Ownership

Sen Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) is calling on the Justice Department to investigate whether the 2011 Comcast-NBC merger has hurt market competition. Sen Blumenthal sent a letter to the Trump administration's top antitrust prosecutor, Makan Delrahim, on Dec 13, asking him to revisit the deal and to try to keep in place behavioral conditions that are set to expire next year.

In a Declartory Ruling and two Orders, the Federal Communications Commission reversed its 2015 Open Internet rules.

Declaratory Ruling

T-Mobile is launching a TV service in 2018, becoming the latest company to marry wireless and video. The service will target people who aren't interested in traditional cable and satellite TV packages. T-Mobile promises to address consumer complaints such as “sky-high bills” and “exploding bundles.” The company did not provide details on its upcoming offering, such as how it would differ from existing online TV alternatives from Hulu, YouTube, Sony, AT&T and Dish. The nation's No. 3 wireless carrier said Dec 13 that it bought cable-TV start-up Layer3 TV Inc.

• Since November 28, cable news has given net neutrality minimal coverage: approximately four minutes each on CNN and Fox News and more than eight minutes on MSNBC.
• Since November 28, broadcast news networks have given net neutrality minimal coverage on their morning and evening news programs and Sunday political talk shows: more than eight minutes on NBC and a little more than two minutes on CBS. ABC did not cover net neutrality in this time period.

Sinclair Broadcasting has told Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai that it shares Sen Claire McCaskill's (D-MO) frustration with the lack of "traditional local news" on its KDNL St. Louis (MO), but not with the remedy she suggested. That came in a letter from Sinclair group VP of news Scott Livingston to Chairman Pai Dec 12. In a different letter to Chairman Pai, Sen McCaskill had asked him not to let Sinclair own two of the top four stations in St. Louis if the FCC allows Sinclair to merge with Tribune, which also has a top-four station there.

[Commentary] When Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai is done, the Internet service providers will once again be free to throttle traffic from competitors, and sites or services they don’t like, or charge services like Netflix a “toll” for the privilege of being delivered to customers at the full speed the customers are paying for. It seems to me, though, that the power dynamic has shifted, and that Netflix actually holds all the cards now—at least in areas with more than one ISP to choose from.

A trade group of broadband providers including AT&T and Comcast pledged recently to not block or slow web traffic and otherwise avoid “unfair discrimination against lawful traffic online,” according to a statement. The group, Broadband for America, also represents companies including the largest wireless carrier Verizon. Comcast changed the language about its web practices that is posted on a corporate page in late April, as Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai was announcing his intention to gut the Obama-era rules.

[Commentary] I was lucky enough to see up close the excitement of fired-up startup founders building things that never existed before. I got inspired enough to leave behind a great job with healthcare and put my savings into building my dream. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s short-sighted plan will crush that dream for future would-be founders.

Verizon’s Ed Chan didn’t exactly spill the beans about where Verizon will launch commercial 5G residential broadband services next year—that would be rather peculiar if he did—but he did give a few insights into the decision-making process.