I think it’s a little early to be opening bottles of champagne, but the general tone sounds good.
The [FCC] conclusion that the cable industry has grown too large will be used to justify a raft of new cable television rules and proposals. They include a cap that would prevent the nation’s largest cable company, Comcast Corporation, from growing, and would prevent other large cable companies, like Time Warner, from making any new large cable acquisitions. […]
[T]he agency may adopt rules necessary to promote “diversity of information sources” once the commission concludes that cable television is available to at least 70 percent of American households, and at least 70 percent of those households actually subscribe to a cable service. […]
The commission is preparing to take steps to make it less expensive for rivals of the largest cable conglomerates to buy their programs — so that, for instance, a satellite company would find it less expensive to buy programs by the Turner Broadcasting System, a unit of Time Warner.
This follows a FCC ruling last week which prohibits”[c]ontracts between cable TV operators and apartment building operators that limit competition” and “extended its earlier number portability rules to clearly include VoIP.”
