AT&T this week edged closer to completing its $48.5 billion acquisition of DirecTV, after the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) revealed it has circulated an internal order to approve the deal.
In late June, AT&T again extended the provisional deadline for closing the DirecTV transaction in order to give more time for the regulatory green light, insisting that it was confident the merger would be "consummated" shortly.
That now looks set to happen after the FCC admitted this week that it is preparing to give the deal the all-clear.
However, the watchdog’s official backing will come with conditions attached.
"If the conditions are approved by my colleagues, 12.5 million customer locations will have access to a competitive high-speed fibre connection," said FCC chairman Tom Wheeler on Tuesday, who claimed that this equates to a 10-fold increase in AT&T’s fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) coverage compared to the telco’s current footprint.
"This additional build-out…increases the entire nation’s residential fibre build by more than 40%, and more than triples the number of metropolitan areas AT&T has announced plans to serve," Wheeler added.
In addition, AT&T will not be allowed to exclude affiliated online video services and content from data caps on its broadband tariffs, and will have to submit all completed interconnection agreements to the FCC.
This is to ensure AT&T upholds the regulator’s recently-enacted net neutrality rules after the DirecTV deal closes.
"These strong measures will protect consumers, expand high-speed broadband availability, and increase competition," said Wheeler.
"We are pleased that an order to approve our DirecTV transaction with certain conditions is circulating at the FCC," said AT&T, in a statement. "We hope the order will be approved by the Commission quickly and we expect to close shortly thereafter."
