Dish Asks FCC To Block Comcast/Time Warner Cable Merger

If you could be any player in the pay-TV industry these days, you probably wouldn’t choose to be Dish Network. It’s being sued by broadcasters for its DVR; its one competitor in the satellite market is trying to merge with AT&T, which puts Dish’s future in doubt. So it’s little surprise that Dish isn’t thrilled about the potential marriage of Comcast and Time Warner Cable.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen and FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler had a meeting earlier this week to discuss the Comcast/TWC deal.

Ergen says the merger “should be denied” because the combined cable Voltron would be too powerful. Additionally, Dish says that there are no conditions that could be put on the deal that would “remedy the harms” of the deal.

A regulatory filing by Dish cites concerns about Comcast’s control over three “choke points” of Internet distribution.

There’s the so-called “last mile,” referring to Comcast’s delivery of service to end-users. Then there’s the interconnection points, where Comcast’s network connects to the bandwidth providers who carry data from content providers like Netflix.

And finally, there’s Comcast’s “managed” data that carries on-demand video services for the cable company. Dish says these can “act as high speed lanes and squeeze the capacity of the public Internet portion of the pipe.”

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