Charter seeks to abandon Time Warner merger commitments

When the FCC approved Charter Communications’ acquisition of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks in 2016, it prohibited Charter from placing data caps on customers or charging streaming video providers (e.g. Hulu) interconnection fees until 2023. Charter is now petitioning the FCC to eliminate those conditions almost two years early.

"Charter's suggestion that it should get time off for mediocre behavior speaks volumes about the company's intent and the sincerity of its claims—both at the time of the merger and today," said Free Press VP of Policy and General Counsel Matt Wood. "Unjustified data caps are clearly a competitive advantage for a cable company that wants to keep its legacy TV customers from cutting the cord, or at the very least wants to make sure its Internet customers pay extra if they have the audacity to actually use their broadband connections for streaming content."

Links:

Column: Spectrum, like other big companies, seeks to abandon its merger promises (LA times, Jul 22. 2020)

Charter seeks FCC OK to impose data caps and charge fees to video services (ARS Technica, June 23, 2020)