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Gov't Approves Parts of Verizon-Cable Spectrum Sale
fistfullast33l writes "The Associated Press is reporting that the Justice Department, FCC, and New York State Attorney General approved portions of a deal between Verizon Wireless and cable companies Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks and Cox to sell parts of the wireless spectrum to Verizon for $3.9 billion. However, the Justice Department rejected the agreement between the two groups to allow Verizon to market cable services in its stores in markets where it also offers FIOS service. The spectrum will be used to increase Verizon's 4G LTE network coverage. Verizon will also sell some spectrum to T-Mobile. Consumer groups were very concerned about the cross-marketing by Verizon: 'When it comes to home broadband, Verizon Communication Inc.'s FiOS provides the only significant competition to cable in many areas. Yet FiOS is costly to build out, and Verizon's commitment to the technology has faltered. Consumer groups and unions that opposed the deal between the cable companies and Verizon said it showed that Verizon was further giving up on FiOS and yielding the home broadband market to cable.'"
If their Kansas-City fiber experiment goes well, perhaps they'll expand into markets Verizon is losing interest in with FiOS.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I dont think they will be giving up on the "home broadband" market, but will probably focus on trying to attack it differently, wirelessly.... theres an awful lot of spectrum out there.
You'll have only one choice for broadband in america. (instead of just in most places like now)
We don't have to care. We're the isp. Pay up sucker.
That they even considered doing this shows how little Verizon and Verizon Wireless cooperate. They are two separate companies, alike in name only.
I find it hard to believe as Verizon FiOS is building out like crazy in my area and have been for at least the last 5yrs now. Who knows, maybe they had these plans laid out years ago and just want to finish them up?
"That's right...I said it."
That's a very appropriate term in the context of these business deals. It's exactly what the consumer gets.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
they realized that their name was "Time Warner Cable" and not "Time Warner Cable & Wireless".
Fiber to the premises is too costly. In relatively built-up suburban areas it can cost between $2000 and $7000 per subscriber. In rural areas it costs between $5000 and $12000 per subscriber. And you wonder why Verizon has stopped building outside of already committed build-outs, and why Verizon has sold entire DSL and FiOS plants to Frontiernet and Fairpoint?
Hybrid fiber/cable as used by cable television companies like Cox and Comcast is far cheaper with comparable actual speed. Naturally with HFC they cannot claim the same theoretical speed but the practical speeds in a modern DOCSIS 3 HFC plant in real life (and not from speedtest.net) is very comparable for far, far less cost to both subscriber and operator.
Kriston
"Verizon" = Future slang for "Internet"
"Internet" = Future slang for "Verizoned"
"Verizoned" = Future term for "Fucked"
when you started using your sock puppet account again earlier this morning you claimed that you couldn't write any more messages as roman_mir for 24 hours, yet here you are just a few hours later. what gives? why use the sock puppet there and your regular account here? how many other sock puppets do you have?
>>> that people in a supposedly 'capitalist' society do not see anything wrong with the very idea that government should at all under any circumstances be meddling with any private deals.
If it was free market I would agree, but Comcast is not a free market. It is a natural monopoly and just like the electric, natural gas, water, and sewer monopolies needs to be regulated. Else these monopolies could raise their prices skyhigh & the customers would have no choice but to pay. So the government steps-in to ensure that does not happen.
Of course an alternative solution is to open Comcast's market to outside Cable TV providers (Cox, Time-warner, Cablevision, etc), but so far local and state governments appear unwilling to let that happen. So the closed monopoly market needs to be regulated by the New York PUC.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
I thought it was clear? Maybe missing the word TV?
What don't you understand? The FCC monitors the spectrum and 'owns' the frequencies. They are in charge of how it moves around, sold and used. Yes it is business deals between companies, but it is like...I am not going to use an analogy here. At the end of the day the FCC still 'owns' the spectrum. OK, analogy: It's like an apartment. You rent it, but the apartment still owns it and you can not sublease it.
I may also not understand where you are coming from. So, clarify for me if I am off.
"That's right...I said it."
Adolf Hitler never would have arrested elderly couples for having a vegetable garden in their yard but America is doing that.
Adolf Hitler never would have arrested farmers for selling fresh produce on the side of the road but America is doing that.
Adolf Hitler never would have sentenced a man to 30 days in jail for collecting rain water on his own property to use on his gardens but America has done that.
Adolf Hitler never would have let a man steal 1.2 billion dollars from segregated customer accounts and let him go free. But Americaâ(TM)s government has done that.
(I have to juggle 2 accounts here, depending on how the moderation goes)
There is the problem with those assets being in the hands of the government in the first place. Obviously this is completely inefficient that there is any sort of government ownership there, the frequencies must be sold off at an auction, people should bet on them and then use them once they buy them, lease them, resell them, borrow them, whatever.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
I'd gladly give up any channels that don't want to be part of Google Fiber for the gigabit connectivity. In fact, today I watch almost all television via Hulu, which doesn't include those channels, even CBS, so I simply don't want CBS television shows. Their loss.
I'm really tired of these network playing games with providers. They already make a killing off of advertising, and now they want to make a killing off of subscription fees, while simultaneously pushing hard for exclusive broadcast contracts and whatnot to shut people out of alternative ways of getting programming. I say screw 'em. If they don't want me to watch their channels, I will happily oblige.
And I know this is going to sound a bit idealist, but Disney has become one of the most evil companies out there when it comes to content providers. Please don't indoctrinate your kids into becoming dependent on that company for entertainment, especially when there is so much other quality entertainment out there.
Meanwhile, hey Google, I can't move to Kansas City right now. Please expand the Google fiber offering into more markets!
(I have to juggle 2 accounts here, depending on how the moderation goes)
no, you don't. you already showed that you don't. you posted many many times under your first account, then went back to this sock puppet, then back to your first account. nobody is forcing you to use two accounts, you are doing that of your own will.
HFC CATV systems are already everywhere. All comcast has done is buy up local cable companies and upgrade the active equipment. No need to replace the millions of miles of plant out there. DOCSIS3.0 doesn't know the difference between coax from the 1970's or 2012. Most homes are wired for CATV and already have a coax drop running to the street. All comcast has to do it plug them in.
FiOS has to build out from scratch. They have all the labor costs in trenching or hanging the fiber to the house. They have to deal with getting right-a-ways and such. Also splicing fiber is alot more labor intensive then just popping an F-connector on to the end of some rg6.
The cable co makes money back on a sub after a month or 2. VZN has to wait YEARS for payback. If they cancel or switch after a short time then that means they just LOST money. Thats why they are bailing on FiOS. There is quicker money to be made elsewhere.
I have to return some videotapes...
Gas pipes and electric wires provide utilities, but we can opt to pay alternate "suppliers" for whats delivered. How is Cable different?
I would not have a problem paying cablevision for the media and verizon for the content .
The thing I object to is Cablevisions content and rules about whose tuner I can use.
I DONT want another box attached to the TV in my kitchen for example. It looks nice and neat all by itself. There is no place for a tuner.
How does cable vision not consider what we will think?
Does this Honey Badger not care about customer service?
As the Supreme Court stated a loooong time ago before the FCC even existed (It was called the National Radio Committee... or something). You can't have everybody in a room talking at the same time. Yes everybody has a right to free speech but you still need a moderator to bring order to the chaos by designating who will talk. The FCC is that moderator (for broadcast signals) (not limited-access cable signals).
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
And all too soon, US broadband will be just like cable TV: corporatized, regulated for morals, bundled, overpriced, and no real freedom whatsoever.
Let's also not forget that they are essentially selling us public airspace. They do not own the airspace that their frequencies travel through, they can only license it's use from the public. The public uses the FCC as it's intermediary to allocate and control this public resource in order to maximize it's use for public good.
This is why every TV and radio station that also licenses public frequencies must, according to the Communications Act of 1934, operate in the "interest, convenience and necessity" of the public. I would like to see a world where wireless carriers operated in the public's best interest and convenience.
Adolf Hitler would never have combined his own name with out-of-context soundbites to make a sweeping generalization.
The main thing that keeps a lot of people wedded to cable TV is the also the principal driver of endless spiraling costs: SPORTS. Whether pro leagues or the silliness of March Madness ('student' athletes, my wide ass), or possibly worst of all: SEC football, they are the monopolies that need regulated - along with their co-conspirators ESPN and CBS Sports. The modern day Opiate of the Masses; make it a Class A drug.
FiOS is the name of a service that is delivered over fiber. The fiber itself is not the service. FiOS is essentially the same as cable service without the coax. It does have additional bandwidth by using different wavelengths for the data, and using a wide broadband for the QAM TV.
While at least two companies are now offering at least a gigabit bandwidth to their customers over fiber, FiOS simply has no chance of serving that kind of demand (but neither does cable). Fios could maybe serve 10 customers with gigabit service while cable could maybe serve 6 customers with gigabit.
The direction we need to go with is delivering a WHOLE STRAND (plus backups) to each customer. The model that should be used needs to be similar to the "electric competition" model. One company provides the infrastructure and rents out the fibers. Each customer chooses which "light my glass" provider to use (hence, the competition). Then they get whatever services over that fiber that they subscribed to with that company (potentially up to 10 gigabit or more). The provider pays for renting the fiber and their customer pays the provider. Or the customer can rent the fiber directly and connect somewhere else and full fiber capacity.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Here:
http://www.tvfool.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13&Itemid=1
I used this one for setting up my antenna, worked very well :)
WTF, If Comcast and these other cable companies have so much extra spectrum to sell, why don't they consider pushing actual non compressed HDTV content to their overcharged subscribers? for what I pay for cable I expect (though I don't get even close to it) Full uncompressed (or extremely close, ie, Highest quality h.264 encoding...etc) HD 1080P and Surround 7.1+. Or they should reduce my bill.
Then again I suppose cable companies are not using the spectrum or "airwaves" to broadcast content to subscribers. Though I'm curious why these companies have ANY spectrum at all if they are operating cable services. I thought ALL of this spectrum went up for auction by the FCC, so why do these still have all this spectrum to spare? They don't even use it. aside from perhaps transmissions between orbital and terrestrial satellites to extend the range of subscribers they can screw.
Also, I note that it seems to always be Verizon. Every time I see some article or news clip about more spectrum being sold, it's always Verizon buying it up, never sprint, or ATT or tmobile or any other wireless company that should or could be using it. Especially ATT and their bullshit 4g. Tmobiles dual band hspa crap might get up to like 42mb/s which is good. It's faster than verizon LTE atm, but verizon isn't actually done with lte. LTE advanced which comes out... who knows when is supposed to meet (I Think) the actual 4G requirements for the first time. So it's not like these other companies like *cough ATT cough* couldn't use all this extra bandwidth.
regardless it seems Verizon has bought most of it up so why is their coverage so shitty?(still better than the others by far from personal experience.... so it's nothing for the others to go patting themselves on the back for, at all.)
I can be full bars perfect signal in my house for vzw "4g", but if I go like 1.5 miles down the street either direction I can drop into 3g very easily and if I enter any buildings, just forget it. I used to be able to keep a 3g connection on verizon so i could use the internet or scan prices and whatnot... not anymore. I can be in a huge open parking lot and have like 1-3 bars 4g... not even move an inch and bam! down to 1 bar 3g or no signal and then back to 1bar 4g... then bam no signal again.. it's ridiculous. Maybe it's satelite radio services causing major interference? I have no idea but it's aggravating to no end. If they are going to do this tier pricing bullshit, I want and expect PERFECT coverage always. I shouldn't lose coverage unless I go into the basement of a huge office building or something. If I go into a normal roofed grocery/hardware all in one... store like meijers, walmart, lowes, ..whatever, I should have at least a small 4g signal or a very strong 3g. unless all these stores are now deploying active blocking devices?
Don't even get me started on their bullshit use wifi crap. If I send data verizon should be dealing with through my own personal home internet(to save verizon of all people money) then I think they should be paying me.
gah I'm done or I'll rant forever. Hopefully they will learn how to actually do business correctly or soon enough we'll just have a world wide adhoc network we all voip through and all the big cell carriers don't get a dime.
NRCS. As I said, this shouldn't be in the hands of the government, there is no reason that government should be the moderator in the room, that's my point.
You can't handle the truth.
If it was free market I would agree, but Comcast is not a free market. It is a natural monopoly and just like the electric, natural gas, water, and sewer monopolies needs to be regulated.
- there is nothing here that says 'natural monopoly', the government makes it a monopoly, not the company.
Secondly, there is no reason in this world that electric lines, gas, water, sewer should be a monopoly, and they are a monopoly, but again, this has nothing to do with nature, they are government monopoly. Which part of this is unclear? How is it a 'natural' monopoly, when the city grants licenses and permits and tax code is manipulated and various subsidies are provided, what exactly is natural about it, unless you believe that having government do this is a 'natural' thing and cannot be avoided?
MY OTHER COMMENTS
There is the problem with those assets being in the hands of the government in the first place
Well who else is it supposed to be owned by? It can't be owned by individuals. It can't be owned by companies. This sort of commons is pretty much the reason the US government was set up in the first place. You can't get any more clear case of a "government function."