Wave's Unfair OTT Competition Complaint is Dismissed Against Comcast

The FCC Media Bureau dismissed a Wave Broadband petition for declaratory ruling against Comcast's NBCUniversal and three regional sports networks, saying the complaint is actually a program access complaint but a time-barred one, coming three years after Wave signed a contract with Comcast. In the docket 17-361 order posted Wednesday, the bureau said Wave's complaint was "clearly" brought under Section 628(b) of the Communications Act, which governs unfair cable operator competition, and Section 628 violations allegations are considered through program access complaints. The bureau also said Wave didn't give any reasons to justify a waiver of the one-year time limit on bringing a program access complaint. Wave outside counsel didn't comment. Its complaint said Comcast's over-the-top offerings unfairly undermined its own ability to meet existing programming agreement terms (see 1712190041).