
Time Warner Cable Shareholders Approve Sale to Comcast - ANTSANTS
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-09/time-warner-cable-shareholders-approve-sale-to-comcast.html
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cmdrfred
I just spent 45 minutes on the phone with comcast yesterday for one the
offices I manage. I didn't have the account number and the phones were down
(voip). I gave them the address and phone number and they still needed the
account number. After 45 minutes they just hung up on me. Must be nice to be a
monopoly.

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spuiszis
I have Comcast residential and went for 19 days without internet service in
August. Took ~10 calls and 5 cancelled service rep trips (by them), before it
got fixed.

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uncleruckus
Comcast Internet went out at my girlfriend's once. After several phone calls
of BS it turns out Comcast came to service the apartment next to hers and
decided to unplug the cable from the street that goes into her apartment.
Their rationale was that it was unmarked so obviously it couldn't have been
important.

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coldcode
All I can say is No. If this is allowed to go forth without major concessions
this is a travesty. My TWC is bad enough but Comcast is a whole new magnitude
of hurt. I expect that I will be unable to access anything on the internet any
more but what they want me to see and pay for. This type of merger is exactly
why antitrust needs to exist.

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zippergz
I've moved around a lot and I've had both TWC and Comcast in several locations
each. I actually found the service from Comcast to be far better than TWC. I
mean, they're a loathsome company, but the actual quality of the service was
quite good.

That said, I think this merger would be a terrible thing for all cable
consumers in the US.

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fibonachos
I have no experience with TWC, but moved from Cox to Comcast territory about 4
years ago and would put the quality of their service at about equal. Customer
service is no comparison however. Cox wins that by a wide margin.

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vonklaus
I think it would be fair for regulators to approve this merger if local
municipalities and conpanies were afforded the same right to provide and
compete with these titans

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pyre
That would be a major concession. Comcast-TWC would need to immediately cease
all lobbying efforts to prevent municipal broadband. Furthermore, they would
be required to lobby _for_ municipal broadband whenever there was a push
against it (lest they try to wiggle out by just funding opponents while not
lobbying directly themselves).

[Note: I still don't think this would be a large enough concession to make the
merger a net benefit to the public though.]

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Bud
It's not actually possible to force someone to lobby for something. How could
you be sure they were really trying? They could just hire really bad lobbyists
or run really bad advertising, for instance.

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fivedogit
It's very possible. They did it to the tobacco industry.

[http://www.thetruth.com/](http://www.thetruth.com/)

Essentially, as part of the Master Settlement Agreement, the government just
said, "You have to put X dollars into this independent anti-smoking group."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheTruth.com](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheTruth.com)

~~~
pyre
This is slightly different because it's just a public campaign:

    
    
      TheTruth.com uses web, print and television promote
      its message.
    

Lobbying efforts are different. How do you know that Comcast-TWC wouldn't just
put _more_ funding into a group that opposed municipal broadband than they put
into the required pro-muni broadband group?

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tomelders
I would be flabbergasted if the regulators looked at the rest of the world and
decided to allow this sale. If anything, the whole debacle should prompt
immediate action to drastically increase the competitiveness of that market.

Anything less, and people need to start talking about jail time because
someone is on the take.

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jakozaur
I would never imagine that happened in Europe. Free market works if there is
competition, but monopolies either natural or artificial need regulations to
prevent from abusing their powers.

Personal story: I live in SF Bay Area and got Comcast. Net was working really
slow and got outages few times each week. To get any support I had to wait 40m
to hear basic advice like restarting router.

Switched to smaller provider Sonic.net. Everything works, just once got some
problem (in last 3 months). My call was immediately connected to competent
human which diagnosed the problem in less than 3m. Next day they proactively
call to improve one more thing.

Contenders usually got so much more will to do things right than monopolies.

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kbenson
As a frequent employee in the past (I've worked there multiple times and in
multiple positions), I'll second that it's a really great company (and
frequently gets press for being on the forefront of privacy rights for it's
users).

Unfortunately, when I bought my house, it was a new development and while it
was pre-wired for Comcast and AT&T, those are the only options.

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binarymax
Of course they approve. Monopoly dividends!

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themoonbus
Haha, yeah. "Shareholders vote to make money".

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nodata
To make money in the short term at least.

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startupfounder
Talk about the perfect monopolistic business.

As Thiel said, if they are a true monopoly they will lie and say they are part
of a much bigger market.

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azurezyq
If this got approved, no chance to reduce the price of the broadband. I was
shocked for the internet price when I moved to bay area last year, ~$70 for
16M/3M ( I use comcast business, residential may around $40~$50), but in my
hometown, a mid-sized city near the east China coast, my father use a 300RMB
($50) / year service for 10M internet.

In my hometown, each apt may at least have two providers with similar
bandwidth, but here we have few choices because comcast may hold most of the
infrastructure and just no one can compete.

If this merge got approved, over half of US's residential internet
infrastructure may under its control, I cannot imagine what will happen. The
most expensive internet in the world? maybe.

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cobookman
wouldn't $50 USD have more buying power in china than $70 USD in the US?

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azurezyq
$50/year service in China $70/month service in US

I don't think the buying power difference would be that large.

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programminggeek
If municipal broadband and other significant competition for broadband
existed, this wouldn't be such a big deal, but the fact is in terms of TV you
have like 2 major satellite TV providers and 1 cable company available in most
areas. In terms of broadband internet you have 1 cable company and maybe 1 or
2 DSL providers available.

Realistically, there is basically never more than 1 cable company per city
anymore that I can see. Fiber internet and television is all but nonexistant
as an option for the vast majority of people.

Long story short, after this merger, Comcast will be an even bigger media
conglomerate with almost no competition in their core business. Expect higher
prices and worse service.

That's comcastic.

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bingeboy
Fuck TWC and Comcast

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wclax04
Maybe it will be more time efficient to wait for them to send me a new
'rebranded' cablebox than wait in the line at time warner on 23rd street?

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cmdrfred
Imagine if this monstrosity comes together and then later merges with Verizon.
I think I read about that in the bible once.

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blueskittle
Someone on reddit asked why this isn't considered an Antitrust violation (akin
to Microsoft). An anti-trust lawyer explained why, but better yet, provided
more context around the merger. It appears that this will ultimately go
through, given the climate of the current administration and the dynamics of
the merger.

Here is the anti-trust lawyer's explanation:

 _Antitrust lawyer here._

 _For one, we 're talking about different antitrust issues. Broadly speaking,
the antitrust laws prohibit (1) concerted action that harms competition, like
price fixing cartels; (2) unilateral action by a monopolist that harms
competition; and (3) mergers and acquisitions that significantly diminish
competition._

 _Microsoft was alleged to have used its position as a monopolist to undermine
competition. That 's (2) above. Typically, monopolization entails an element
of foulplay. Achieving or maintaining a monopoly through normal, reasonable
business practices is not illegal._

 _Comcast and TWC are proposing to merge. That 's (3) above. When evaluating a
merger, the DOJ looks at whether the companies directly compete in any
markets, and whether the merger is likely to reduce competition in those
markets._

 _Comcast and TWC claim that they do not directly compete. That 's true, but
there's more to the story. Comcast and TWC will point out that cable systems
are "natural monopolies" \-- it costs a lot to lay cable, and where one
company has already laid cable in a given area, it enjoys a huge cost
advantage over other would-be competitors, who would have to lay their own
cable to compete._

 _But on the other hand, Comcast and its rivals have also done some dubious
stuff in the past that has led to the current competitive landscape. For
example, Comcast, TWC, and others have engaged in a number of anticompetitive
deals, such as geographic market allocation and customer swapping, to create
large regional monopolies. These deals themselves arguably violate the
antitrust laws -- see (1) above -- and indeed are the subject of ongoing
litigation. But unfortunately, the DOJ most likely would not take this
background into account when evaluating the likely effect of the merger on
competition._

 _So when Comcast and TWC say that the merger will not reduce competition
because they do not currently compete, that is in part due to the fact that
they have already agreed not to compete. It 's like two members of a price
fixing cartel saying that merging would not reduce competition because, hey,
they aren't competing anyway._

 _We don 't know yet whether the DOJ will challenge the merger. The Obama DOJ
has been decent in this area; they challenged the AT&T/T-Mobile merger and US
Air/American Airlines merger. But neither of those cases played out -- the FCC
killed AT&T/T-Mobile, and the DOJ caved once politicians began pressuring the
agency to let US Air/American Airlines go through._

 _Given that Comcast is so well connected in Washington, and in light of the
potential difficulties in establishing that the merger will actually reduce
competition, I expect that the DOJ will approve the Comcast /TWC merger,
subject to certain concessions._

 _Politics is a core issue when it comes to antitrust enforcement. In fact, I
don 't think the Obama DOJ would sue Microsoft today. Clinton's DOJ was a bit
more aggressive in this area._

 _Hope this helps._

[https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2h87ob/e...](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2h87ob/eli5_why_did_the_us_government_have_no_trouble/ckqdlo5)

