Altice, Suddenlink See Scant Opposition to Deal

The comment period on the deal ended Friday with the agency receiving few comments or objections, unlike Comcast's proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable, which generated opposition from public interest groups, Netflix, Dish Network and U.S. senators. That lack of activity might be a type of merger fatigue, said John Bergmayer, senior staff attorney-Public Knowledge: "There have been a lot of mergers." The stakes also are relatively lower than in a megamerger, with Suddenlink having slightly more than 1.5 million residential and business customers, said Tracy Rosenberg, executive director of Media Alliance. The deadline for replies is Aug. 10.

The sole objection -- posted Friday -- was from the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors in northern California, which said Suddenlink was out of compliance with local regulations requiring payment of public, education and government (PEG) access fees and that ownership by "even more distant owners ... reduces competition, threatens media localism and harms information diversity." If the FCC approves the transaction, it should be conditioned on Altice/Suddenlink doing more for universal access by investing in infrastructure "for our least served people and places," providing meaningful PEG access, ensuring open Internet with net neutrality and nondiscriminatory interconnection policies, and promoting broadband adoption through "substantial free connections and at-cost support for low income communities and community anchor organizations," the board said. In a statement, Suddenlink said it has "been actively engaged in good-faith negotiations with [Humboldt] County and cities within the county about a mutually agreeable resolution to their questions regarding Public, Education, and Government fees. We will continue negotiating in good faith and trust the involved government officials will do the same, so that we can amicably resolve this local matter as soon as possible."

The standard practice national security review is also being watched more closely because Altice isn't an American company, communications industry experts said.

While FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has been vocally against cable price controls, rising prices and the fact of Altice's foreign ownership might "change the calculation" in this case, Rosenberg said. The agency also should look at protection of American jobs as a condition, given Altice's history of "aggressive cost controls," she said. The Altice/Suddenlink transaction "is a mixed bag -- cable desperately needs more competitors; on the other hand, there have certainly been enough mergers," Rosenberg said. The FCC should look at Altice's "track record and whether its financing model creates incentives that might not be in the best interests of Suddenlink's customers, to ensure that this transaction would promote the public interest," Bergmayer said.

The proposed $9.95 wireline broadband service condition should run at least three years or until 80 percent of underserved communities that don't have high-speed home Internet -- meaning low-income households, Spanish-speaking households, people with disabilities, senior citizens, and adults without high school diplomas -- are connected, CETF said. The digital divide advocacy organization in its filing didn't express an opinion on the transaction itself, but urged the agency to attach five public benefit conditions. Along with the discount broadband service, it urged the FCC to set a three-year goal that 45 percent of those eligible populations in targeted underserved communities be reached; that the company collaborate with states in its service area to come up with a written strategic plan to close the digital divide; that the company create an independent national advisory committee to oversee this broadband work; and that Altice be required to deploy high-speed broadband into specifically identified priority underserved or unserved areas. The Altice/Suddenlink deal "should not leave behind at an accelerating pace 21 percent of California's population who are on the other side of the digital divide," CETF said.