The Federal Communications Commission is near a decision about the proposal by Charter Communications to buy Time Warner Cable, reports the Wall St. Journal [Note: Since the Wall St. Journal’s story is behind a pay wall, we are referencing a free Multichannel News story about the WSJ account.]

Says Mulitchannel: Federal Communications Commission “Chairman Tom Wheeler is ‘likely’ to circulate an order approving the Charter/Time Warner Cable merger as early as this week for the four other commissioners to vote on, the Wall Street Journal was reporting late Tuesday (March 15).”

The Multichannel story adds, “The commissioners still would have to vote on the proposal. But circulating an order would suggest the Justice Department, which is also vetting the deal, did not find any anticompetitive issues that could not be resolved.”

Multichannel also says, “Filings in the deal docket have suggested the FCC staffers were drilling down on possible conditions, which could include access to online video programming and overbuilding broadband plant.”

Multichannel then notes some comments by Free Press, which is an organization opposed to the Charter-Time Warner deal: “When you factor in the debt taken on, Charter is paying $10 billion more for Time Warner Cable than Comcast was willing to pay for the same exact assets just over a year ago. Charter is taking on nearly $27 billion in new debt to finance this deal. It can only recover that by hiking prices for its subscribers.”