Competition/Antitrust

Commissioner Geoffrey Starks Remarks at Open Technology Institute NGSO Satellite Event

As a Commissioner focused so deeply on the digital divide, I’m especially thrilled about what a golden era in commercial space could mean for broadband. New satellite broadband systems promise more choice and better performance for many Americans, including those who live, work, and travel in some the toughest-to-serve places. Making space innovation sustainable is a multidimensional problem. They can even improve the reach of terrestrial broadband networks, through satellite backhaul and, perhaps one day soon, base stations flying in low-Earth orbit.

Regulating Hidden Fees

Big telecommunication companies (telcos) and almost every large cable company use what the industry calls "hidden fees." These fees are not mentioned when advertising for a service but are put onto customer bills. There is a class action lawsuit in California that shows why broadband providers are not worried about using hidden fees. In times past, when the big companies were regulated, they might have been ordered to make a 100% refund of a fee that regulators decided was questionable.

Open access networks: 'A good cheap pipe’ for internet connectivity

The use of open-access internet networks to help close the country’s digital divide has excited many groups who see them as a viable connection strategy for communities where there is little fiber or competition between broadband providers, or where one incumbent provider dominates, as is the case in many cities. There are already some examples of successful open-access networks in the US, albeit driven by the local governments themselves.

Comcast ad campaign takes aim at T-Mobile fixed wireless access

Comcast recently launched a TV ad and erected a dedicated website that takes aim at the capabilities and features of T-Mobile's 5G-powered home broadband service, charging that they come up short when compared to what's delivered via Comcast's wired broadband services. In what's expected to be the first in a series of ads either targeting T-Mobile's service or perhaps the broader fixed wireless access (FWA) sector, Comcast's tongue-in-cheek "Vampires" ad features a family of four in a therapist's office lamenting the performance of T-Mobile's offering.

Don't Discount the Investments in Internet Infrastructure that Content and Application Providers are Making

Should network usage fees be imposed on content and application providers to support internet infrastructure? New research from Analysys Mason shows such a mandate would be harmful to end users and the global internet ecosystem.

Silicon Valley's Rep Ro Khanna offers a midterm warning

Although Rep Ro Khanna (D-CA)'s district includes a wide swath of the tech industry's homes in towns like Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Santa Clara, and Fremont, he is an advocate for laws that would curb Big Tech's power. Among the restrictions Rep Khanna favors would expand privacy protections beyond California's existing law as well as a change in antitrust law that would shift the burden of proof in large deals, requiring the acquiring company to prove a deal won't hurt competition. Members of Congress have proposed new bills around privacy and antitrust and children's online safety, but so far

How Democrats' big plans for Big Tech shrunk to tiny steps

Pledges to tackle data surveillance practices, harm to children's mental health, and tech giants' power over wide swaths of the economy haven't yet translated into passing new laws, and the clock is running out. High-profile bills that would heap new regulations on the tech industry have advanced, but they've yet to cross the finish line into law. On antitrust, the House of Representatives passed a bill in September 2022 that will raise filing fees for large mergers, using the proceeds to fund antitrust enforcement efforts.

MoffettNathanson says things aren’t so bad for cable broadband

A new report entitled “U.S. Cable: What is Embedded in Valuations?” is optimistic about cable’s broadband prospects. Analysts at MoffettNathanson say they believe the market is undervaluing cable’s growth prospects. Moffett's analysis shows a big part of the stock drop can be traced to the current cost of capital, which is something that can change in the future and doesn’t go to the underlying prospects for cable’s broadband business.

Here’s how MetroNet is winning over mayors as fiber competition intensifies

MetroNet's focus on building quickly and considerately is helping it win over mayors and other local officials in an increasingly competitive fiber market. The operator currently has construction underway in all 14 of the states where it operates, with work covering more than 90 cities.

House approves antitrust bill targeting Big Tech dominance

The House of representatives approved antitrust legislation targeting the dominance of Big Tech companies by giving states greater power in competition cases and increasing money for federal regulators. The Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act passed by a 242-184 vote. It was separated from more ambitious provisions aimed at reining in Meta, Google, Amazon, and Apple and cleared by key House and Senate committees. Those proposals have languished for months, giving the companies time for vigorous lobbying campaigns against them.

Orange and FCC Commissioner Carr push for tech companies to pay broadband providers for network use

Orange Group CEO Christel Heydemann and Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr, called on technology giants to contribute a “fair” share to broadband infrastructure costs, arguing such companies are driving a need for continued upgrades and have disproportionately benefitted from telecommunications investments to date. Regulators in the US, EU, and South Korea are weighing rule changes that would force the likes of Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Netflix to pay telecom companies for the large amounts of traffic they generate.

What’s The Trend for Broadband Prices?

For years, cable companies have been raising broadband prices annually. While price increases don’t hit every customer immediately because of customers on term contracts, every price increase reaches every customer eventually. The industry has changed, and it doesn’t seem as obvious as in the past that cable companies can raise rates and that customers will just begrudgingly go along with it. The cable companies have stopped growing. This seems to be for a variety of reasons.

Underline Receives New Investment for Infrastructure To Connect Communities

Underline, the nation’s intelligent community infrastructure platform, is connecting American communities on a foundation of open access fiber. To support existing projects and drive continued US expansion, a fund managed by Ares Management’s Infrastructure Opportunities strategy joins Underline as a strategic investor—adding a scaled global investment manager to the existing investor group. Underline is the first digital infrastructure investment Ares will make through its Infrastructure Opportunities strategy—a leading infrastructure investor with approximately $4.3 billion in assets unde

Starlink and Wireless Internet Service Providers Battle for 12GHz Spectrum

A big piece of what the Federal Communications Commission does is to weigh competing claims to use spectrum. One of the latest fights, which is the continuation of a fight going on since 2018, is for the use of the 12 GHz spectrum. The big wrestling match is between Starlink’s desire to use the spectrum to communicate with its low-orbit satellites and cellular carriers and wireless internet service providers (WISPs) who want to use the spectrum for rural broadband. Starlink uses this spectrum to connect its ground-based terminals to satellites.

California Sues Amazon Alleging Antitrust Violations, Blocking Price Competition

California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced a lawsuit against Amazon alleging that the company stifled competition and caused increased prices across California through anticompetitive contracting practices in violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law and Cartwright Act. In order to avoid competing on prices with other online e-commerce sites, Amazon requires merchants to enter into agreements that severely penalize them if their products are offered for a lower price off-Amazon. In the lawsuit, Attorney General Bonta alleges that these agreements thwart the ability of other onli

Color Of Change Launches Black Tech Agenda as a Roadmap for Racial Equity in Tech Policy

Color Of Change, the nation’s largest online racial justice organization, launched the “Black Tech Agenda." The agenda sets an affirmative vision for how to create tech policy that centers on racial justice and ensures bias and discrimination are rooted out of the digital lives of Black people and everyone. The agenda has 6 pillars that outline real policy solutions for Congress to advance racial equity in Tech:

How state-level subsidies might refill cable's broadband subscriber tank

With US cable broadband subscriber growth remaining flat or going negative, operators are hard-pressed to find a remedy that will rekindle growth in a service category now considered central to the overall business.

Fixed Wireless Is Having Its Day, But Fiber Is the Real Competition

Comcast Executive Vice President and Deputy Chief Financial Officer Jason Armstrong said the biggest threat to the cable business is coming from fiber, not just from fixed wireless access (FWA). While there have been several factors attributed to the accelerated slowdown in cable broadband growth -- sluggish new home formation, minimal housing moves, and the transition to a new federally subsidized program for low-income families -- competition from both fixed wireless and, especially, fiber-based broadband providers have emerged as significant players.

Lumen's Stansbury talks plans to play offense post-divestitures

Lumen Technologies completed one major business divestiture last month and are close to wrapping another. Company CFO and EVP Chris Stansbury said the pair of deals will help the company allocate resources to other products at a time when Lumen is starting to see big growth opportunities. “The company is going to get smaller before it gets bigger again,” Stansbury said.

Charter Says Fixed Wireless Was a Factor in Q2 Broadband Subscriber Declines

Charter Communications Chief Financial Officer Jessica Fischer tacitly acknowledged the impact of fixed wireless access (FWA) competition on broadband subscriber growth. FWA technology was one of four factors that led to the cable operator’s first-ever broadband customer loss in Q2. Charter lost about 21,000 broadband customers in the second quarter, one of several cable operators that experienced declines in that segment after months of slow growth. Fischer said Q2 performance was impacted by four factors: sluggish new home growth, seasonality, fixed wireless competition, and fiber overbui

Cogent to Buy T-Mobile Wireline Business: What’s That? You Ask

Competitive fiber network operator Cogent Communications reached a definitive agreement to buy T-Mobile’s wireline business.

These are the top 5 states with the best--and worst--fixed internet coverage

The Federal Communications Commission is working to release new, better broadband coverage maps later in 2022. But in the interim, it released a fresh batch of data based on Form 477 submissions from operators. Fierce sifted through the data to find the states with the best and worst internet coverage, as measured by the percentage of the population without access to any ADSL, cable, or fiber providers offering speeds of at least 25 Mbps downstream and 3 Mbps up. In Mississippi, nearly 21% of the overall population lacked access to fixed broadband providers.

What tech competition means to Capitol Hill

The word "competition" has a different meaning in Washington (DC) and other centers of regulation around the globe than it does in Silicon Valley. Industry leaders view acquiring startups, keeping customers inside their existing ecosystems, and trying to dominate new platforms as part of the natural process of business competition.

How many fiber players is too many for one market?

AT&T is planning to deploy its fiber service in Mesa, Arizona, making it the sixth operator to target the Phoenix suburb. Such overlap is becoming more commonplace across the country as incumbent operators and new entrants alike disclose their fiber plans. This trend raises an interesting question: how many fiber players are too many for one market, especially when you consider many cities will also have an incumbent cable provider? In short, the limit does not exist.