Regulatory Comments

Reply Comments of ICLE & Professors and Scholars of Antitrust and Telecommunications Law and Economics, In the Matter of Applications of Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable, Inc. For Consent to Assign or Transfer Control of Licenses and Authorizations, FCC

Summary

“The International Center for Law & Economics (“ICLE”) and eleven independent professors and scholars of law and economics file these comments to address general merger review issues and certain specific concerns that were raised in some of the Comments and Petitions to Deny filed in this proceeding…”

“The FCC’s inquiry is limited to the proposed merger’s likely effect on the public interest. But many of the comments in opposition to the merger take issue with various aspects of the marketplace for residential broadband and video as it exists to- day. Indeed, much of the criticism seems leveled at decisions made decades ago with regard to cable franchising. But those criticisms, whether valid or not, do not speak to whether – against the backdrop of the relevant markets as they exist today and are likely to exist in the near future – the merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable (“TWC”) is in the public interest. Among many other things, for example, the Comments of the American Antitrust Institute urge the FCC to consider the issue of network neutrality in reviewing the merger. But there is nothing merger-specific about net neutrality, and consideration of that issue (other than as a potentially relevant aspect of the market backdrop) is wholly inappropriate for merger review….”