
Comcast Acquiring Time Warner Cable In All Stock Deal Worth $45.2 Billion - ssclafani
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303704304579379801986541412
======
suprgeek
If this merger goes thru, (and the AnitTrust people would have to be really
asleep at the wheel for that) two things are certain:

1) Americans can expect some of the worst Cable price gouging they have ever
seen

2) NetFlix, Amazon Prime et al will become really popular as a result of all
the customers saying "FU ComcastWarner"

~~~
chimeracoder
> 2) NetFlix, Amazon Prime et al will become really popular as a result of all
> the customers saying "FU ComcastWarner"

I agree with your first point, but your second point doesn't follow. If
anything, Comcast will price gouge Netflix out of business, and we'll be back
to being stuck watching their awful "On Demand" instead.

They can do this, because Comcast owns the content (NBC), the delivery
mechanism for said content (cable TV), and the _only_ delivery mechanism
(broadband Internet) for their competitor (Netflix/Amazon Prime).

On the other hand, the (failed) merger attempt between AT&T and T-Mobile was
the best thing to happen to consumers in a long time, due to the breakup fee
that AT&T had o pay T-Mobile($1+ billion worth of spectrum).

I'm trying to imagine a similar silver lining that could happen here, though I
can't think of any.

~~~
rayiner
To play devil's advocate, what it means is that Comcast has the better
business model. After all, that's why Apple and Samsung dominate the cellular
industry. iApps running on iOS running on an iPhone using an Apple A7 offers
the ability to optimize the user experience and integrate the layers that
vendors doing things piecemeal can't match.

If Netflix et al want to survive, they have to evolve from being mere
middlemen, funneling someone else's content through someone else's pipes.

~~~
SEJeff
Google has threatened to go nuclear over net neutrality and open up their dark
fiber network should things get ugly. Google has more fiber than most any one
single company in the us and could be a legitimate threat should comwarner try
to call their bluff. I have a feeling google would win that fight

~~~
valas
Citation?

There is no use for Google to participate in long-haul wholesale. There is a
lot of supply there. The real issue is last mile, where consumers have no
choice.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
>There is a lot of supply there.

But the rules just changed. It remains to be seen what those guys will do. But
I agree that the last-mile competition, or lack of it is far more important.

------
fiatmoney
It would be insane to let this go through. They're both effectively
monopolists in most markets they serve; allowing them to combine just allows
them to exert more political influence to make sure they keep their monopoly
and high profit margins. Their core business is very much a low-value-added,
rent-seeking concern, which doesn't benefit from economies of scale except for
in as much as they can increase their market power by reducing competition - a
fundamentally zero-sum game.

Political influence is a major and underexplored negative externality of
monopolies.

~~~
rayiner
Building the expensive infrastructure that Silicon Valley depends on to get
its cat videos and advertisements to users is a low value add, rent seeking
concern that doesn't benefit from economies of scale? Its exactly the
opposite.

~~~
wmf
Does economy of scale start to level out above, say, 11 million customers?

~~~
rayiner
There's no practical reason why there needs to be say more than one team of
cable network architects in the whole country. If an architecture works okay
in Philadelphia, it should port pretty easily to Chicago. The stuff that needs
boots on the ground, laying cable, doing installations, and servicing them, is
already outsourced to local companies.

------
kevinalexbrown
Does it strike anyone else as curious that the two largest cable/internet
providers merge, and it doesn't matter because they already don't compete? It
might be a sign that something's odd if the premise is that there's no
competition between identical products to harm in the first place.

~~~
Aloha
No.

I believe in the concept of a natural monopoly for most utilities though -
Building outside plant is horrendously expensive - it to me makes as much
sense to have multiple cable providers as it does multiple sets of
power/telephone/water/sewer infrastructure.

I'd even like to see a fewer wireless carriers (consider that each for carrier
are spending billions of dollars to roll out what amount to essentially
identical network infrastructure often even from the same vendors - how on
earth does that even begin to make sense? We - the rate payer ends up paying
for it in the end thru higher rates - economy of scale is a thing, and it
works.

Having been in the industry for about 2 years now, looking at the spectrum, I
believe that we have enough for two, possibly three really competitive
national wireless carriers - as in a complete nation wide footprint. That
means 20x20 LTE even in rural areas, plus whatever 2g (CDMA 1x or GSM) tech
you need for circuit switch voice, and whatever legacy 3g you need too (EDGE
and HSDPA or EV-DO), with the eventual goal of multiple 20x20 or 40x40
carriers once we can replace all the legacy stuff - but consider the current
for a moment, that Sprint in Seattle on 1900 mhz only has 20 mhz duplex, and
nothing on 800 at all - this is excluding the acres on 2.5, because of the
obvious limitations of use with atmospheric issues.

That said - the only way natural monopolies do not become abusive natural
monopolies is thru intense and careful regulation - mostly by setting a fixed
rate of return for the infrastructure, and then building rates from that.

~~~
thedaveoflife
Conventional economics states that in a natural monopoly the state should be
the sole provider.

~~~
zackmorris
You just nailed it, I think yours is possibly the most important comment on
this page. Roads, bridges, education, prisons, electricity, water, managing
public lands/other commons, the postal service, and now communication
infrastructure are all things that should be owned by the public. Putting
control of communication in the hands of a few large oligopolies is
undemocratic.

Since the most common objection to this is privacy, I propose that the
government provide the infrastructure (fiber, airwaves, satellites, etc) and
that the use of that infrastructure have strong privacy guarantees and the
protections of the existing unalienable rights in the forth amendment of the
constitution:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and
effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,
and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or
affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the
persons or things to be seized.”

ISPs already have strict privacy guidelines, and if anyone thinks that
corporations act to insulate users from government surveillance, they are
fooling themselves. The protections must start with government itself and
require constant vigilance. With regard to the commons, the profit motive
should be limited to government contractors in service to the people, not the
other way around.

------
mikeryan
Non WSJ Paywall article

[http://www.businessinsider.com/comcast-to-buy-time-warner-
ca...](http://www.businessinsider.com/comcast-to-buy-time-warner-
cable-2014-2?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider+\(Silicon+Alley+Insider\))

This is crazy I don't see how this can get past any sort of anti-trust.
Particularly with Comcast's stake in NBC. Comcast would own both the content
and distribution of too large a chunk of the broadcast industry.

~~~
fennecfoxen
To go with non-WSJ paywall article: non-paywall WSJ article!

[https://www.google.com/search?q=http://online.wsj.com/news/a...](https://www.google.com/search?q=http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303704304579379801986541412)

~~~
jonknee
Or even better, I setup Chrome to use a referer of "google.com" for all
requests to online.wsj.com--no paywall or need to search for headlines. I'm
sure there are other ways, but the extension Referer Control makes this easy
as can be: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/referer-
control/hn...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/referer-
control/hnkcfpcejkafcihlgbojoidoihckciin)

~~~
karmajunkie
oh that's beautiful... thanks for posting that!

------
famousactress
As a TWC customer I've been long certain based on conversations with others
that I have the second worst cable company in the country. So my reaction to
this announcement is approximately "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK."

~~~
ryanSrich
I can confirm that you do.

Nothing in your life has prepared you for Comcast.

~~~
jebblue
We had Comcast in Cali, in Texas TW was a breath of fresh air, about 3 years
ago all these weird fees kept showing up. A year ago we were fed up and
dropped all but Internet, went digital TV OTA (over the air) plus Roku and
Netflix (my brother clued me in that Netflix actually had streaming now). Roku
has some interesting channels we never got on any cable.

Now we could be back with ... Comcast? Yuk. Hey as long as they don't mess
with our current unlimited plan with TWC, I guess we can deal with them.

~~~
zacinbusiness
Have you ever noticed the prices on the TWC site for new subscribers? How they
say something like "down from." What does that mean to you? To me, it means
the regular price is one thing but that new subscribers get a deal.

As it turns out that is incorrect. The higher price is an arbitrary number,
not the retail value of the package.

I asked a TWC representative once where on their website I can find the retail
price of their plans and his response was "You won't find them anywhere."

------
chimeracoder
I can't wait until we finally get around to relegating broadband providers as
common carriers.

At the very least, we need a broadband version of Glass-Steagall, which forces
ISPs, cable companies, and content providers to be separate entities.

The current situation is laughably awful for consumers. I can't imagine a
single informed customer actually supporting the status quo.

~~~
WaterSponge
Not going to happen:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Cable_%26_Telecommunic...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Cable_%26_Telecommunications_Association_v._Brand_X_Internet_Services)

Just wait till Aereo gets screwed in their Supreme Court case. Then we really
will be.

In fact no matter which way they rule in Aereo's case we are screwed. If they
rule in favor of Aereo the content companies (Comcast owns NBC) will just
start taking content "cable only".

~~~
bunderbunder
I think the grandparent is saying we need a new law to replace the current
one.

The courts having upheld a decision on what the current law says doesn't
really preclude the passing of a new law - the only time court decisions trump
legislation is when the Constitution comes into play.

------
zacinbusiness
I hate TWC with a great and fiery passion. I literally shake when I think
about the company. And from my understanding, most Comcast subscribers feel
the same way about their service. This sort of thing makes me angry, not
because I think the monopoly will be worse than it currently is. But because
these mega-companies have so much power and influence that they can make their
own laws. A free and open internet simply doesn't stand a chance against that
much money. Because all of the protests will happen online. And if I'm
ComWarner and I see a site protesting me what am I going to do? I'm going to
ban hammer them. And if the public complains about it the I'll slip some
judges a few mil each to get them to interpret the law in my favor. And that's
the simple fact: America is one of the most corrupt countries. If not the most
corrupt. Because our law makers at every level are in the pockets of
billionaires.

~~~
existencebox
There seems to be a lot of buzz around that technical solutions won't dig us
out of this hole; and while I agree that we definitely need some dramatic
power shift to happen, I feel like there are technical solutions on the
horizon. There are a lot of compelling mesh network/darknet projects going on,
fast forward wireless tech a few years, it may be more feasible than ever. Use
your anger as motivation.

------
iandanforth
I was proud of the DOJ Antitrust division when they objected to the
ATT/T-Mobile merger. I can only hope they do the same here.

~~~
bryanpaluch
It's a bit different in this situation. Comcast and Time Warner do not
currently compete with each other.

~~~
beambot
Isn't that simply because they have a "gentlemans agreement" not to have
overlapping coverage, so that (to an individual customer) they are essentially
a monopoly?

~~~
wmf
Or cable is just a natural monopoly.

~~~
bunderbunder
The physical network is absolutely a natural monopoly - the cost to run copper
out to every house in a region is fixed, and any player in the market would
need to do just that in order to compete effectively. From a cost efficiency
perspective, the ideal number of such networks is one, just as it is for
electricity and water.

What's different is that electricity tends to be heavily regulated, and water
is generally a public utility. Cable providers are historically under no such
constraint, because we tend to think of them as television content providers
first and foremost, and the TV bit of the business is not a natural monopoly.
Unfortunately that is where they make their money, and that leads to some
really obnoxious behavior, including price gouging people who want their
network services but not a TV content subscription.

Probably the best solution would be to go the same route that many other
countries do and require network operators to share network bandwidth with
anyone who can pay for it. That would allow us to re-instate market
competition on top of the bit where it cannot occur naturally, while still
allowing them to maintain their regularly scheduled TV industry whatever-ness.

~~~
wmf
Cable TV also seems like a natural monopoly for the same reason as cable
Internet — the cost of running the cable itself. Even before cable modems,
most places only had one cable company. And my understanding is that cable
franchise agreements were written with that assumption. Maybe I don't
understand your argument, though.

~~~
bunderbunder
Different layers of the OSI model are different. Everything up to layer 3 on
the local network is a natural monopoly. But above there it's not, and outside
that local network it's not.

In the US, this fact was pretty clearly demonstrated when the regulatory
overhaul of the telephone industry in the 1990s introduced competition by
requiring owners of the local copper to share it, and also by how people are
able to choose their long distance carrier. The latter would be analogous to
being able to choose among any number of ISPs while still using the same
copper to handle the last mile.

------
kjhughes
If you're wondering how this could possibly go through, see another WSJ
article on the topic: "Comcast, Time Warner Deal to Spark Regulatory Debate,
Outcome Uncertain"

[http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702304...](http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702304703804579380453221890292-lMyQjAxMTA0MDEwMjExNDIyWj)

Summary: On the one hand, there are the obvious consumer concerns about the
impact on pricing and service if the two largest cable companies were to
merge. Besides Justice Department and Federal Communications Commission
review, Congress will likely seek hearings where they can be seen being
involved in such a high profile matter. On the other hand, Comcast
successfully practiced completing the 2009 acquisition of NBCUniversal from GE
by agreeing to a wide array of commitments with the Justice Department, FCC,
and state attorney generals.

Article concludes that the acquisition may well go through: " _This is the
first major merger review under new FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, who once served
as the cable industry 's top lobbyist. Mr. Wheeler suggested in 2011 the
Commission should have allowed AT&T to buy T-Mobile in exchange for agreeing
to a new slate of regulations. Lawyers and analysts in Washington believe
Comcast could similarly secure the Commission's approval by expanding its
existing regulatory commitments._"

~~~
coldcode
That's why the cable industry put this guy into that job, to make deals like
this easy as pie. Soon we will have The Cable Company and The Phone Company.
Or maybe just The Company.

~~~
_mulder_
Competition Theory does suggest every market tends towards a Monopoly
position. As companies get bigger and bigger, they acquire one another, until
eventually there's only one huge 'Company' left. Of course, that's one reason
why the free market is regulated.

------
ritchiea
Who benefits from large corporate mergers like this? What does an all stock
deal mean at that kind of magnitude?

It certainly feels like little else than a handshake deal to create a
monopoly.

~~~
gorner
Bigger scale, lower combined costs, more negotiating clout with TV channel
operators, etc.

~~~
ritchiea
So monopoly

~~~
gorner
Well, they're still competing with your local telco (AT&T / Verizon), DirecTV,
Dish Network, and Google Fiber and/or others in some areas. (Though granted
some of those are TV-only, not Internet.)

Not really much different than how Comcast and TWC are individually competing
right now (as their service areas don't overlap). Though I'm not suggesting
either one is a shining paragon of customer service or fair pricing (I don't
have any first-hand experience to speak of there; I'm in Canada).

------
adventured
Classic peak of the market bozo move. Comcast is massively overpaying for a
dying business that will be valued at 1/3 this price in three to five years.
I'd mark this equivalent to the HP / Compaq deal, and the AOL / Time Warner
deal (in which Time Warner allowed a soon-to-implode dial-up player to eat
them).

TWC has a mere $1b in cash, and negative $22.8b in net tangible assets.
Comcast shareholders just bought a massive black hole.

------
gremlinsinc
With this announcement we as a community REALLY need to get behind Net
Neutrality as much as we did w/ SOPA -- Companies like Google, Netflix, et al
- should block all access to their sites from D.C. IP addresses as a protest
to show them what 'Throttling' feels like.

~~~
redwall_hp
Netflix and other services can throttle their subscribers, too. :D

------
blazespin
The point is not to merge. The point is to use this as a negotiating point
with the FTC. Ask for the sun, and end up with the moon.

~~~
davidgay
So you get one part in 10 million (by mass)? Seems an expensive approach...

------
mindslight
This is yet another reminder to check out your local DSL options, like
Sonic.net and Megapath. Hopefully the ones in your area haven't gone out of
business yet from everyone getting duped into "faster" cable.

------
delucain
Will this really matter in the long run? I mean don't most cable companies
have a local monopoly anyway? I don't think there are many Comcast subscribers
who can switch to TWC. I know there's still a diversity of offerings across
the market that will change, but that seems a minor thing compared to the fact
that most broadband users don't have a choice who they get their broadband
from anyway.

~~~
dreamdu5t
People get up in arms about them being monopolies and their solution is to
grant them monopolies. It's stupid.

How about this? No monopolies at all. If I want to run cable and I get the
easements, I should be able to...

~~~
harshreality
Suppose there weren't any official monopoly grant from way-back-whenever to
your existing local telco and cable companies. There would still be a de-facto
monopoly or duopoly: The easement permitting process, currently entirely
blocked due to the monopoly grants, would exist, but as a sham... with the
(mono|duo)polies coercing city politicians not to let upstarts dig up roads or
string new cables. I've lived in a city with lots of fiber being put in. It's
a nuisance, and without vocal public support it's easy for entrenched ISPs to
argue that the nuisance isn't worth the increased choice, particularly in
markets where there is already "competition" between one [horrible] "cable"
provider and one [horrible] "telco" provider.

------
yeukhon
One thing I find stupid is franchise. In NYC Comcast, TWC, Verzion and RCN get
franchises. Sometimes living a block away from where one used to live means a
different provider and you are locked. TWC isn't so badly in the last 2-3
years after the major pool expanison and relatively stable, but in the end,
why the hell is FiOS still not available to me when they promised they would
have it complete by now?

~~~
nandhp
As far as I know the Verizon FiOS buildout is complete and there are no plans
to expand availability. Last time I read about FiOS expansion, Verizon's
official position was something like this:

Customers in areas not currently served by FiOS may be able to get 4G from
Verizon Wireless, which is up to four times faster than Verizon High Speed
Internet (DSL).

------
ben1040
Interesting timing, considering Charter's been preparing a hostile takeover
attempt and was trying to push for a shakeup on TWC's board:

[http://www.fiercecable.com/story/charter-recruits-time-
warne...](http://www.fiercecable.com/story/charter-recruits-time-warner-cable-
adelphia-veterans-hostile-takeover-
attem/2014-02-11?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss)

------
mroby
They need a login to read the post? That's ridiculous.

~~~
pgrote
Run it through Google News.

[https://news.google.com/news/search?q=Comcast+Acquiring+Time...](https://news.google.com/news/search?q=Comcast+Acquiring+Time+Warner+Cable)

------
b3b0p
I don't have access to Time Warner or Comcast. I currently have Cox and I have
never had Time Warner or Comcast my entire life. I have only read online from
sites like Hacker News or Ars Technica in the comments about how bad it is.

Could someone enlighten us with some points of how this possibly could benefit
consumers?

Will they have more capital to build out fiber networks like Google has been
doing to compete with that? If this goes through how much control can be put
in place by the regulators to make sure pricing is not increased, they don't
throttle or block out certain content providers such as Netflix?

Even though they server different markets it seems insane that this gets
approved from the knowledge I have.

------
mjbraun
In the past, I haven't seen much about how the "last feet" problem will be
addressed in dense metropolitan areas. In multi-unit dwellings, often the
wiring is still owned by the provider. So, even if you were to run fiber
(municipal or otherwise) right up to the doorstep of a building, you wouldn't
be able to cheaply run drops to every unit. In my previous readings, the laws
in my area at least allow for provider "abandonment" or a buyout of the
wiring, but I doubt those would help very much. I'd be interested in hearing
if folks have seen otherwise, however.

------
mayneack
Man, Comcast and TWC were already go to examples of the problems of
monopolies.

------
adamio
"All Amazon hosted websites have been blacked out from Comcast Warner Cable
while we undergo contract negotiations. Thanks for your patience, here's a
free Video on Demand for the inconvenience"

------
founder4fun
Google please buy Verizon FIOs and all other fiber ISPs! Building out your own
ISP is going to take decades.

A national Google Fiber is needed more then ever with this potential merger
and Net Neutrality being struck down.

------
PaybackTony
I think I'm seeing some people here upset with the possibly deal because
service already sucks (for both companies).

If that's how you feel, then this deal is good. One large company can be taken
down much easier than two large companies. Just one less competitor Google
Fiber (and other up-and-comers) have to deal with.

The part that irks me is that Comcast will own everything from the content,
network all the way down to the subscribers. It just doesn't feel right that
one company has that much power.

But then again, as a business owner, controlling your own destiny is your
utopia.

------
mynoseknows
It's not like you ever have any choice with a cable provider anyway, the way
it works is a cable company gets in bed with the local government and that's
who gets to provide you with cable service.

I must be one of the lucky ones because I've had Comcast for over 10 years and
the quality of service (customer service and cable/internet) has always been
great. Pricing could be better but if you call they're always willing to give
me promotional pricing deals, and there's always satellite TV and/or internet,
DSL, or cellular.

------
einrealist
This might be an opportunity for the antitrust agencies, to force Comcast to
open up their network to the competition like Netflix. I would not be so
pessimistic about the deal.

~~~
mkempe
Will net neutrality be a regulatory condition of the merger?

------
pyro56
This merg will be the worst thing that could happen, 1) Prices of the packages
will go up what will that do with the people who already have a package with
TWC. Will it make there prices go up? 2) Who would trust comcast will all the
talk of them throttling internet. Its will casue full chaos and they would end
up losing more money then they would gain from the merg.

------
pasbesoin
The Obama Administration had better prod some serious anti-trust consideration
on this -- not to mention Congress.

The NBC deal a couple of years ago, and now this?

Meantime, my Crapcast service contains consistently more crap (as opposed to
quality), for consistently more money.

Step by step, this country is flushing itself down the tubes. Ha... bit of an
unintended pun, there. Fitting.

------
richforrester
Dear HN: I'm not too familiar with the situation over there, and have what
might be a dumb question.

Are there any companies that will benefit from this because they're already on
their way to roll out their own lines? I'm thinking about things like Google
Fiber, companies that are providing their own network to deliver internet
over.

------
tomasien
Is this a PR move? Do they like paying lawyers? Leverage against the FTC? I
mean, this is never going to happen.... right?

------
tn13
Cable and Internet suck in American The Land of Free. I have TV Box from
comcast which I have not switched on for year because it is absolute shit. It
plays may be 10-15 channels and for any good channel I need to shell in so
much money.

I am 100% sure that someone like Google will shark behind these people and
drive them out of business.

~~~
yellowbkpk
If you don't turn on your TV you should make sure you return your Comcast
cable box because you're probably being charged at least $3/mo for it.

------
joeshaw
I really, really want the regulators to stop this, but most people only have
the choice of a single cable provider anyway. Where in the US do Comcast and
Time Warner compete head-to-head? It feels as though they have divided up the
country similarly to how the baby bells were after AT&T was broken up in 1984.

------
pirateking
Is anyone here familiar with the costs (regulatory and financial) associated
with direct backbone fiber access?

~~~
phunge
Verizon spent an average of $817 per household to deploy FIOS. Though that may
not be the stat your asking for! :) Source:
[http://newamerica.net/sites/newamerica.net/files/policydocs/...](http://newamerica.net/sites/newamerica.net/files/policydocs/The_Cost_of_Connectivity.pdf)

------
amurmann
Can we get a god damn amendment to the constitution that enforced net
neutrality and prohibits ISPs from doing anything but being ISPs, already?!
The net is part of the infrastructure of our country and needs to be neutral!
Anyone who fucks with that should be charged with terrorism.

------
D9u
Damn! I finally got an acceptable deal from Oceanic Time Warner @ $60 a month
for "up to 30 Mbit/sec" with no data cap. (I often see speeds over 50
Mbit/sec)

I hope this deal doesn't throw a wrench in my net connection. I live in a
rural area with few options.

------
acd
Since Time Warner was rumored to be the partner of AppleTV TV content, ponders
how this deal affects that. Was it a plan to stop that Apple deal to happen or
will they benefit from that?

Ponders if this will pass the antitrust authorithy

------
alexqgb
This is either good news or bad news for municipal ISPs. Good news in that you
could hardly ask for a better catalyst. Bad news in that Comcast will have
even more motivation to murder the entire concept in its sleep.

------
relik
Now, instead of spitting on TWC vans, I'll get to spit on Comcast vans.

------
dangayle
Please don't let this happen. I hate Comcast and I hate it even more that it's
really the only cable option where I live. I'd hate for that to be the case
for everyone everywhere.

------
squintychino
Well, if you thought internet plans and prices suck now... Stay Tuned.

------
madmax96
I might be mistaken, but I don't think that Comcast and Time-Warner compete in
the same market, so the anti-trust people can't complain.

I feel bad for those poor Time-Warner customers, though.

------
benmorris
This really stinks. Just suffered through a transition to TWc from insightbb.
Haven't been happy with the way twc operates. I can't imagine one mega cable
company.

------
shmerl
Less competition, higher prices and worse service for those who will be
unlucky enough to be in the area where there is no choice but to use these
cable ISPs...

------
malkia
I must talk to all my libertarian friends now. I need to get explanation what
free market means when right now my only options for network would be one ISP.

~~~
JeffL
This has nothing to do with the free market. Both companies are government
granted "natural" monopolies.

~~~
welterde
Huh? How is it something that the government granted?

~~~
JeffL
No other company can legally lay cable in the same areas as these companies.
Same "natural monopoly" deal that governs the electric, phone, and water
utilities.

~~~
welterde
Interesting.. That's indeed rather limiting.

That being said, I don't think that's true in Germany (where the balance in
your bank account is pretty much the only limiting factor for getting some
cables into the ground) and still the ISP market is not to doing too well.
Regional ISPs are pretty much the only ones capable of delivering a decent
service (if you are lucky enough to live close to one).

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natural219
I would welcome this merger. Give them 3 months, and let them demonstrate why
the telecom monopoly is bad for business, consumers, and America.

~~~
FireBeyond
And then what?

You think Standard Oil is going to be repeated?

Not a chance. The Republican Party/side of the country would probably be more
likely to rebel at the idea of such “government interference in the private
sector”, especially on such a grand scale.

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roozbeh18
who submits wsj articles no one can read...

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izzydata
Still waiting for google fiber that is under construction 5 miles from my
house. "Supposedly".

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ulfw
Americans sure love their monopolies.

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knodi
Wow, comcast is a monopoly in this current state, after this it would be a
super monopoly.

~~~
midas007
Ma bell of internet (TV's just about dead, and they depend on partnering with
Verizon for mobile)

In other areas, AT&T dominates horizontally and vertically.

~~~
EpicEng
"Just about dead" is quite the overstatement. They did $32B+ last year in
advertising revenue. I hope they do die a quick death, but it's going to be a
while before most people cut the cord.

~~~
midas007
You're dead wrong. U.S. TV ad revenue is shrinking fast > 3% year on year and
_totals_ only $67 Billion USD for the entire industry. Also, you're looking at
the wrong attribute as a proxy for relevance. The quality of the eyeballs
(monetization worth, net worth) and sustained interest are far better on the
web and in mobile games. Only a few rare people that don't have computers or
smartphones are UHWNIs. So I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader to
figure out what kind of customers watch TV.

------
maceo
The resulting Comcast would have 75% of the US cable market, if this goes
through.

~~~
MachinaX
Sounds really bad to me! I hope DOJ can stop this deal.

------
mgkimsal
Aren't there antitrust laws to protect against this exact sort of thing?

~~~
gorner
It doesn't violate anti-trust laws to buy another company you do not compete
with. And there are very few, if any, territories where Comcast and TWC
directly compete at present – depending on where you live, you can subscribe
to one or the other (or some other cable company), but not both.

~~~
mgkimsal
but... they only don't compete because of govt sanctioned monopoly status in
the first place, no?

~~~
gorner
Originally (and perhaps still in some specific areas), yes. Most regions have
deregulated though, which is why FiOS, U-Verse and Google Fiber TV are able to
exist.

But the infrastructure costs for Comcast to build out a brand new network in
TWC territories (or vice-versa) on a mass scale would be pretty high.

For the sake of comparison (Google Fiber): [http://news-
beta.slashdot.org/story/12/12/08/1810244/nationw...](http://news-
beta.slashdot.org/story/12/12/08/1810244/nationwide-google-fiber-deployment-
would-cost-140-billion)

~~~
mgkimsal
"pretty high" but they've got $45b to 'invest' in buying out competition,
instead of spending a fraction of that to compete head to head in specific
markets, then eventually more markets?

If it's deregulated, then they can enter the market and compete on service and
price, not buy up the competition so there's _no_ chance of anyone else ever
being able to enter. TWC has been pretty active in trying to prevent municipal
fiber in NC, and I suspect with even more money/muscle/lobby power behind
them, it will be easier to squash any semblance of competition in any form.

~~~
gorner
It's an all-stock deal though. Comcast isn't actually paying any money (in
fact I believe they still have a significant amount of debt from buying NBC),
instead they're proposing giving TWC shareholders the equivalent of $45B in
new Comcast shares in exchange for giving up their collective ownership of
TWC.

But yeah, Comcast and TWC's recent lobbying efforts in general sound pretty
suspect. Not defending that aspect by any means.

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cenhyperion
How could this not be considered a monopoly over the majority of the US?

~~~
roozbeh18
timewarner by its own is a monopoly. i dont think anything will change. I
already pay 55 bucks for crappy 15 up 1 down speed.

~~~
_kst_
Do you mean 15 down 1 up?

------
joelthelion
Great news for internet access quality in the US! /s

------
martindale
There is absolutely no way the FTC will allow this.

------
fiatmoney
I can't believe no one has yet even trolled the possibility that allowing this
merger would be payoff for both companies' loyal service to the NSA.

------
chaosmonkey
Well now we wait for things to get worse!

------
pgrote
Oh, boy. Charter wanted them, badly.

------
samgranieri
This is bad

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antsam
Wow, the new AT&T.

------
logicallee
How is this legal?

------
hydralist
please google isp, destroy this new super-fool

------
lgama
Prepare the Vaselin.

------
spikels
We should be taking these guy's monopolies away. Competition is the key to not
only good value (i.e. low price/value) but also economic fairness.

Ever notice how many of the biggest fortunes were built on top of government
granted monopolies of some form, such as exclusive licenses, highly regulated
industries, copyrights, trademarks and/or patents? Just look at the list of
the world richest people:

1\. Carlos Slim - telecom monopolies

2\. Bill Gates - software copyrights

3\. Amancio Ortega - clothing trademarks (brands)

4\. Warren Buffet - highly regulated businesses

5\. Larry Ellison - software copyrights

6 and 7 - Kock Brothers - highly regulated businesses

...

