
Charter Said to Be Near Deal to Buy Time Warner Cable - orteipid
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/26/business/dealbook/charter-time-warner-cable-deal.html
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arielm
Consolidation in this space, in my opinion, is putting the future of the
Internet in great jeopardy. I'm not sure exactly where we're heading, but i
have a feeling the days of a "free" internet are numbered.

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jusben1369
I do wonder if the cable guys are going to go the way of the telephone
landline via mobile. I can already get better speeds on my phone than most
cable packages. They just need to increase the amount of traffic I can get and
I'd drop the hardline service.

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tw04
>They just need to increase the amount of traffic I can get and I'd drop the
hardline service.

Which they will literally never do. They have no incentive to. The absurdly
low caps allow them to consistently charge overage fees/print money.

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untog
_They have no incentive to._

They do, though. I pay ~$50 a month for my cable - if an LTE mobile operator
offered a higher cap for even $45 a month it would be tempting to switch over.

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martinald
The real problem is that the telecoms companies (AT&T and Verizon in most
areas) aren't putting up any competition at all.

AT&Ts UVerse VDSL rollout is flawed (the cabinets are generally too far from
customers premises), so speeds are too slow. Verizon has given up with further
significant FiOS rollout.

I don't really think this matters too much. TWC and Charter serve different
areas, so there is no real change in competition. You could argue maybe there
is some changes in bids for content, or perhaps peering and transit, but I
think the much more important thing is getting a competitor on the ground.

Everywhere Google Fiber has rolled out (or even said they may roll out) has
seen huge service improvements from the incumbents. Instead of bickering over
these merges, there should be more thought on how to get more Google Fibers
out there.

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mmanfrin
Seriously -- you'd think with that $60billion in acquisition costs, they could
just instead plow that in to increasing coverage and service; but to do that
would upset the tranquil waters of telecom oligopoly.

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click170
What I don't get is that the genie is out of the bottle now. Google fiber
exists and the more areas they roll out to where the encumbamts only bump
service after the fact only further demonstrates the point that they don't
give a shit about servicing their customers, they care about charging them for
speeds that don't improve until competition forces their hand.

Is their plan to literally sacrifice their reputation for a few short term
profits?

~~~
markdown
Sadly, you over-estimate the length of the memory of the masses. They forget
very quickly, and will not consider "this company fucked me over for years" if
the company currently offers them the best deal.

Sad fact.

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walterbell
Is this decade-old (2003) analysis still relevant? From
[http://www.theguardian.com/business/2003/jul/06/theobserver....](http://www.theguardian.com/business/2003/jul/06/theobserver.observerbusiness7)

 _"..possibly pave the way for another major acquisition - that of a sizable
cable or satellite company - to create a vertically integrated business.
Morgan Stanley's analysts note that: 'In effect, Liberty would be reverse
engineering into the structure of the original TCI before Liberty was spun
off.'

This would represent a monumental volte face for Malone. His New Age strategy
and McKinsey thinking would have all been for nought. Far from being the
freewheeling deal-making machine of its youth, Liberty would be a much more
sober proposition. Malone would back where he began.."_

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ebbv
This isn't any better of an idea than Comcast buying TWC was. It should be
stopped for all the same reasons.

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Eric_WVGG
I’m a bit conflicted. First, Charter is nowhere near as large as Comcast, so
no, it wouldn't create a situation where > 50% of American consumer broadband
came through one company.

The other thing is, TWC is terribly managed, completely inept. Yes I know
everyone hates their local monopoly, but I’ve lived all over the US in the
past five years and can say with some authority that TWC is worse.

Rumor has it that the rank-and-file at TWC was hoping for the Comcast merger
to go through because they knew their own management couldn't fix the company.
Perhaps Charter could pull it off? They are the one broadband ISP I have no
experience with.

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jessaustin
_Perhaps Charter could pull it off? They are the one broadband ISP I have no
experience with._

Charter cable and internet seem pretty solid. Their business phone service has
had terrible growing pains over the last year [maybe two years? my memory
fails me], with multiple, multiple-hour outages during the middle of business
days. Our sales guy told me they've recently decided to implement rolling
switch restarts after future emergency outages, instead of trying to restart
every switch in their network at once and getting their shoelaces tied
together. I told him that sounded like a good idea, so good that perhaps they
should have had it from the very beginning.

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brianreavis
I can't say I've had the same experience. They've made me miss Comcast - never
thought I would say that.

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Empact
For all the people despairing, I see plenty of reason to hope, and it comes in
the form of wireless broadband. The hardware is getting quite powerful and
inexpensive - for a few hundred bucks you can get a pair of dishes that will
push a half gigabit, e.g.
[https://www.ubnt.com/products/](https://www.ubnt.com/products/)

Basically anyone who can get locate a solid urban fiber backbone can build a
network off it, in the same way that
[https://www.monkeybrains.net/](https://www.monkeybrains.net/) is doing in San
Francisco.

There's no reason a city can't support multiple competing wireless line-of-
sight networks, given that they don't face the same high infrastructure cost
of wireline service.

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tacticus
Except there is still a very limited amount of bandwidth in the air. Yes you
can get 2 dishes that support half a gbit of traffic but you only get 4 or 5
of those up and running without interference. you still have significant
scaling issues.

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spydum
The bright house acquisition is the saddest part. They had a very odd
relationship with time warner to begin with (sort of like a remora). They have
some of the best customer service, and are about to be gobbled up by some of
the worst.

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charlesdm
Malone has been busy lately! Strategic thinker with an impressive track
record.

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jusben1369
It sure seems to have worked out well for TWC shareholders to have this merger
take 18 - 24 months longer. Those are some big increases in valuation/price.

