Public Interest Groups Suggest 'Most Favored State' Condition for New Charter
Since the FCC seems to be leaning toward approving Charter Communications' buy of Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable with conditions, public interest groups are pushing for one such condition to be a "most favored state" clause that would…
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guarantee that any conditions Charter agrees to in any given state would automatically be a federal regulatory condition as well. In a filing Thursday in docket 15-149, the groups said such a condition would carry minimal incremental costs to New Charter, since the New York Public Service Commission's approval (see 1601080048) already includes similar most-favored-state language. The New York condition specifically applies to line extensions, broadband speeds and stand-alone broadband pricing, the groups said, but also should apply to such issues as net neutrality, data caps, participation in the modernized Lifeline program, diverse programming, channel placement and nondiscrimination against rival sports programming. Charter didn't comment. The public interest groups in the filing are the Alliance for Community Media, Common Cause, the Consumers Union, the Greenlining Institute, the Media Alliance, the Open Media and Information Companies Initiative, New America's Open Technology Institute, Public Knowledge and the Writers Guild of America, West. A California Public Service Commission administrative law judge issued a proposed decision Tuesday that included a variety of California-centric conditions (see 1604130020).