The FCC seems ready to approve CenturyLink’s takeover of Qwest...
The FCC seems ready to approve CenturyLink’s takeover of Qwest without imposing net neutrality conditions, and that’s “a positive for the companies,” Stifel Nicolaus analyst Rebecca Arbogast said Friday. A commission official confirmed that Chairman Julius Genachowski’s office circulated late…
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Thursday a draft order to approve the deal without net neutrality conditions. Earlier last week, CenturyLink and Qwest filed a letter with the FCC agreeing to a seven-year broadband deployment plan, a phasedown of Universal Service Fund support and extension of some wholesale agreements. The neutrality-free order “presumably” means Genachowski is “basically satisfied at this point,” Arbogast said. “It’s possible the companies will be subjected to further conditions/commitments but we're a little skeptical of that, and if they are, our sense is they would likely be modest,” Arbogast wrote in a circular Friday. CenturyLink has expressed hope of winning commission approval by April 1. The draft order marks a departure. The commission imposed net neutrality conditions in both the previous mergers it approved, Comcast-NBCU and AT&T-BellSouth. Free Press tried to get net neutrality conditions imposed on the CenturyLink-Qwest deal at the 11th hour last month. Free Press Political Adviser Joel Kelsey called Genachowski’s order “a disappointment.” He said, “You have an entity that has expressed its intention to offer online video services. For our part, we very much believe in the mission of the commission that their responsibility is to make sure that the merger is in the public interest, not to broker deals.” Genachowski’s spokesman didn’t respond to requests for comment. Some have said Genachowski is using broadband deployment conditions and the Universal Service Fund overhaul as a back-door route to Title II regulations.