AT&T/DirecTV Shouldn't Be Approved Without Conditions on Broadband Offerings, Say Dish, Free Press, Cogent, Others
AT&T's buy of DirecTV shouldn’t be approved without conditions designed to ameliorate the new entity’s “greater incentive and ability” to “thwart competing OTT services,” said Cogent, Free Press, Dish Network, Public Knowledge and the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute…
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in a meeting with the FCC transaction review team, including General Counsel Jon Sallet, according to a joint ex parte filing posted in docket 14-90 Wednesday. If the deal is approved, the commission should require AT&T to offer stand-alone broadband service at least at the FCC-approved benchmark speed, and to offer a stand-alone version of what it offers in bundles, the filing said. AT&T should also have to offer interconnection at “just, reasonable and nondiscriminatory” terms, not exempt any video service from any usage-based pricing scheme, and abide by the 2015 net neutrality order, the filing said.