By Shalini Ramachandran 

Charter Communications Inc. has won the support of a major player in its bid to win regulatory approval for the Time Warner Cable acquisition: Netflix Inc.

On Wednesday, Netflix told the Federal Communications Commission that it will support the proposed Charter-TWC deal so long as Charter goes through with implementing the new Internet backbone interconnection policy it has proposed.

Netflix's support removes a potential hurdle for Charter's deal, after the streaming service vocally opposed Comcast Corp.'s failed attempt to buy Time Warner Cable. Charter has been holding discussions with Netflix to work out a policy that the company could get behind, according to a Charter spokesman.

The policy addresses the way that content companies like Netflix and long-haul telecom companies like Level 3 Communications hand off Web traffic to broadband providers like Charter that serve customers' homes. Charter's new policy, outlined in a letter to the FCC on Wednesday, essentially supports the concept of interconnecting with such providers for free.

These so-called interconnection deals have become greater flash points of contention in recent years, as streaming video, music and gaming have grown in popularity, increasing the amount of traffic funneled into broadband providers' networks and forcing them to upgrade their infrastructure at a rapid clip.

Charter's new policy is notable because it is a departure from those of other cable companies such as Comcast and Time Warner Cable, which had demanded that Netflix pay for such deals. Though Netflix grudgingly struck a "paid" interconnection deal with Comcast early last year, it lashed out publicly against the practice of charging and made the deal a cornerstone of its opposition to Comcast's merger with TWC.

In a letter filed to the FCC on Wednesday, Chris Libertelli, Netflix's vice president of global public policy, said Charter's new policy is a "substantial public interest benefit" that "will support scaling the Internet to meet consumers' growing demand for online services."

Netflix's vehement opposition to Comcast's deal helped influence regulators' sentiment against it. The dominance of a combined Comcast-TWC in U.S. broadband and the influence it may have had on the burgeoning online video market were key reasons regulators were prepared to try to block the deal. Comcast called off the merger in April.

Charter said it would maintain a "settlement-free" interconnection policy until Dec. 31, 2018. The spokesman said Charter will start implementing the policy immediately.

Write to Shalini Ramachandran at shalini.ramachandran@wsj.com

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