FCC rules shouldn’t bar Comcast from buying cable systems, Comcas...

FCC rules shouldn’t bar Comcast from buying cable systems, Comcast said, calling an FCC-proposed 30% cap on horizontal cable ownership outdated and unnecessary. Chmn. Martin wants to get moving on cable ownership limits remanded by a federal court (CD Jan 18 p5), he has said. In setting new limits for cable, the FCC can’t justify a 30% cap, Comcast said: “Local exchange carriers (LECs) have entered the video business on a large scale; Internet video sources such as YouTube, which did not even exist at the time [the FCC made its last ownership rulemaking], are highly popular and revolutionizing the video programming market.” And mobile video is growing in line with wireless broadband capacity, it said. Comcast’s call for deregulation marks a shift in tone for the only U.S. cable operator that owns enough systems to be affected by the 30% limits today, an industry lawyer said: “Every time they've made an acquisition up to now they've emphasized it would be consistent with the 30% cap.” Consolidation among phone companies strengthen’s Comcast’s case for doing away with the cap, the lawyer said.