With the hours running out on the Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission, Charter Communications withdrew its petition that the commission end two conditions on the company’s merger with Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks.

That petition was one of the issues that appeared to be left hanging as FCC chairman Ajit Pai’s tenure drew to a close. He exited on Jan. 20, with President Joe Biden naming Democratic commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel as acting chairwoman the next day. 

Pai was never a fan of merger stipulations, which he sees as attempts to regulate via condition.

“At this time, the bureau will no longer consider filings specific to this petition,” said the Wireline Competition Bureau, “but the docket will remain open for additional filings, such as those required by Charter or the Independent Compliance Officer.”

Charter has been looking to get out from under the “no charging for interconnection” and “no usage-based/data caps” pricing conditions. A court threw out the first condition, so that request was essentially moot, but the second is still in force. Those conditions were set to expire in May 2023 but Charter wanted them to end in May 2021.

FCC approval could have had a major impact on Charter’s over-the-top video strategy. In imposing the conditions, the agency said they were to ensure Charter could not “hamper or prevent its current and future online video rivals from expanding, becoming more competitive, or starting up in the first place.” Charter had suggested those OTT rivals hardly need protection from the company given that rival internet service providers have not had similar conditions and the over-the-top marketplace is flourishing.

ALSO READ: Charter Free to Charge Streaming Video Companies Interconnect Fees

Charter likely saw the handwriting on the wall with the upcoming change in administrations. FCC Democrats now in control were fans of the merger conditions.

One of those commissioners, Rosenworcel, now acting chairwoman, voted against deregulating internet providers and has called for the return of rules against blocking, throttling and paid prioritization, as has fellow Democratic commissioner Geoffrey Starks. She and Starks have also voted against eliminating broadcast regulations.

Until Democrats can confirm a new fellow party member to fill the seat of the exiting Republican chair Pai, the commission will be at a 2-2 political tie, meaning noncontroversial items are likely on the docket at the outset.

Rosenworcel could become permanent chair down the road, though Biden could have simply designated her chair had that been the plan. With the Senate controlled by Democrats, it will be easier for Biden to pick someone else, who might still need Senate confirmation. Rosenworcel, though, has plenty of fans inside and outside the commission, particularly on Capitol Hill. 

Broadband data policies that place a soft cap on monthly usage and charge more for additional buckets of data are rapidly becoming the norm among the nation’s Internet-service providers.

Such policies are now commercially deployed by Suddenlink (now part of Altice USA), Mediacom Communications and AT&T, as well as smaller service providers such as GCI. Meanwhile, Comcast continues to expand its usage-based trials, while CenturyLink is slated to start kicking the tires on a new broadband data policy later this week.

Comcast, the nation’s largest cable operator, confirmed that it recently notified customers in the Chicago market area that the MSO’s data plan trial will get underway Aug. 1. When that trial launches, it will become the largest market in Comcast’s footprint so far to test the MSO’s new policy. In addition to greater Chicago, Comcast is also poised to test usage-based policies in Quincy and Rockford, Ill., and in its Northern Indiana systems, also starting Aug. 1.

Comcast introduced a 1-TB plan in April, replacing a 300- GB plan it had been implementing in most of its trial markets.

If customers exceed the 1-TB limit, they have the option to purchase additional buckets of 50 GBs of data for $10 each (up to a maximum of $200), or move to a new unlimited data plan that runs an additional $50 per month.

Comcast has not announced if or when it will expand the policy to all markets. In addition to the new markets coming online Aug. 1, other trial markets include Huntsville, Mobile and Tuscaloosa, Ala.; Tucson, Ariz.; Little Rock, Ark.; Fort Lauderdale, the Keys and Miami, Fla.; Atlanta, Augusta and Savannah, Ga.; Central Kentucky; Houma, LaPlace and Shreveport, La.; Maine; Jackson and Tupelo, Miss.; Chattanooga, Greeneville, Johnson City/Gray, Knoxville, Memphis and Nashville, Tenn.; Charleston, S.C.; and Galax, Va.

Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, the OTT giant and critic of usage-based policies, praised Comcast when it announced the new 1-TB plan, tweeting: “Huge for me as a Comcast customer. Now I’ll never be able to watch enough to hit my cap.”

Perhaps not too coincidentally, Comcast and Netflix announced a deal a few weeks later that calls for the MSO to integrate Netflix on Comcast’s X1 platform sometime this year.

GCI, the Alaska-based operator, also made some waves last week, announcing that it had raised the monthly limit of “Red,” its 1 Gigabit-per-second residential cable modem service, from 750 GBs to 1 TB. Customers on Red, which is paired with an upstream that maxes out at 50 Mbps, have the option to purchase additional 30-GB buckets of data for $10 when they exceed their monthly limit.

But GCI has added a different twist to the usage-based approach. Under a “No Worries” option launched in January 2015, customers can buy additional buckets of data, upgrade to a different plan, or shift temporarily to a “basic” level of service of less than 1 Mbps with no overages.

CenturyLink is the latest provider to jump on the usage-based bandwagon. It confirmed last week that it will launch a usage-based billing trial in Yakima, Wash., on Tuesday (July 26) that will charge $10 for a bucket of 50 GBs of data (up to a maximum of $50) when customers exceed their monthly limit.

Under the trial, subscribers of service plans with speeds up to 7 Mbps can consume up to 300 GBs per month, while those that have speeds of more than 7 Mbps will be capped at 600 GBs before the usage-based policy is applied.

CenturyLink has not announced the length of the Yakima trial or when it might look to expand it to other markets. “CenturyLink will analyze the data from this trial to determine next steps and make decisions regarding further rollout of usage-based billing,” a company official said.

Though usage-based broadband policies and overage charges are increasingly becoming part of ISP strategies, critics of them maintain that they are in place to increase revenue while keeping OTT video competition in check.

For its part, Comcast has argued that its trials “are based on principles of flexibility and fairness” and that more than 99% of its high-speed Internet subscribers don’t come within a whiff of using a terabyte.

One MSO that will be sitting on the sidelines with regard to usage-based broadband pricing for the foreseeable future is Charter Communications. Charter, per a condition of its acquisitions of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, is prohibited from imposing data caps or implementing usage-based polices for a period of seven years.

A downpour of TV content is forecast for this week on the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the devastation it unleashed on the Gulf Coast region in general and on New Orleans in particular.

In 2005, cable networks were among the first outlets to show the images of the stunning destruction to property and people’s lives in the days following the storm. Other specials through the years, such as HBO’s Emmy-winning When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, helped chronicle the effects on life on the Gulf Coast in the immediate aftermath of the storm.

This week The Weather Channel is leading the charge with a week of Katrina-themed content, including Katrina 2065, a special that looks at likely scenarios that could take place if Katrina hit 50 years from now. On Friday, Aug. 28, TWC will air a special report, Katrina: 10 Years Later, with Al Roker and Stephanie Abrams.

Also that Friday, TV One will look at the plight of education in New Orleans a decade after Katrina as part of its daily News One Now morning news series hosted by Roland Martin.

BET on Aug. 26 will premiere a news special, Katrina 10 Years Later: Through Hell in High Water, that will chronicle the lives of a diverse group of people who survived Katrina.

On the cable news network front, CNN will debut on Aug. 24 Katrina: The Storm That Never Stopped, in which network anchor Anderson Cooper travels back to the Gulf Coast and looks to reconnect with those residents and people he spoke with a decade ago following the storm.

On the digital front, offerings will include six-part documentary series New Orleans, Here & Now, from Time Inc. and Rampante, debuting Aug. 27 on Time.com and other platforms. It’s about six people living in New Orleans 10 years after Hurricane Katrina and is the first original premium video product from Time. Weather.com on Aug. 25 will stream nine hours of continuous highlights from 2005 Katrina coverage, starting at the same time as the 2005 coverage began and featuring clips from The Weather Channel.

And in real life (apart from TV), FYI has teamed with the affordable housing non-profit Make It Right to build a solar-powered new tiny home in New Orleans for a middle school teacher. On Aug. 28, they will host a house-warming event at the new 469-square-foot domicile in New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward, including Tiny House Nation host John Weisbarth.

— R. Thomas Umstead

Think Tank to FCC: Charter-TWC Deal Should Sail Through

Free-market think tank The Free State Foundation has released a paper outlining the benefits to consumers and broadband of a Charter Communications-Time Warner Cable merger.

Free State senior fellow Seth Cooper said the purpose is not to endorse or oppose the deal, but instead to outline the key considerations the Federal Communications Commission should be, well, considering. But Cooper clearly likes the cut of the deal’s jib and suggests it deserves fairly smooth sailing through the FCC and DOJ deal-vetting process.

He said the potential downsides for consumers appear minimal, and maybe nonexistent, and drew a distinction between this proposed merger and Comcast’s earlier play for TWC, abandoned after the Justice Department and the FCC agreed it should not go through.

Concerns about program withholding or broadband domination don’t apply to a Charter- TWC deal, Cooper said (though he does not concede they should have deep-sixed the earlier deal, either). “Whereas Comcast-TWC would have resulted in a nationwide broadband consumer subscription market share of about 30%, Charter-TWC would result in a nationwide broadband market share of about 21%. And those are numbers for wireline broadband only. The broadband market is much bigger: 43% of all broadband connections are now mobile, with next-generation wireless networks increasingly offering consumers three or more competitive mobile video viewing options.”

In any event, he said, the FCC should not look at “static” indicators like market share or concentration, but instead view the deal in the light of free-market dynamism, a light in which the deal looks good for consumer welfare, he said.

Cooper also called for a swift review, which may already be a bridge too far. The FCC at press time had yet to launch the comment cycle or start the informal shot clock on the deal, as it is still mulling the issue of how to treat third-party access to confidential information submitted by the parties involved.

— John Eggerton