Gov't Approves Parts of Verizon-Cable Spectrum Sale

fistfullast33l writes "The Associated Press is reporting that the Justice Department, FCC, and New York State Attorney General approved portions of a deal between Verizon Wireless and cable companies Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks and Cox to sell parts of the wireless spectrum to Verizon for $3.9 billion. However, the Justice Department rejected the agreement between the two groups to allow Verizon to market cable services in its stores in markets where it also offers FIOS service. The spectrum will be used to increase Verizon's 4G LTE network coverage. Verizon will also sell some spectrum to T-Mobile. Consumer groups were very concerned about the cross-marketing by Verizon: 'When it comes to home broadband, Verizon Communication Inc.'s FiOS provides the only significant competition to cable in many areas. Yet FiOS is costly to build out, and Verizon's commitment to the technology has faltered. Consumer groups and unions that opposed the deal between the cable companies and Verizon said it showed that Verizon was further giving up on FiOS and yielding the home broadband market to cable.'"

The rejected part about selling cable TV service

[devjoe]

The part of the deal that was rejected was related to Verizon Wireless selling the cable TV service from Comcast et al. (not FIOS TV) in their stores. This little detail is missing from the summary. Without understanding this, the "Verizon's commitment to the technology has faltered" makes little sense, since it would seem like they were trying to support FIOS if they wanted to sell FIOS TV service through their stores.

That they even considered doing this shows how little Verizon and Verizon Wireless cooperate. They are two separate companies, alike in name only.

Re:Amazing

[cpu6502]

>>> that people in a supposedly 'capitalist' society do not see anything wrong with the very idea that government should at all under any circumstances be meddling with any private deals.

If it was free market I would agree, but Comcast is not a free market. It is a natural monopoly and just like the electric, natural gas, water, and sewer monopolies needs to be regulated. Else these monopolies could raise their prices skyhigh & the customers would have no choice but to pay. So the government steps-in to ensure that does not happen.

Of course an alternative solution is to open Comcast's market to outside Cable TV providers (Cox, Time-warner, Cablevision, etc), but so far local and state governments appear unwilling to let that happen. So the closed monopoly market needs to be regulated by the New York PUC.