
The Case Against Time Warner-Comcast Just Got Stronger - pwg
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/net-neutrality-comcast-level3,news-18739.html
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aylons
Here in Brasil, the ISP must guarantee packet loss of at most 2% in 90% of
measurements. [1]

A public comitee manages servers located precisely at exchange points, and,
thus at network borders. These servers are used by applications which anybody
can run that are used to measure speed from clients to them.

Of course, there's always a chance of selective QoS based in packet origin,
but this is now illegal (we have a net neutrality law now) and not that hard
to investigate if needed.

[1] The speed is also rated, but at 30% at any measurement and 70% at long
term average.

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mullingitover
It's kinda depressing that if the FCC acted to rein in the companies that have
the lowest levels of customer satisfaction in the country, conventional wisdom
is that it would be immediately thwarted by Congress. The same Congress which
was elected by those same dissatisfied customers.

~~~
wtallis
What's the Congressional action that's feared here? I thought that the FCC
merely has to classify ISPs as telecommunications services in order to impose
Net Neutrality with authority they already have under existing law, and that
their attempts to impose Net Neutrality _without_ that reclassification are
what's getting shot down, but shot down by the courts, not Congress. Is there
something Congress could do to block or reverse the reclassification in a
manner not subject to Presidential veto?

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ac1294
I don't understand the arguments against the merger very well. From what I've
read, there is currently very little overlap between the regions of Time
Warner Cable and those of Comcast [1]. If this is correct, how could the
merger allow either firm to raise the price?

There are also arguments that combining the customer base will give greater
buying power when making deals over content (ex. complete broadcasting power
over local sports franchises). But the combined customer base is supposed to
be less than 30% of households that subscribe to cable or satellite TV [2].

I understand net neutrality is a huge concern, but that seems to be a separate
issue from the Time Warner - Comcast merger. It looks like the problem (which
is addressed at the end of the post) is higher barriers to entry from local
governments. If that's the root cause of net neutrality, that probably
deserves more focus than just preventing a merger.

[1] [http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-02-13/six-
takeways...](http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-02-13/six-takeways-
from-the-comcast-time-warner-cable-deal)

[2] [http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/28/news/companies/comcast-
timer...](http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/28/news/companies/comcast-timer-warner-
cable-charter/)

~~~
nitrogen
_I don 't understand the arguments against the merger very well. From what
I've read, there is currently very little overlap between the regions of Time
Warner Cable and those of Comcast [1]. If this is correct, how could the
merger allow either firm to raise the price?_

Raising the consumer price is only one of _many_ things ComcastWarner could
do. Having an even larger marketshare would allow them, for example, to extort
more content distributors for more paid peering and hosting, for example.

 _But the combined customer base is supposed to be less than 30% of households
that subscribe to cable or satellite TV [2]._

30% is a very big number! No company would voluntarily give up 30% of its
income over a distribution dispute, so ComcastWarner would be able to extract
far more concessions from content producers.

 _It looks like the problem (which is addressed at the end of the post) is
higher barriers to entry from local governments._

A larger ComcastWarner would have even more lobbying power to ensure those
barriers to entry remain high.

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logn
Net neutrality aside, there's still the separate issue of providers not paying
to upgrade their peering equipment. How would that best be handled (assuming
that increasing competition will never happen)?

~~~
javajosh
How could it be handled? Perhaps a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the
broadband customers who are not getting the service they paid for.

Of course, this is not without great difficulty.

I'd estimate that roughly 100% of US consumer broadband providers have written
into their customer agreements clauses that a) provide no guarantee for any
level of service and b) require customers to wave their right to file a
lawsuit for any reason, class-action or otherwise. So, first these provisions
would be challenged, and then the case could continue.

What is the outcome? Cynically, 10 years later, the broadband company settles
out of court, admitting no wrong-doing and changing nothing in their business,
and the lawyers get paid millions, the consumers sort of just plod on.

On a larger scale, I think the biggest mistake that we've made as a culture is
that we no longer expect the government to be the final arbiter of justice.
Indeed, the political winds on the matter of hated "regulation" shifts so
frequently that regulators themselves must be a bunch of basket-cases. My
sense is that in other countries the issue of fairness and acceptable behavior
is more deeply understood. There is no doubt that it is the government who is
the ultimate boss, and the folks that work there see it as their noble purpose
to prevent large companies from taking advantage of everyday people. But for
some reason people that figure out how to get away with it are admired,
respected, and feared by government.

It ain't right.

~~~
EEGuy
30-some years ago the courts broke up the Bell System (original AT&T) monopoly
on the basis of monopolistic behavior.

Perhaps a judicial finding that present day ISP practice constitutes a de
facto, /necessary/ monopoly, forcing wholesale access to competitors to the
incumbent ISPs' customer access facilities.

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dang
Appears to be a dupe of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7699862](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7699862).

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igravious
I wonder what that company in Europe is.

