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Comcast To Buy Time Warner Cable In $44.2 Billion All-Stock Deal
symbolset writes "CNBC and many others report Time Warner Cable has agreed to be acquired by Comcast for $44.2 billion. From the article: 'The agreement comes more than eight months after Charter Communictions and Liberty Media made their first foray to try and negotiate a deal to acquire Time Warner Cable (a story broken by CNBC) and follows months of conversations between Time Warner Cable and Comcast about the prospect of a Comcast acquisition of the company. '"
We need to cap your internet usage and charge you usage fees as well as bandwidth fees because, oh god, it's so hard to make money in the telecommunication business we just can't seem to stop having enough money to buy each other out. By the way, we're going to increase your monthly flat rate bill a good 10% again this year because hey, those "Friends" reruns sure are getting expensive to er, broadcast.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Wow! With their improved economies of scale, my rates should drop, and I should get better service than ever!
Washington Post's article confirms that:
"Comcast and Time Warner Cable don’t have overlapping markets, so antitrust regulators won’t view the merger with the same concerns they did with AT&T’s proposed bid with T-Mobile, experts say. That deal, which regulators rejected, would have eliminated a major national carrier and given consumers across the country fewer options."
Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Comcast will just bribe the FCC again
America was fun while it lasts, but if people can keep being bribed to do favors, corruption can inevitably kill a country. We have laws that you can't buy a vote. That seems noble. But the fact is that politicians can accept campaign contributions which is just a fancy word for a bribe. Who needs to buy votes when you can buy a politician?
Again, I love America, but corruption unchecked can destroy any nation no matter how strong. And with campaign contributions running rampant, the game is rigged in favor of the corrupt.
God spoke to me
In terms of competition, [Comcast] buying time-warner is a much bigger deal than the blocked attempt of at&t buying t-mobile. This purchase can't possibly be allowed to proceed.
The difference is that cellular is actually competitive, so a change in the market can reduce that competition and give consumers less choice. But in cable, there is usually only one company in any area. So there is no real competition. How much does does their cable coverage overlap?
I have dealt with both companies (in different cities). On a scale of one to ten, I would give Comcast a one. I would give TWC a zero. So a Comcast takeover could be a win for consumers.
If these two cable providers don't have overlapping markets, it seems to me they were like a cartel to begin with, dividing the territory between them and entering a do-not-compete agreement, which should have already prompted an anti-trust case.
Interactive HTML5 Coverage Maps:
Comcast Coverage Map
Time Warner Cable Coverage Map
Buzzfeed has further analysis of the above maps
Agreed!
I love my Time Warner service. Comcast will find a way to ruin it.
At what point do we begin to want Government Interference?
Right about now actually.
There's the whole "localized monopoly" thing. But this beast is just about the sole provider for a huge swath of the US now, and people's ability to choose providers is in jeopardy.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Hence 1.5m/128k ADSL 'competing' with 10-25m/512k cable internet and 3G/4G capped wireless networks more recently.
ADSL2+ will do near 30/3 on short loops (~1mi) and can be bonded. VSDL gets up into the hundreds of megabits. Mostly, ILECs just aren't interested/serious in competing, and would generally rather have bunches of unused, zero-revenue copper laying around than resell it to someone who *is* interested, because making no money at all is better than "helping" your competitor (who you aren't interested in competing with) by selling them something.