Crawford. 

Here are five reasons why this mega-merger should worry you:

1. Telecommunications companies are entering the entertainment business.
2. It’s yet another blow to network neutrality.
3. It sets a toxic precedent for establishing monopolies.
4. We’ve seen this when Comcast purchased NBC in 2011.
5. And as the surest sign of the apocalypse, Donald Trump might actually be right about something.

[Commentary] With Census figures showing more than 1 in 5 Tennessee residents having no Internet connection, Chattanooga (TN) public electric utility EPB is now proposing to offer its ultra-fast services to new communities. But it needs the Federal Communications Commission to preempt the Tennessee statute prohibiting the utility from competing with private telecom companies outside its current market.

For EPB, the good news is that FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has repeatedly pledged that in the name of competition and broadband access, he will support preempting state laws like Tennessee’s. However, in a capital run by money, EPB may still be politically overpowered. After all, as a community-owned utility in a midsized city, EPB does not have the lobbyists and campaign cash to match those of behemoths like Comcast and AT&T.

What the utility does have is a solid track record and a pro-consumer, pro-competition argument. The question is: Will that be enough to prevent Wheeler from backing down or being blocked by Congress? The future of the Internet may be at stake in the answer.

[Commentary] There are plenty of reasons to worry about the proposal to combine Comcast, America’s largest cable and broadband company, with Time Warner Cable, the second-largest cable firm and third-largest broadband provider.

For one, there’s ever more consolidated control over content. There’s also the possibility of certain types of content being given special (or worse) treatment based on the provider’s relationship with Comcast and Time Warner Cable. And there’s the prospect of even higher prices. Indeed a Comcast executive recently admitted that the company will not promise bills “are going to go down or even that they’re going to increase less rapidly.” In the capital of a properly functioning democracy, all of these concerns would prompt the federal government to block the deal. But Washington is an occupied city -- occupied by Comcast’s vast army.

As Time magazine recently reported, “The company has registered at least 76 lobbyists across 24 firms.” Those figures include neither telecommunications lobbyist turned FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler nor Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s chief of staff, who was a Comcast vice president and raked in $1.2 million in Comcast payments since taking his government job.

All of that political power is enhanced by the $9.3 million Comcast, Time Warner Cable and their affiliates have spent on campaign contributions to federal officials in just the last few years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. So, sure, it’s possible that Washington will block the merger, but it seems unlikely in a capital that most often follows the orders of its moneyed overlords.

[Sirota is a staff writer at PandoDaily]

[Commentary] In its public interest statement filed with the Federal Communications Commission, Comcast touts the many supposed benefits of its acquisition of Time Warner Cable, even arguing that joining with TWC would be “pro-consumer, pro-competitive, and… generate substantial public interest benefits.”

But a review of the facts shows exactly how wild this claim is:

• One Monopoly To Serve Them All. The problem with this argument is that Amazon and Microsoft, as vast as their empires are, don’t control people’s basic access to cable television and broadband (which is more or less a necessity for Internet users in 2014). The Xbox One offering Netflix doesn’t prevent users from accessing the service on dozens of other competing devices, but the same is not the case for access to basic information that TWC and Comcast’s cable networks provide. If the merger were to go through, tens of millions of Americans would be locked into less competitive cable and broadband markets, unable to vote with their feet and choose competitors who offer different services.
• Broadcasting Influence. Aside from lobbying efforts in Congress, the biggest possible tool of influence that Comcast has is its own media empire. Following its merger with NBCUniversal, Comcast now owns networks like CNBC and MSNBC, some of the networks that are traditionally turned to for business reporting and corporate accountability. In news discussion about this merger, it goes without saying that these networks will be effectively neutered.
• But they’re not unbeatable. When lobbying giant AT&T sought to buy T-Mobile, press freedom and anti-trust activists fought back, successfully killing the $39 billion deal. The campaign against that merger could prove a model for those trying to fight Comcast today, and there are signs there’s already a broad coalition ready to contest the creation of this new monopoly.

[Jilani is a Syracuse University graduate student and freelance writer]