Competition/Antitrust

There are suddenly a lot of open-access networks springing up around the country. Traditionally, open-access networks have been built by local governments such as the public utility districts (PUDs) in Washington. Today, there are also open-access networks being built by commercial network owners. I’ve been asked by several internet service providers (ISPs) if they should consider operating on an open-access network. Here are a few of the most important factors to consider about operating on an open-access network:

AT&T will launch broadband services in states it doesn’t currently serve by forming a joint venture with BlackRock to fund the rollout of fiber-optic networks in new markets. The venture with BlackRock Alternatives will be called Gigapower LLC and aims to reach an initial 1.5 million customer locations across the US. The companies didn’t disclose the financial terms of the deal or the states they would seek to serve. The joint venture will be in addition to ATT's current goal of reaching more than 30 million fiber locations, including businesses, by the end of 2025. 

A passionate and bipartisan legislative effort to rein in the country’s largest technology companies collapsed this week, the victim of an epic lobbying campaign by Amazon, Apple, Google, and Meta. The internet titans spent hundreds of millions of dollars, sent their chief executives to Washington, and deployed trade groups and sympathetic scholars to quash two antitrust bills co-sponsored by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, and Sen. Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican.

Google and Meta, known together in the ad industry as the "duopoly," are expected to bring in less than half of all US digital advertising this year for the first time since 2014.

A bevy of proposals to limit Big Tech firms' power gave up their last gasp as Congress released the text of its year-end spending bill. But the following major tech-related b

The European Commission has made commitments offered by Amazon legally binding under European Union antitrust rules. Amazon's commitments address the Commission's competition concerns over Amazon's use of non-public marketplace seller data and over a possible bias in granting sellers access to its Buy Box and its Prime program. Amazon's practices raised three competition concerns:

Top cable industry analyst Craig Moffett issued a report with a provocative title, asking, “Is cable a good business?” Clearly, MoffettNathanson’s principal and senior analyst believes Wall Street doesn’t think so.

The Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications, Media and Broadband held a hearing examining ongoing and past efforts within the public and private sectors to bring affordable, resilient and secure broadband to all communities. Four witnesses testified during the hearing: 

A Montana state commission advanced grant recommendations for a massive, $309 million rural broadband connectivity push, moving a previously delayed grantmaking process forward despite concerns voiced by Montana-based internet companies about the amount — approximately $110 million — slated for Charter Communications. The money fueling the program comes from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

The Federal Communications Commission's new broadband maps give us a view of what the broadband competition situation is in the United States. We want to answer the question of how many options a household has for broadband service. Using the new maps, and a 100 Mbps download and 20 upload throughput as the threshold for acceptable broadband, 37% of households have access to one offering, 34% have access to two offerings, and 18% have access to three or more offerings. This is slightly more concentration than was present in the most recent Form 477 data.