The word of the day is "irony." AT&T has sued Cox Communications for anti-competitive behavior at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).  Specifically, AT&T wants access to Cox's Cable channel 4, a regional cable station in San Diego created by Cox over 12 years ago that shows upwards of 150 San Diego Padres baseball games.

The issue is likely to be hard fought, and is in many ways a unique question the FCC has not fully addressed.  On the one hand, Cox will argue that Channel 4 is not the type of "satellite-delivered" content the FCC compels cable companies to share with competitors.  Cox will argue that Channel 4 is  "terestrially" delivered station specifically exempted from forced sharing with competitors.

That said, the FCC has previously identified local sports programming as "must-have" type of programming, and could justifiably compel licensing of the Padres games to avoid giving Cox an unfair competitive advantage.  It is interesting to note that Cox licenses the channel 4 content and baseball games to Time Warner, which simply exists in other areas of San Diego County than Cox, as opposed to being a direct competitor. AT&T U-Verse competes with both Time Warner and Cox directly, and in its suits identifies the lack of Padres games as a documented reason for customers leaving U-Verse or being slow to adopt the new fiber-optic offering.

The irony of the suit by America's classic anti-competitive company is not lost on Cox.  Cox's position in various media reports is that Channel 4 is similar to AT&T's monopoly over the Iphone, and DirecTV's monopoly over NFL Sunday Ticket.  The problem is these analogies really don't work that well.  While its true the Iphone is limited to AT&T's network (unless you engage in various widely publicized hacks that void your warranty), consumers can still go out and get voice and data service, and even have some competing touch screen phones available on other carriers.  As to NFL Sunday Ticket, unlike channel 4, this service is all about out-of-market games, not so much local sports.  Indeed, you can use a $7 rabbit ears antenna and watch most of the chargers games (perhaps not those on ESPN), whereas if you don't get Time Warner or Cox, you simply don't get the Padres.  Believe it or not, the Padres are irreplaceable when you look at it that way.

The decision is likely to be quite interesting, and could increase competition regionally by making satellite and fiber optic options more competitive in offering access to the Padres games.

Of course if you're tech savvy enough, the day seems to be coming where you can largely dump your cable, satellite, or fiber optic programming and use the web entirely as your entertainment, news, and multimedia outlet.

For some, a laptop, proper tv connector cable, and hulu.com, youtube.com, and other video service websites are already an adequate replacement. With higher bandwidths and wider HD video offerings on the web arriving, the Internet itself can be traditional cable & satellite television's biggest competitor in the years to come.

You can read more about the FCC complaint here, or watch my interview with NBC here.

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