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FCC Clears Comcast Purchase Of AT&T Broadband
Torgo's Pizza writes "The FCC just granted final approval for Comcast to complete its $30.5 billion purchase of AT&T Broadband. Despite consumer worries of increased rates and clear domination of the market, Chairman Michael Powell stated, "The benefits of this transaction are considerable, the potential harms negligible.""
Hmmm.... Did not the FCC block the merger of DirecTV and Dish Network? Or was that some other government organization?
:)
Of course, I don't watch TV so that's a moot point for me anyway...
RickTheWizKid
A man needs TV like a fish needs a bicycle
Comcast is paying way too much, sounds familiar? We all know what happened to the dot coms, don't we? But CEOs can fix anything by "cost control" (read "laying off enough people"). Then they increase your dues, since they are now a monopoly. Then 5 year later, they go bankrupt because after all 30 billion was too much and because high speed wireless beat them to a pulp. But by this time the CEOs are gone and are laughing from their golden parachutes. Anyway, by this time, no one remembers that it was done on Bush's guard. This is called win-win for the CEOs and the politicians.
What he's really saying:
The benefits to Comcast are considerable, the potential harms to the users are not a consideration because their political donations aren't as large as Comcast's, now are they.
Chairman Michael Powell stated, "The benefits of this transaction are considerable, the potential harms negligible
Allow me to provide a translation:
The benefits of this transaction are considerable: I'm receiving plenty of "benefits" (read: bribes) from the companies involved. All I have to do in return is not throw antitrust laws at them.
the potential harms negligible: Who cares about the consumer? As long as I'm not harmed, all is good.
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
It was so much fun going from AT&T @HOME to AT&T, I can't wait to get flipped over to a new network!
I wonder if Comcast can bring the same exciting server name changes and mass outages that came with the last switch. I am all-aflutter with anticipation!
No, really I am.
Chairman Michael Powell stated, "The benefits of this transaction are considerable, the potential harms negligible."
I am pretty sure he got that backwards...
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
Even now comcast cable is more expensive than DSL in my area - plus they forbid using VPN over the 'residential' package. If you want to work from home you basically have to spring for the $100/month business package. I wish the Bell Atlantic would get thier act together with DSL rollout.
What? I have Comcast, and it uses DHCP. Maybe you are in an area that uses PPPoE, which also works in Linux.
"Then I realize Comcast is incompatible with Linux."
What are they doing that's proprietary? I don't know how Comcast works, but ATTBI uses a cable modem with an ethernet out port on it. It doesn't care what kind of computer is talking to it as long as it does TCP/IP.
I would understand if they were using a USB device or something, but I'm puzzled as to how it'd be incompatible with Linux. Could you please clarify?
*Note: I'm not challenging your information, I'm genuinely curious because I may end up being a Comcast customer as a result of this merger.*
Actually, this is not true. The comcast system works with any operating system that runs a decent dhcp client. For example, under linux, running `dhcpcd ` provices all the authentication you need to connect to the service. Authentication is provided based on the MAC address of your modem, not based on any windows-proprietary method.
Certain service areas of Comcast use PPPoE for authentication rather than the commonplace DHCP for authentication. You can get Linux PPPoE software from Roaring Penguin.
"The lesson to be learned is not to take the comments on slashdot too literally." --Vinnie Falco, BearShare
No more AT&T Broadband commercials being broadcasted to AT&T Broadband subscribers. Maybe better management will end the brilliant advertizing.
That Comcast gets the AT&T rental cable modem I never returned too?
The FCC should get Comcast to buy out my local library so I and other consumers can benefit from rental/late fee consolidation.
paintball
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Increased competition through consolidation!
Lower costs through higher prices!
Join us in the new world!
if you want your call escalated to higher tiers they always ask you waht operating system.. i even had one tier 3 guy ask me for my email address so he could ask me networking questions after i explained to him what NAT was and that I was using OpenBSD (and that the problem was on their end) and after much cajoling i got him to escalate me against his bosses orders to The People Who Actually Know Shit Dept and I got my issues resolved with in 5 minutes of talking to the "Engineer"... companies are totally unwilling to accept that you are not a moron adn their support monkeys are all scripted and know nothing at all.. so basically if your shit doesn't work and you don't have a *supported* platform you're on your own..
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Anyway, so what's up with this? It's like when AT&T got chopped up, but all that did was create a bunch of little baby monopolies that didn't compete with each other, or anyone else.
Do you really need reason for beer? Wingman Brewers
What is not being advertised is that those people who are current local phone (over digital cable) customers of AT&T broadband (Comcast does not do phone over cable) are going to be quietly ignored. Comcast does NOT want to support local phone service; local phone service will cease to be advertised, sold, pushed, etc.; they're hoping for slow attrition of existing customers once the merger is done.
As for moving the high speed users between networks - it shouldn't be as much as a clusterfuck as the @Home move was; they have all of the data this time and they control the networks.
One other clarifications:
Michael Armstrong is moving to Comcast. Plus Armstrong is looking a little better (not much, but a little) now that it's been revealed that QWest and WorldCom were fudging their numbers in a big way, while AT&T didn't play that game. (Interesting muse: what would have happened to AT&T if the other companies had not, well, lied? Wall Street forced AT&T's stock price into the toilet because they were comparing the T to companies that were pulling numbers out of their ass)
why are you glad you got DSL? 768k/128k service for the same cost as 1.5/256k
Are you saying all DSL is 768/128? If you think that, you are horribly mistaken. Not everyone has such shitty DSL in their area.
My DSL provider gives me 1.5/256, for $49 per month. I also get a static IP, DNS services, several e-mail boxes, and almost never do I get downtime. Not only that, I don't even have to use PPPOE.
DirectTV DSL truely IS a very good provider. When I first started out with them over a year ago they had a few minor issues but it's all blue skies now.
In fact, the ONLY people in my area who WILL touch cable are those who for whatever reason can't get DSL. The cable provider in our area (Charter) blows goat cheese. Frequent downtimes, lag for no good reason, crappy agreements, no static IP, not allowed to run any servers, etc. etc.
I think the reasons for using DSL are pretty obvious. There is no argument here.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
I think many of us are protesting the wrong crime.
Allowing Comcast to buy AT&T Broadband is not a major crime. This is just replacing one bad monopolist with another -- the two firms weren't explicitly competing against each other so there is no serious concern that the merger will lead to higher prices, lower quality. Ask yourselves: what was preventing AT&T or Comcast from unilaterally offering more expensive, crummy service? It sure wasn't the "threat" of competition from each other. If anything, it was the threat that consumers would get fed up and revolt or the government would actually be forced to respond to consumer outrage. A merger doesn't affect either constraints - if anything, the merger makes the joint firm more vulnerable to such outrage and government scrutiny.
The real crime is the fact that we tolerate and allow these regional monopolies to prosper under government protection.
<voice="Montgomery Burns">
Ex-cellent.
Now all I need is to convince AOL Time Warner to drop their Usenet feed as a "cost-cutting move," and the Backbone Cabal will rule again!
Fly, my pretties!
</voice>
You're forgetting the other half of the cable biz, which is selling advertising, and bundling and packaging channels. Cable companies are ultimately the brokers between advertisers and viewers. So they have a powerful affect on advertising markets. Plus, how cable channels are packaged, and their content, is also controlled by cable companies. If you're HBO and you only have to satisfy one buyer instead of two, that buyer can pretty much dictate what he wants. Even if it's five buyers instead of six, putting so much influence in the hands of so few is not healthy. Think about all this next time your "national network" station is replaced by infomercials on a Sunday afternoon.
It happened, but I think it was before the eighties, I remember buying them in the early eighties. Rental was a PITA, because it was really expensive. This was one of the ways AT&T collected their monopoly rents. Where do you think all the money came from to throw at things like Bell Labs, its obvious that Lucent never made any money once the monopoly teat was taken away. Western Electric was the AT&T company that made the phones you had to rent. I believe that you were allowed to own a phone, but it wasn't allowed ot interfere with the network, and ma' bell was pretty slow to approve any phones that wouldn't interfere with the network.
They did similar things to the long distance companies, preventing them from accessing their local networks without costly equipment, but that is what brought about the lawsuit that ended with the breakup agreement. Of course those were the days, when long distance calls were more of a luxury. Its ironic that AT&T more or less got to decide how to split up the company, but still gave away all the powerful parts of the monopoly. They kept the then profitable long distance business, Bell Labs, and NCR. Only after it became appearant that the local loops were where the monopoly power was, did AT&T start buying cable companies for rich valuations, hoping to create a local network to compete with the companies they gave away in the settlement.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Michael Powell, son of Colin Powell, is the chairman of the FCC, the government agency that is supposed to be regulating this field. supposed to be.