Yesterday CCIA filed a letter requesting the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice “fully consider the potential effects of the extensive Commercial Agreements that accompany the proposed spectrum transactions” between Verizon Wireless and the nation’s largest cable companies.
CCIA’s letter follows letters from the Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance (ITTA), Frontier Communications, and Windstream Communications warning that the proposed Commercial Agreements between Verizon Wireless, a partial subsidiary of Verizon Communications, and its cable partners – Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications, and Bright House – threaten to harm the public interest and decrease competition in both the wireline and mobile broadband markets.
CCIA believes the Verizon-cable collaboration will likely reduce the potential for inter-modal competition between cable and telco landline broadband services and increase barriers to entry and disadvantages for independent companies of all sizes in both the mobile and fixed broadband markets – markets that are already highly concentrated and characterized by vertical integration at the top. CCIA has urged the FCC and DOJ to thoroughly review the potential of the proposed transactions to harm consumers, lessen competition, and disserve the public interest, and to reject or condition the transactions as necessary to prevent these harms.