Three industry trade associations have launched a campaign to stimulate consumer opposition to the proposed Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger. The “Don’t Comcast the Internet” initiative urges consumers to tweet the FCC or email their member of Congress, claiming the “merger will give Comcast too much control over how and what we watch.”
The coalition behind the campaign represents Internet, video and voice service companies that belong to COMPTEL, ITTA (The Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance) and NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association. On a strongly worded website, the coalition claims it wants to “prevent Comcast from doing to the Internet what it has done to cable TV.”
The site cites several incidents involving Comcast over the past several years, including degraded Netflix streaming quality, blocked regional sports programming, and alleged favoritism toward Comcast-owned NBC Universal news channels over Bloomberg TV.
The campaign, while mentioning Time Warner Cable, clearly focuses on Comcast, perhaps intending to leverage highly publicized customer service missteps made by the communications giant.
The merger (an acquisition of Time Warner Cable by Comcast) was originally announced almost exactly a year ago. It was approved by shareholders of both companies in October, but is still under review by the FCC and the U.S. Department of Justice.
