• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, April 25, 2016

The Federal Communications Commission has circulated an order approving Charter's merger with Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks.

"The order outlines a number of conditions in place for seven years that will directly benefit consumers by bringing and protecting competition to the video marketplace and increasing broadband deployment," FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler stated on Monday.

The company, to be called New Charter, will have to follow three conditions, each of which will last for seven years: It won't be permitted to impose data caps or charge customers based on the amount of data they consume. It also won't be allowed to charge Netflix and other companies extra fees to "interconnect" directly with New Charter's servers. Additionally, New Charter won't be allowed to impose programming terms that could harm over-the-top online video distributors.