Testing the Limits of Net Neutrality Rules

24 Nov 2015

Testing the Limits of Net Neutrality Rules

2015-11-24
Mitchell Shapiro
Blog

In the past few weeks we’ve seen both a wireless and wireline carrier launch new “zero rating” video streaming services that test the boundaries of the FCC’s net neutrality policy: T-Mobile’s Binge On and Comcast’s Stream TV. According to published reports, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler has praised Binge On as “highly innovative” and “highly competitive,” while also noting that the Commission will continue to monitor the service under its “general conduct” rule. According to Ars Technica, an FCC spokesperson declined comment on Comcast’s Stream TV, which does not count against the company’s data caps. The FCC’s reported response to the two […]

26 Apr 2015

Shareholder value, the public interest & the Comcast/TWC deal

Over the past several days I’ve seen a number of post-mortems on the decision by Comcast to drop its bid to acquire Time Warner Cable after it became clear regulators weren’t going to approve the deal. Two items in particular caught my attention over the weekend: a piece by Eric Lipton in the New York Times discussing Comcast’s not-so-successful lobbying effort in Congress, and an interview with Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts on Squawk Box, a program carried on CNBC, a cable network owned by Comcast since it acquired NBCUniversal roughly two years ago. One of the things that […]

25 Mar 2015

WiFi, User Interfaces and “The New Comcast for the Internet”

In an earlier post in this series I discussed business issues and opportunities related to a potential launch by Comcast of a WiFi-based service that could: further monetize the company’s investments in millions of in-home dual-SSID WiFi gateway devices; provide it with a relatively low-cost, high-margin entry into the wireless market space; give it a powerful position in the emerging market for nomadic, multiscreen multimedia services and; strengthen its overall market power in the communication sector as a whole. In this two-part post I’m considering this same topic, but from a public policy perspective. Viewed in very broad strokes, we have […]

24 Mar 2015

Unlicensed Spectrum: Comcast Uses In-Home Gateways to Deploy Millions of WiFi Hotspots

The focus of my last post in this series was business issues and opportunities related to a potential launch by Comcast of a WiFi-based service that could: further monetize the company’s investments in millions of in-home dual-SSID WiFi gateway devices; provide it with a relatively low-cost, high-margin entry into the wireless market space; give it a powerful position in the emerging market for nomadic, multiscreen multimedia services and; strengthen its overall market power in the communication sector as a whole. In this two-part post I’m going to consider this same topic, but from a public policy perspective. Viewed in very […]

22 Mar 2015

Unlicensed Spectrum: Comcast Considers its WiFi Strategy Options

The last post in this series discussed Cablevision’s recently launched WiFi-only service called Freewheel. It ended with the speculation that Comcast—the nation’s largest provider of cable TV and broadband services—might look to Freewheel for lessons about how to approach the WiFi-based service it is expected to launch sometime in the near future. Though Comcast executives have so far been reluctant to discuss their WiFi plans, they did shed a little light on their thinking during the company’s February 24 yearend earnings call. For example, during the call’s Q&A session, Comcast Cable CEO Neil Smit, describing WiFi as “a great asset,” […]

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