While the Comcast/Time Warner merger was terminated a few weeks ago, there's still another merger that's looming over the tech world: AT&T's proposed acquisition of DirectTV.
Many tech companies are worried about the development, most notably Netflix. The media streaming company submitted a filing to the FCC on Tuesday asking them to fight the merger. Netflix Counsel Markham Erickson wrote the filing himself.
"With DirecTV on board, AT&T would become the country's largest pay-TV provider.......AT&T could also become the nation's biggest Internet service provider, ahead of Comcast, if it goes through with broadband investments that are contingent on merger approval....," reports Ars Technica. Erickson was even willing to argue.
"Such market power creates new incentives and abilities to harm entities that AT&T perceives as competitive threats, and will exacerbate the anticompetitive behavior in which AT&T has already engaged," Erickson wrote in the filing.
While Netflix is doing its best to fight the merger, the company is willing to accept it if AT&T agrees to a select number of conditions. According to Ars Technica, "Netflix asked the FCC to prevent a combined AT&T/DirecTV from charging interconnection fees to Netflix and other content providers. Moreover, "the combined entity should be prohibited from excepting its own affiliated services from any data cap applicable to any of its services (whether fixed or mobile)," Netflix wrote.
Ars Technica doesn't expect AT&T to accept such requests and wasn't able to get it to comment on the filing.
Some questions have been raised about the FCC's ability to stop the merger, since AT&T is not trying to acquire more subscribers and has stated that "it has no significant video programming interests to protect," Ars Technica.
You can read Ars Technica's full report on the filing here.
