CenturyLink/Level 3 Likely to Boost Enterprise Competition, FSF's Cooper Says
CenturyLink's planned buy of Level 3 appears likely to enhance competition in the enterprise broadband market, said Seth Cooper, Free State Foundation senior fellow. "Level 3 does not serve residential broadband or video subscribers," he wrote in a commentary Friday.…
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CenturyLink/Level 3 "appears to fully satisfy the public interest standard for FCC approval. It deserves an expeditious review." He didn't endorse the deal, but cited "strong evidence" of potential pro-competitive enterprise broadband effects. "With AT&T, Verizon, Frontier, Comcast, Charter, smaller cable providers, and other competitors such as Zayo all offering business enterprise services, the proposed CenturyLink/Level 3 merger poses no credible threat of market power abuses," he wrote. "Although Level 3 owns or controls fiber into about 34,755 buildings, the merging parties estimate that only 100 buildings would go from two in-building BDS [business data service] connections to one connection without a competing provider operating within 0.1 miles." Cooper said there's little geographic overlap between the companies' long-haul fiber networks and little danger of competitive harm in the market for Internet backbone transit. "CenturyLink/Level 3 raises no vertical integration concerns related to the residential broadband or video services markets," he wrote. Analysts expect the deal to be approved (see 1610310033 and 1610280052).