PHILADELPHIA — Earlier this year, Comcast and Time Warner Cable agreed to combine operations in order to create a stronger national competitor that can invest to offer better and faster Internet service, a richer and more diverse television experience and more innovation and advanced services for residential and business customers alike.

The Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice will review our transaction in detail. Any rigorous, thorough analysis will show that the transaction is pro-consumer, pro-competitive and in the public interest.

Here are a half-dozen reasons why.

• Consumers will get faster broadband. Internet speed is tied to investment in broadband networks. Our investment in a faster all-digital network was completed nearly two years ago, while Time Warner lags behind.

As a result, Comcast’s fastest residential downstream broadband speeds have increased more than 30-fold in the last six years.

The vast majority of our customers receive 25 megabits per second or more (with a top speed of 505 Mbps), while the majority of Time Warner’s customers receive 15 Mbps or less (with a top speed of only 100 Mbps). The transaction will accelerate network upgrades and produce a substantially faster and better Internet experience for all of our consumers.

• The transaction will deliver better television and video services. Our Xfinity platform provides customers more than 50,000 on-demand and 300,000 streaming choices.

Our new X1 operating system and user interface enable viewers to control their TVs via mobile devices and search for favorite actors or directors across live and on-demand viewing options with just the sound of their voice. Time Warner customers will now enjoy these innovations.

• The transaction will advance network neutrality. Comcast supported the FCC’s 2010 Open Internet rules and remains legally bound by them today even after the court decision striking them down for everyone else.

The transaction will now extend the geographic reach of these network neutrality rules to millions of Americans in Time Warner territories.

• The transaction will make the Internet more accessible. Our Internet Essentials program has provided low-cost home Internet to more than 1.2 million low-income Americans.

Families in cities like New York, Los Angeles and Dallas will benefit from this program for the first time – making what one civil rights leader called the “biggest experiment ever” on the digital divide even bigger.

• The transaction will enhance programming diversity.

Comcast carries more than 160 independent networks, and we’ve helped launch diverse networks such as TV One, Revolt TV, ASPiRE, BabyFirst Americas, El Rey and Crossings TV.

• The transaction will help businesses reduce the costs of Internet and telephone service.

Combining our companies will extend our competition for Internet, video and telephone service in the business market and drive prices down while enhancing quality and service for businesses – especially regional firms that we can’t sell to without the expanded reach of the combined company.

While we understand that in any large transaction, concerns can be raised about consolidation, the structure of our industry and the dynamics of the markets where we do business should allay these concerns.

Because Comcast and Time Warner operate in separate territories, there will be no reduction in consumer choice. Ninety-eight percent of Americans can choose from three or more multichannel video (pay TV) services today – not to mention a host of popular online competitors. And that will be exactly the same the day after the transaction is approved.

Post-transaction, we’ll have less than 30 percent of the market for video – below the FCC’s old ownership cap that the federal courts twice invalidated as unfounded.

In high-speed Internet markets – properly defined to include cable, fiber, DSL and wireless (which now provides 20 Mbps or more of speed) – we’ll have just a 20 percent share. With Google pushing its high-speed fiber into almost three dozen communities, competition is clearly increasing.

Customer service is critical – and we are working tirelessly to improve it. While we’re not there yet, we’re making progress.

With two-hour appointment windows and other marked improvements, our J.D. Power scores have improved more in the last three years than the scores of anyone else in the business.

If this transaction is approved, it will give us the scale and reach to innovate and compete. And when Comcast has promised to deliver competitive and public interest benefits, we didn’t just keep our promises – we overdelivered. And we will do the same again.

— Special to the Press Herald