Comcast 2014 Annual Report Download - page 25

Table of Contents
States also may attempt to use the FCC’s decision to classify ISPs as Title II “telecommunications carriers” and the court’
s decision
to impose regulations on ISPs or otherwise affect the development of the broadband Internet marketplace in ways that could affect
our business.
Separate and apart from the new rules, Comcast is currently bound by the FCC’s original “open Internet”
regulations adopted in
2010 as a condition of the NBCUniversal Order and the NBCUniversal Consent Decree for the remainder of the term of those
orders. These regulations require that we disclose information regarding network management, performance and commercial terms
of the service (the “transparency rule”); bar us from blocking access to lawful content, applications, services or non-
harmful devices;
and bar us from unreasonably discriminating in transmitting lawful network traffic. The no-blocking and non-
discrimination
requirements allow for reasonable network management. The FCC did not prohibit use of speed tiers or usage-
based pricing, but
specifically noted that “paid prioritization” (
i.e., charging content, application and service providers for prioritizing their traffic over
our last-mile facilities) or an ISP’
s prioritizing of its own Internet content likely would violate these regulations. These requirements
apply to any broadband Internet access service that we provide to consumers, regardless of whether it is accessed through a set-
top box, gaming console, computer or other device. The FCC’
s original 2010 rules, except for the transparency rule, were vacated
by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in January 2014.
Municipally Owned Broadband Networks
A number of states have enacted laws that restrict or prohibit local municipalities from operating municipally owned broadband
networks. A municipal broadband provider in Tennessee and a municipality in North Carolina filed petitions with the FCC requesting
that the FCC preempt state laws that restricted their ability to provide broadband service. The FCC adopted an order in February
2015 that preempts the Tennessee and North Carolina laws in most respects and expresses a willingness to entertain similar
preemption requests. Until the order is released, we cannot predict what effects the order will have on our business.
Definition of Advanced Telecommunications Capability
In January 2015, the FCC redefined what connection speeds and other service characteristics constitute “
advanced
telecommunications capability,” increasing the downstream speed from 4 Mbps to 25 Mbps. The definition of “
advanced
telecommunications capability”
has been used by the FCC in the past to determine whether broadband Internet services are being
deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely way. Under the relevant statute, because the FCC has determined that
“advanced telecommunications capability”
is not being deployed in a reasonable and timely manner, it has regulatory authority to
adopt new regulations that might conceivably accelerate deployment of such services. The FCC reportedly is considering relying in
part on this authority to adopt new open Internet regulations. The FCC also could use this authority to adopt other measures
affecting our broadband business.
NBCUniversal Order Conditions
The NBCUniversal Order and NBCUniversal Consent Decree include various conditions and commitments requiring us to expand
our broadband service areas, to continue to offer all of our high-speed Internet service speed tiers on a stand-
alone basis at
reasonable market-based prices, to maintain a high-
speed Internet service of at least 12 Mbps downstream across most of our
footprint, and to not discriminate in how we treat “specialized services” (defined as services we provide over the same last-
mile
facilities as our high-speed Internet service, but not including our high-
speed Internet service, video services or voice services). We
have taken a number of steps to comply with these conditions. In 2012, after an FCC inquiry into whether we failed to comply with
the stand-
alone broadband condition, we entered into a consent decree with the FCC to extend our offering of the performance
starter tier for one additional year until February 2015 and to reinforce the promotion of our stand-
alone broadband offerings,
including training our sales representatives with respect to these offerings.
Comcast 2014 Annual Report on Form 10
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