UC San Diego Research Group Named Independent Measurement Expert for AT&T-DIRECTV

On July 24, 2015, the Federal Communications Commission approved the applications of AT&T and DIRECTV for consent to the transfer of control of various licenses and other authorizations from DIRECTV to AT&T. In order to address the potential harms posed and to confirm certain benefits offered by the transaction, the merged entity was subject to certain conditions. The FCC decision requires that, within 60 days of the closing date of the transaction, an Independent Measurement Expert be identified who will be responsible for establishing a schedule and the methodology for the merged entity to report certain performance characteristics of traffic exchanged at Internet Interconnection Points located within the United States. The Center for Applied Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA), a research group at University of California at San Diego, has been identified as the Independent Measurement Expert.

CAIDA is a collaborative undertaking among organizations in the commercial, government, and research sectors that aims to promote greater cooperation in the engineering and maintenance of a robust, scalable global Internet infrastructure. CAIDA was identified as the Independent Measurement Expert by an agreement between AT&T and the FCC’s Office of General Counsel, which has approved the selection.