Altice/Cablevision Faces Calls for Conditions
Some parties are raising red flags about Altice's planned $17.7 billion takeover of Cablevision. Monday was the deadline for comments on the transaction, and critics in docket 15-257 voiced concerns about Cablevision corporate debt and Altice's lack of clarity on its broadband interconnection policies. The deadline for responses is Dec. 22.
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The deal "poses considerable harm to consumers, workers and communities," Communication Workers of America said, criticizing what it said was Altice's frequent strategy of loading new acquisitions with debt and calling Altice's planned $1 billion in operating and capital expenditure cuts "draconian." This "translates into delayed network maintenance, reduced investment in next-generation infrastructure and massive job cuts," CWA said. The union said the FCC should request specific information on such issues as post-transaction financial and operational projections, employment, broadband expansion and expected cost-reduction, since the company was "silent on specifics." If the FCC doesn't stop the deal, CWA said, the agency should impose a series of commitments that would see Altice make specific, verifiable pledges in broadband expansion, service quality, and capital and operating expenditures, and holding the company to those pledges.
The FCC should designate the deal for a hearing, modem-maker Zoom Telephonics said, or, barring that, impose conditions that require its cable systems have a separate customer bill line item with the unsubsidized price for cable modem rentals, and that any Altice communications make clear those rental prices and give customers the right to opt out of renting one. Altice should be required to have policies that allow attachment of nonharmful third-party cable modems to its network, Zoom said. When asked Tuesday about the state of the Suddenlink deal approval, the FCC didn't comment.
Cogent sought interconnection-centric conditions as "an assurance that the post-merger entity will adhere to historical and current industry norms," it said. Altice's application notably lacked any details about broadband access and interconnection, Cogent said. It was Charter Communications' interconnection policies that netted it and Netflix as supporters of its proposed purchase of Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable, Cogent said, saying Altice should be required to interconnect with qualifying networks or edge providers and to augment capacity on a settlement-free basis, and it should agree to disclose all interconnection agreements for four years after the deal closes.
In a statement Tuesday, Altice said it "has a track record of investment, innovation and customer service in all the communities we serve. ... As in all of our other territories we expect to deliver significant benefits to consumers and their communities."