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This week's Barron's magazine includes a column I wrote about the Comcast (CMCSA) - Time Warner Cable (TWC) proposed merger. In response to the article, Comcast's David Cohen, head of the firm's regulatory affairs, wrote to amplify some remarks he made about over-the-top video services, and also to rebut a claim made by Reed Hundt.

On the first score, over-the-top, Comcast already has an offering that is comparable in some respects to services such as Netflix (NFLX). Cohen emphasized that he considers over-the-top to be something more comparable to traditional multi-channel video provider services, including cable and direct broadcast satellite. Comcast has never been able to find a business model that works for such services. In our conversation, Cohen had remarked to me that with a greatly expanded national footprint in the combined companies, "I don't think we have any incentive to develop an over-the-top service in our territory."

However, his follow up remark, sent via email, is more measured. In the email, Cohen states

Even with an expanded footprint, I don't think that solves the business model issue and, therefore, won't increase or reduce our incentive to launch a national online video service.

On the second matter, Hundt in the article warns that with 45% of high-speed broadband subscriber homes in the nation, Comcast could become a bottleneck, effectively making the Internet less open given how much power it would hold with services such as Netflix that need to connect via peering points.

In response, Cohen writes,

We do not agree that the combined company will have anything close to a 45 percent market share in the broadband market. And regardless of share, we would not throttle Netflix or any other online video provider - both because it's bad business and because it wouldn't be lawful under the Open Internet rules to which we are still subject until 2018. By then - presumably long before then, we believe the FCC will have taken action pursuant to the authority granted in the court's decision in the Verizon case under section 706 to reinstate comparable protections to those contained in the original Open Internet Order, therefore removing the need for compliance with the former order.