Krugman: Say No To Comcast Acquisition of Time Warner

nbauman writes "In his column, 'Barons of Broadband' New York Times columnist Paul Krugman says: 'Comcast perfectly fits the old notion of monopolists as robber barons, so-called by analogy with medieval warlords who perched in their castles overlooking the Rhine, extracting tolls from all who passed. The Time Warner deal would in effect let Comcast strengthen its fortifications, which has to be a bad idea. Comcast's chief executive says not to worry: "It will not reduce competition in any relevant market because our companies do not overlap or compete with each other. In fact, we do not operate in any of the same ZIP codes." This is, however, transparently disingenuous. The big concern about making Comcast even bigger isn't reduced competition for customers in local markets — for one thing, there's hardly any effective competition at that level anyway. It is that Comcast would have even more power than it already does to dictate terms to the providers of content for its digital pipes — and that its ability to drive tough deals upstream would make it even harder for potential downstream rivals to challenge its local monopolies.'"

Comments

Ok

[The Cat]

Of course they don't compete. Cable companies have government-sanctioned monopolies.

I'd say give them a choice. You can merge if you relinquish your monopoly.

Then we'll see what's most important to them.

Re:Ok

[hey!]

Well, in a lot of places they have competition from fiber, and places where they *don't* are places where building out a competitive network is unprofitable. Relinquishing the monopoly on cable would be no big deal.

Krugman's point is that consolidating all those places where cable is the only game in town gives them a powerful middleman position. The monopoly has done its damage as far as the market is concerned; you can take the legal monopoly away and the de facto monopoly on access to the market will remain.

Re:Ok

[Karmashock]

Exactly.

Though, I wouldn't give them the choice. I'd just take the government sanction out of it.

Let them fight it out tooth and nail. I highly doubt one company will dominate the whole country with our diverse conditions if that is done. And furthermore, I'm pretty sure built up areas will have multiple providers.

One thing which we do need to look into is the rental costs that cities are charging to run cable on poles or under the street. There have been some indications that those prices are unreasonable.

Re:Ok

[admiralh]

Cable is a natural monopoly. Competition really doesn't work in this type of business.

What we really need is for cable high-speed internet service to be declared a "Common carrier", so they are required to not discriminate against NetFlix, etc.

Re:Ok

[Obfuscant]

Of course they don't compete. Cable companies have government-sanctioned monopolies. I'd say give them a choice. You can merge if you relinquish your monopoly.

Ok, done.

Every franchise I've seen is non-exclusive. I.e., it isn't a government-sanctioned monopoly. It is a defacto one based on market forces, not a dejure one based on government action.

Re:Ok

[stinerman]

Not everwhere is there a monopoly. For instance where I live in Columbus, I can choose from Time Warner or WOW. If you or I or anyone else wanted to, they could set up a company and run their own wires. Guess what? No one else wants to. Last mile connectivity is a natural monopoly and ought to be regulated as a utility.

As someone else in the comments said, let's require them to split the infrastructure from the services. Then we'll have real competition.

Re:Ok

[AvitarX]

I'm kind of confused by the statement that they don't operate in the same zipcode, I currently see an xfinitywifi hotspot, and a TWCWiFi. I assume that means they both operate here to some degree.

Re:Ok

[SQLGuru]

De-regulation along the lines of the power companies? In other words, break apart "generation" and "distribution"......make TV/broadband one entity and then make the lines themselves a different entity. Have the distribution entity charge customers the same rate scale so that other companies can compete on equal footing.

Re:Ok

[cusco]

Because that worked so well with Enron.

Re:Ok

[morgauxo]

Local governments give the cable companies their monopolies. It's the Federal government that allows or disallows the mergers. For the federal government to implement your solution they would have to dictate it to the local governments. In this area they are usually reluctant to do that.

Re:Ok

[Obfuscant]

De-regulation along the lines of the power companies? In other words, break apart "generation" and "distribution"......make TV/broadband one entity and then make the lines themselves a different entity. Have the distribution entity charge customers the same rate scale so that other companies can compete on equal footing.

The problem with this solution is that the cable system isn't designed that way. The electric grid is, in essence, wires. Generators put electrons onto the wire, customers pull them back off. You can't tell where an electron came from, but the utility company bills you for them at the rate of the company you choose (assuming that company has actually put enough electrons onto the wire to cover their customer's use.)

Cable TV isn't that way. You can't put two channel 5s on the same system. There is a limit to how much can be put on. A provider that gets to use channels 1-20, for example, prevents anyone else from using 1-20. How do you divvy up the limited space? Once you get 83 content providers, you've pretty much used up the full system. And multiple Internet providers would be even worse -- the space is smaller. (And before someone points out that under the wonderful new digital world anything can appear on your TV as "Channel 5", I'm talking about the frequencies and not the arbitrary digital channel id.)

Re:Ok

[morgauxo]

I suspect that only people who live in an area with fiber would say that a LOT of places have fiber.

Re:Ok

[SQLGuru]

In my area, I can actually opt to have Earthlink as my ISP instead of TWC. Earthlink offers a similar service level using the same lines that TWC laid. If I paid Earthlink for my connection, Earthlink would keep some portion and then pay TWC for use of the lines. That's more or less how deregulated power companies operate.

Re:Ok

[icebike]

Of course they don't compete. Cable companies have government-sanctioned monopolies.

I'd say give them a choice. You can merge if you relinquish your monopoly.

Then we'll see what's most important to them.

Agreed.

Your suggestion is being echoed in other sources. Some stories coming out of even the Media Loving mainstream press suggest
that Comcast will be given a choice of divesting itself of content providers in exchange for allowing them to enlarge their cable plant.

But, interestingly, Others suggest Comcast must allow an open cable plant model, and allow other content providers onto their cable plant with competitive prices, and equal service levels. (For a fee obviously, but one that is regulated). Must-Carry (usually local) channels haven't proved a burden to cable companies (much as they like to bitch about them), so there is already precedent for this.

For once, the press seems universally negative on the idea of this merger, and that in itself is somewhat suspect, because I haven't seen get in lockstep agreement with anything that turned out good for the country in a long long time.

Facilities that are de-facto government sanctioned monopolies are universally regulated, even when the ownership is totally in private hands. That is the price you pay for a monopoly. If you have to move to a different neighborhood or town to get a choice, that's not a choice at all. There is no need for this type of setup in a digital world.

Re:Ok

[PopeRatzo]

Because that worked so well with Enron.

You think Enron blew up because the separated the transport from the content?

Re:Ok

[icebike]

Well, in a lot of places they have competition from fiber, and places where they *don't* are places where building out a competitive network is unprofitable. Relinquishing the monopoly on cable would be no big deal.

In vastly more places there is exactly ONE cable plant in the ground. There is no competition.
Further, most municipalities will not allow building out competitive networks, simply because the disruption is so great.
These plants went in when the neighborhood was built, and no late comers will be allowed.

Re:Ok

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Enron bought the laws they wanted in California under the guise of serving the computer, then proceeded to rape the people of California with their standard enthusiasm.

The governor of California should have ordered the state militia up and seized the criminal operations in those power plants causing harm to the people of the state.

Re:Ok

[icebike]

Exactly.

Force them to divest themselves of TV content providers, Networks, Studios, etc.

It may still not be enough. They have phone packages too. Does that mean they get to *block* VOIP, SIP, and other internet phone services?
(And when I say block I also mean use speeds or pricing to force it off the internet side of Comcast).

   

Re:Ok

[cusco]

So cities should have to give the mega-corps lower prices than the power companies do? Almost everywhere they charge the same as whatever local utilities charge, why should municipalities have to subsidize multinational corporations? Of course the charge is more than it actually costs the city to maintain that pole, so what? If they were out of town the price charged by PG&E or Puget Sound Energy or Detroit Edison is going to be more than it actually costs them to maintain the pole as well. I personally think that the whole idea that municipalities should be happy to give away everything that's not nailed down to the mega-corps is utterly absurd.

Re:Ok

[icebike]

Enron had nothing to do with this situation, and its problems stemmed from inventive accounting, not anything to do with monopoly.

Re:Ok

[icebike]

I'm pretty sure built up areas will have multiple providers.

Guess again. The VAST Majority of the US has exactly 1.5 choices.
1) Cable/fiber owned by Comcast or competitors. .5) Horribly inadequate and often unavailable DSL lines.

Even where there are multiple cable plants in a city, the overlap of their ares is virtually non-existent.

The more built up the area, the less chance of any real choice except in the downtown business core.

Re:Ok

[cusco]

Twenty five or thirty years ago exclusive grants were commonly given to a single company, since that was the only way to ensure that companies would build out the physical plant. A lot of people still think that's the rule, especially the Libertardians for some reason.

Re:Ok

[cusco]

You can get service from World Of Warcraft? I'd take that.

Re:Ok

[icebike]

Cable is a natural monopoly. Competition really doesn't work in this type of business.

What we really need is for cable high-speed internet service to be declared a "Common carrier", so they are required to not discriminate against NetFlix, etc.

Or pry the last mile out of the fingers of cable companies and put it in the hands of Local government, like streets, water, sewer.
That way the local rate-payers and tax payers can allow multiple content and internet providers, and maintain their own fiber/cable plant.

Natural monopolies require special treatment.

Re:Ok

[Chas]

At this point, transport on the cable networks is mostly digital. So you're no longer worried about analog channel competition.
So you can have multiple VLANs running on the same physical media.
As such, yes you CAN have multiple channel 5's on the same physical network.

VLAN-A: First provider: Channels+Data
VLAN-B: Second provider: Channels+Data
VLAN-C: Third provider: Channels+Data

Re:Ok

[symbolset]

You know what's sick? They support legislation to make it illegal for municipalities to help themselves with broadband in places where they choose not to do business at all.

Re:Ok

[cusco]

Enron's market manipulations were enabled by separating production from transmission. If they had been required to sell for Generation Cost + X% (the old rule) there wouldn't have been the rolling blackouts and grotesque pricing.

Re:Ok

[cusco]

Didn't mean Enron's financial foolishness, just the market manipulation that they did to fuck over California.

Re:Ok

[Obfuscant]

At this point, transport on the cable networks is mostly digital. So you're no longer worried about analog channel competition.

As I already said, in a vain attempt at preventing this, I was talking about the frequency space that used to be called "channel 5", etc, NOT THE ARBITRARY CHANNEL DESIGNATION EMBEDDED IN THE DIGITAL STREAM. NO, you cannot have multiple channel 5s on the same network. I don't care what you call the data stream -- channel 5, channel 10, etc -- only the bandwidth that is used to transport it.

VLAN-A: First provider: Channels+Data VLAN-B: Second provider: Channels+Data

There are a limited number of channels. There is a limited amount of space for data. How many content providers do you want to allow? 50? That's about two, maybe three, channels per provider, and depending on bit rate of their digital signals, anywhere from two to twenty digital channels.

Now, how do they share the control channel (single data stream)? Or do the converters have to monitor every possible data stream looking for authorization codes? And kiss goodbye ANY hope of unencrypted signals.

Re:Ok

[Obfuscant]

In vastly more places there is exactly ONE cable plant in the ground. There is no competition.

Because the market isn't there.

Further, most municipalities will not allow building out competitive networks, simply because the disruption is so great.

If the second company meets the requirements for a franchise, the municipality cannot stop them. Take the existing franchise, substitute the second companies name for the first, and company two will have a really good legal case if the city refuses to grant them a franchise under the same conditions.

This "disruption" is a regular occurrence in many cities, pulling another cable through the underground conduits is trivial, and putting up a wire on a pole is not much worse.

Re:Ok

[evilviper]

Cable TV isn't that way. You can't put two channel 5s on the same system.

Yes you can, as evidenced by video-on-demand and cable modems.

Your "cable box" just needs IP capabilities, so when you change the channel, it subscribes to the multicast stream of that channel. The multicast stream for each channel won't cross over any layer-2 switches/bridges, unless there's a device on the other side that has requested it. In practice, every neighborhood is divided up into separate traffic domains like this, so you only need enough bandwidth to support the worst-case of every TV in your neighborhood being tuned to a different channel... And when everyone in the neighborhood is watching the superbowl, that's just one channel on the wire, with the rest free for internet traffic.

Re:Ok

[Obfuscant]

Must-Carry (usually local) channels haven't proved a burden to cable companies (much as they like to bitch about them), so there is already precedent for this.

Must-carry is pretty much dead. Once a "content provider" asks for money for their content they are no longer "must carry". That's why things like this happen. Every one of those CBS network affiliates could have demanded "must carry" but chose to demand money for the right to carry them (bundled with pay services). And then pointed the finger at TWC for not carrying them. Their own fault.

Facilities that are de-facto government sanctioned monopolies

If they are government created then they are dejure, not defacto. Defacto monopolies exist because of market, not legal, reasons.

Re:Ok

[Karmashock]

Its interesting, people are reporting that many small towns have 2 or 3 providers of cable. If anything the economics would make more sense in cities for two or three providers. So there must be some non-logistical factor holding back these companies.

I assume there are leases or rental fees to lay cable that might be unpleasant. There might be something else going on. I don't know. But it seems like there is something in cities that is preventing this... and it can't be natural because if anything the towns would have less incentive for this sort of activity.

Re:Ok

[Obfuscant]

Another person who didn't read to the end of what I wrote to see how I resolved the ambiguity in the term "channel". No, you cannot have two signals on the same frequency on the same cable. You can't just wave your hands and talk about "IP capabilities".

The multicast stream for each channel won't cross over any layer-2 switches/bridges,

That's not how the existing cable TV networks are designed. The digital "multicast" is carried via analog RF and uses quite a bit of bandwidth to do that. That box out on the pole is not a router, it is an amplifier. Everyone watching the "big game" is tuned to the same frequency and decoding the same digital stream on that frequency, and that changes nothing about all the other frequencies in use. They're still being used. Your converter box doesn't have to talk back to Momma to tell them to start sending some other program, it just tunes to that channel when you tell it to.

Re:Ok

[icebike]

Pulling another cable through the underground conduit is not trivial when that underground conduit belongs to Comcast, or someone else. It only applies to City owned conduit, and even then, disruption of existing services is a big risk. Its not trivial. If you think it is, you've never done it.

Franchise or not, monopolies are different, and the city is not able to give blanket authority to trench in new cable across everyone's yard and driveway. Also Franchises to do things like cable and telephone are often by their very nature a franchise to a monopoly. Just because someone else shows up with paper work doesn't mean they get a piece of they pie.

Re:Ok

[icebike]

Its interesting, people are reporting that many small towns have 2 or 3 providers of cable. If anything the economics would make more sense in cities for two or three providers. So there must be some non-logistical factor holding back these companies.

Much of the claim of two or three different cable providers is out of ignorance.

Most of the time, these are simply bulk purchase providers that ride on existing cable plants through some special bulk buy.
There really ends up being only one cable plant.

Just like there are Virtual Mobile Network Operators that provide cell service cheaper than AT&T or Verizon, when in reality they are simply reselling AT&T or Verizon accounts which the purchase in bulk. They don't have any tower or any plant of their own.

Some cities may have been forward looking enough to require infrastructure access by competitors, but in most of the country this is simply not the case.

Re:Ok

[jedidiah]

> As I already said, in a vain attempt at preventing this, I was talking about the frequency space that used to be called "channel 5", etc, NOT THE ARBITRARY CHANNEL DESIGNATION EMBEDDED IN THE DIGITAL STREAM.

NOBODY cares about that. Packets can be treated just like electrons from a power company. It doesn't really matter who the source or the destination is or if is even a broadcast.

Even the notion of "channel 5" being dedicated to anything is an obsolete idea as anything that isn't a packet switched network is moving in that direction.

Re:Ok

[jedidiah]

The funny thing is that we have already heard the same arguments from them. In fact, the pro-monopoly mouthpieces are using the fact that we tolerated this crap last time to justify it again. They're like 4 year olds point and say "but but you allowed it this other time".

This is what we get for tolerating this bullshit.

This "but we will play nice" and "but you can add conditions" is the same argument they made for the last merger that should never have gone through.

If you need to create "special conditions", then by definition the merger is bad. The fact that you create a new set of rules that the relevant corporation can break in the future really doesn't change anything.

Re:Ok

[robbiedo]

You are apparently not the "smartest man in the thread". Enron was up to their eyeballs in manipulating the California energy market, and I blame GWB for allowing it to happen.

Re:Ok

[robbiedo]

No one cares about those channels. They care about the broadband connection since everything will switch to IPTV.

Re:Ok

[robbiedo]

Fundamentally, municipal fiber is ultimately the answer. It's expensive, but fundamentally necessary, even if we have to use eminent domain to buy it, and eventually shut it down.

Re:Ok

[robbiedo]

Sorry, I meant to say "buy all the cable" and shut it down.

Re:Ok

[jedidiah]

> Because the market isn't there.

Yet cities decide to take matters into the own hands only to be subjected to corruption of their own state government at the hands of the Robber Baron in question.

Re:Ok

[evilviper]

You seem to have zero idea what I actually said. I'm well aware of "how the existing cable TV networks are designed".

Re:Ok

[datavirtue]

What kills me is that we have this debate about whether merging the last two major cable companies is a good idea when the merger of the number 3 and number 4 wireless mobile carriers (Sprint and T-Mobile) is automatically dismissed before even being considered. As a consumer I was exceited by the prospect of those mobile companies merging. I do hope this double-fuck called the Bush and Obama administrations is the low point in our history as a country and we can move on to better days.

Re:Ok

[cusco]

Are you off the odd opinion that the savings would be passed on to the consumer? If so, why? Have you not been paying attention for the last half-century? All a lower price from the public sector would do is reduce the municipality's operating budget and improve the mega-corp's profit level.

Re:Ok

[hermitdev]

No, you cannot have two signals on the same frequency on the same cable.

Yes, you can, as evidenced by cellphones. TDMA & CDMA are just 2 examples of methodologies that allow cooperative use of the same signal space. Also, in regards to the available signal space, cable companies & other hard-wired companies aren't quite as constrained as broadcast companies. With over-the-air broadcasts, you have to purchase & license a frequency range. Everything you do has to occur with in that band. As does all of your clients. Yes, you might be able to purchase different bands, maybe more in some areas, fewer in others. But, supporting more bands requires more complicated hardware, and depending on usage can severely affect power usage. Wired connections, you can pass a lot more through, as you theoretically, do not have any restriction on frequencies you can use. Yes, you can't cause undo E&M interference (and the FCC still regulates that - just look on your favorite device or the charger for it and you should see an FCC class identifier).

Re:Ok

[Chas]

And, again, this is only a concern on an ANALOG CABLE SETUP.

On a digital setup. You simply don't deal directly with channelization.

Maybe, at some level there's still channelization, but it's abstracted away from the content and entirely manageable in software.

Re:Ok

[desertfool]

Time to kill my Karma....

I was living in Arizona at the time of the rolling blackouts in California. I remember newspaper stories about how APS and TEP (Arizona power companies) were planning to build power lines to northern Mexico to sell their excess power. Now, I don't know what power lines existed between Arizona and California at the time, but I would assume 2 big power companies with excess power (to the point they wanted to build lines across the border!) would have been able to add power to southern California.

Re:Ok

[Obfuscant]

And, again, this is only a concern on an ANALOG CABLE SETUP. On a digital setup. You simply don't deal directly with channelization.

I didn't say the customer dealt with channelization. The hardware does. How do you think the data streams are encoded on a cable network? Magic? Floobydust? It's not some big 100baseT network with data packets flying all over the place. There are some limited number of digital streams encoded onto an RF carrier, and each RF signal is carried on the cable just like the old analog one-station-per-channel signals were. At 6MHz each, an 800MHz system can get 118 or so "channels", and that's pushing it unless you are VERY fastidious in your connections.

So ok, you hand a channel over to a content provider. How does that provider authorize you to get it? Shares the OOB channel, I guess. And he gets only 2 to ten reasonable quality digital streams per channel. You think you can pack two full-service cable systems into one existing cable? Patent it. If your answer is to turn every channel into "on demand", then don't bother.

In fact, it's just like the current OTA digital, with the addition of OOB control for authorization, and the digital signals are often encrypted so a standard clearQAM ATV cannot display them.

Maybe, at some level there's still channelization, but it's abstracted away from the content and entirely manageable in software.

Yes, at some level there is channelization, and that level is the hardware level. It's how the signal moves over the cable. You can't just wave your hands and say "it's software" because no, it isn't. The software comes after the digital signal is decoded.

The fact that the little box on top of your TV can show you any number the cable company wants it to changes nothing about the underlying transport which is still analog RF and channelized. And changing that would mean rebuilding the entire network and replacing all the existing hardware, including consumer-owned equipment.

Re:Ok

[Obfuscant]

Wired connections, you can pass a lot more through,

Wired connections already pass a lot more through. Two hundred or more signals. As much as you'd like to pretend that you can keep packing more and more into the same wire, you just can't. If you could pack twice as much into the same channel (6MHz frequency chunk) they'd already be doing it. They already pack up to 20 signals into one channel, albeit at a miserable bitrate. The problem is you can't have one provider packing 20 signals into the same space that some other provider is packing their 20 signals. I don't know how many times I have to say it before the idea gets through -- two signals at the same frequency won't work.

So, out of the 118 or so channels on a typical cable system, how many do each "cable company" get? What happens when it is full? Who doesn't get to play? You want competition, I understand. It isn't as simple as saying "use TDMA" to get there.

If you want to see how unsimple it is to do that, look at P25 phase 2 with TDMA for radio. I see ads for the equipment, but I don't see the equipment being fielded. In fact, I see P25 digital-capable equipment being used in analog mode because the digital mode didn't quite meet expectations. I can say with no hesitancy I do NOT want cable TV to go down that rabbit hole, no matter how much I don't want Comcast to merge with TWC.

Re:Ok

[Obfuscant]

If you knew how they were built today, you'd not be talking about the RF-based digital streams and level-X routers. An ATV signal doesn't have "packets", and current cable television systems are based on ATV. That's why you can plug a clearQAM ATV receiver into one and get some kind of signal. Now that Comcast is encrypting "everything" it isn't much, but the TV recognizes the ATV signals even if it can only display a few of the streams. My Pinnacle receiver shows a rather complete list of things it knows about, almost all of them with the encrypted flag set. If it was all "packets" and "routers", it wouldn't know anything about it.

Re:Ok

[Obfuscant]

Why yes, if you assume that the entire system is scrapped and replaced by "the internet", making every piece of existing TV hardware obsolete (or require yet another round of converters), you might as well claim we'll feed all the hungry people with Unicorn steaks seasoned with pixie dust. "Everything" isn't going to switch to IPTV for a very long time, just as everything hasn't switched to VoIP. The cost of such a switchover would be massive, and any savings you think you'll get from competition won't appear for a very long time, if ever.

It's this same "competition" thing that means my home phone bill has a line item for "long distance connection" (not those exact words) even though I have no long distance carrier -- I just get to pay for the privilege of being able to have one if I wanted one.

Re:Ok

[Wansu]

You can merge if you relinquish your monopoly.

Relinquish said monopoly to whom? Who competes with them now?

Here it's either TWC or AT&T. Both suck.

Re:Ok

[AlphaWolf_HK]

I think you'd have an easier time blaming Obama for Benghazi, because it did come out that his administration was aware that something was going on before it actually happened.

I really haven't seen any evidence that Bush was aware of what was going on at Enron. The only outside organization I could see blaming for it is Arthur Anderson LLP. Bush had veto powers for Sarbanes-Oxley, so I'm sure if he was in cahoots with the financial fraud industry he would have done exactly that.

Re:Ok

[AlphaWolf_HK]

The biggest thing is, I'm having a hard time figuring out why I should care if the content providers have to deal with a monopoly. They themselves already have a monopoly on the content they produce, and they're the biggest pushers of cable rate increases by raising the crap out of the retransmission fees all the time.

Hell, ESPN alone sucks up about $15 a month from your cable bill, regardless of whether you watch it or not (I don't, or rather didn't before I got rid of cable.) How on earth could you have sympathy for them?

It's also the content providers' fault that over the top (that is, internet based) TV projects like the ones created by Intel, Google, and Apple have all failed: The content providers put heavy restrictions on their distribution media in order to force subscribers to subscribe to each other's networks, even if they don't want to.

IMO let them do this so that the pay TV industry can finally destroy itself from the inside out by pricing itself out of the market.

Re:Ok

[antdude]

Yep. My cities have FIOS and DSL (20+K ft.) services, but my neighborhoods can't. It doesn't help that Verizon stopped offering them too. Coax cable companies won in these areas. :(

Re:Ok

[antdude]

I wonder what will happen to EarthLink+TWC and subscribers when Comcast takes over. :(

BTW, how do you like EarthLink with TWC compared to TWC by itself?

Re:Ok

[evilviper]

If it was all "packets" and "routers", it wouldn't know anything about it.

Except I never said cable TV was all packetized. All I said was, it cable is fully capable of doing so. You specifically said it "isn't designed that way," when the cable network damn-well is. At least it is for internet and VoD services, and it would be a fairly minor thing to extend those capabilities to the rest of the channels.

You also said it "can't", when internet and VoD are living proof that the cable network very well can manage it... Network operators just choose not to do all their video that way, right now. If cable was reduced to the power-line model, a dumb pipe with multiple service providers, there's no reason TV and other services couldn't be provided exactly this way, without any issues of frequency scarcity.

Re:Ok

[Chas]

Again, you're talking about physical/data link layer stuff.

That's pretty much all handled by hardware/firmware.

It's mostly irrelevant because everything truly "hard" about sharing a network is happening in the network, transport and session layers.

So, who uses channel 5?
Everyone

Who uses channel 32?
Everyone.

It's basically "a pipe". The network is controlled and segmented in other ways now.
Even channelized television service is all just data stream on a given VLAN now.

With Comcast right now, Phone, TV and Internet are all handled by separate devices sharing the same network.
If you have Internet, you have your cablemodem.
If you have TV, you have your separate cableboxes for each TV.
If you have phone service, you have a separate cablemodem with a device that breaks out into either land lines or a PRI.
They share the physical medium, but are all segmented logically, later on.

So I can buy a "triple play" package with a 100-200Mbit internet connection, 20 phone lines, and every available channel.
While I'd be getting monetarily ass-raped on a monthly basis for such service, none of the services would impinge on one another.

Re:Ok

[Karmashock]

Just talked to a guy that said his town has two redundant cable lines... one for each cable company.

He could be wrong. But there is no way to tell from this remove.

Re:Ok

[Karmashock]

If there is competition then the savings are often passed on to the consumer because if you don't your competitor will sacrifice some of his profits to lure away your customers.

Eventually things balance out when no one is willing to give up more then X percent of their profit margin. Then the game becomes seeing if you can do things more efficiently or simply better. That allows you to keep your profit margin without sacrificing anything or offering a higher quality service thus justifying a higher price.

Market forces. You can't argue against them. Its like denying the sun in the sky.

Re:Ok

[cusco]

Frelling free market religious fanatics annoy the crap out of me. Where the hell do mega-corps actually compete?

Re:Ok

[Karmashock]

Is that a farscape reference?

In any case... Breakfast cereal, soda pop, underwear, dishwasher detergent, sanitary napkins, automobiles, computers, etc etc etc.

They compete far more often then they don't. And they only don't when small minded nitwits get confused into thinking that because the government got greedy or corrupt enough to cut immoral deals that somehow that is the corporation's fault. Sorry if you see that as a cheap crack at your expense... but you did call me a religious fanatic and I do believe in tit for tat... it annoys people but it also teaches respect. ;)

Corporations are just people. People are opportunists. Put a low hanging melon in front of a man and he's going to reach for it.

Here's another news flash for you... Government is people too. Same people. We're all the same people.

What you want to do is put all our eggs in one basket. Put all the power in one place.

What could possibly go wrong.

Come on... you've got to be smarter then that.

You put all that power in one place with no accountability and no transparency and no means for anyone to have any effect over it besides a few faceless bureaucrats. Deals will be cut in the dark and there will be nothing you can do to stop it. Because the only way to fire those people is to vote your congressmen or senator or mayor out of office. And you won't... because doing that would mean voting for the other party. Which means you'll just sit there and let some greasy political machine bend you over and have its way.

I like corporations because I want to break the power up and I don't want to give people that make things and provide services to ALSO be able to send men with guns after me. Which it just so happens is something the government can do.

I want the government to do and be responsible for as little as possible because what they must be responsible for... police and the military is already pretty frakking scary (BSG reference :D ). Simply having control over the US military, the police, the national guard, the FBI, the court system, etc... that's already terrifying. On top of that you want me to give them control over internet infrustructure?

Why would I do that? You might as well have them write our newspapers. Hell, you people are determined to have the government provide all education never seeming to realize that it provides a perfect platform to propagandize young people.

I don't trust government because I understand people. Make something easy with a big pay off and no risk... they're going to do it.

Your whole system ensures that they have all the power at their finger tips... that they can exploit it to live as richly as they desire... and that even if caught dead to rights they'll probably not spend a day in jail so long as their political connections are tight.

Its disgusting.

Good day, sir.

Re:Ok

[Vitriol Angst]

In my state they "deregulated" our Natural Gas supply. Now they've got about 2 dozen companies I can shop with -- only they cost about 5 times what we used to pay for Natural Gas. The same guys who install and cut off your gas are the same guys now -- only they have no job security and they can work for any of 2 dozen companies that someone has to bill and compensate them for. Same work, less pay.

You call them and get either a robot "Your call is important to us, press 3 if you would like another series of options" or you get someone after a long wait who is doing a passing job with English and can't solve any of your problems.

So one pipe, one gas supply, 24 different P.O. Boxes and bills that have "transfer fees" and every few months a new company runs a special because it's their turn.
I've got no interest in a pretend free market on one pipe without regulations.

Re:Ok

[Zxern]

Except they aren't just talking about the big broadcast networks here. Content providers would also include, netflix, hulu, amazon, google, facebook, slashdot, the rest of the internet. And lets not forget that Comcast itself is a content provider.

The big push now is for ISP's to turn content providers into customers, using isp customers as assets. Allowing Comcast to get even larger would only help move this goal along. I for one don't want to see that happen do you?

Re:Ok

[RabidReindeer]

De-regulation along the lines of the power companies? In other words, break apart "generation" and "distribution"......make TV/broadband one entity and then make the lines themselves a different entity. Have the distribution entity charge customers the same rate scale so that other companies can compete on equal footing.

Which I always considered one of the stupidest forms of pseudo-competition ever dreamed up.

You cannot separate out power running over a common conductor. There is no ownership tag on the individual electrons. So the idea that if they are delivered to house "A" they should be billed to a different "generation company" than if they are delivered to the house next door is ludicrous. Particularly since the "last mile" is a single entity just because no one would stand for having 20 different "electric companies" digging up the streets at the same time.

All of these "generators" are getting their product from a common source, which costs the same to produce regardless of the buyer. It's the ultimate commodity. So the only way that the "generators" can distinguish themselves is by either settling for overall lower profits or by accounting tricks. It's a zero-sum game. And the lower-profits crowd are going to lose.

"Competition" in power companies is nothing but a socialist-style make-work program that creates an artificial tier of middlemen who add the cost of their own overheads, but no added value.

Re:Ok

[MachineShedFred]

It's especially stupid when you consider that you aren't even using the electric company's electrons, but rather the ones already present in your house wiring. You're just paying someone to make them move around a bit.

Re:Ok

[oh_my_080980980]

Cable is not a natural monopoly. What crack are you smoking. There used be several companies all competing in the same market. Consolidation killed that.

Re:Ok

[admiralh]

Do you honestly believe that it's more efficient for two (or more) different companies to lay down the communication hardware necessary for cable service, including broadband internet, that for there to be only one?

It's the same problem as electric or water service. It makes no sense for two companies to lay down water pipes serving the same area, so why does it make sense for cable?

The physical network aspect of cable, and broadband internet, is a natural monopoly, because of the amount of infrastructure investment required to create it.

Now if you want to talk about content providers, that's a different story. That is why broadband internet needs to be regulated as a "common carrier," to prevent situations like Comcast throttling NetFlix in favor of their own On Demand offerings.

Perhaps you should think a little before casting aspersions ("What crack are you smoking") on those you disagree with? Or do you enjoy being seen as an arrogant jerk?

Re:Ok

[Belial6]

The 'natural monopoly' argument just doesn't hold water. The cable companies have a monopoly because government gives them a monopoly. If the government stopped doing that, you would see competition by new players almost immediately. The fact that the phone and cable companies are regularly using the courts to prevent competition from entering their markets is pretty solid proof of this.

Re:Ok

[Belial6]

If what you claim were true, Netflix would not work. The fact that I use Netflix every day proves that the space isn't the issue. Phone lines were even more limited in frequencies and they did just fine in the dial up days when distribution and "generation" were separate.

That being said, separating "distribution" and "generation" is not the end all be all solution. "Cable" as we know it is on it's last legs. TV is moving from frequencies/channels to IP. Worrying about "Cable" is like worrying about the buggy whip manufacturers getting a government granted monopoly on the automobile. What we need is to kill the monopolies on running data lines into the home, and separate content providers from distribution in the internet arena.

Re:Ok

[Nephandus]

The physical network NOT a natural monopoly. Lay the pipe down then shut up...

Re:Ok

[david_thornley]

Space for the cables is limited. There are only so many that will go in a particular spot.

Moreover, putting the cables in is going to be some disruption. You're saying "lay the pipe down", which suggests underground cable. Should every company coming along be allowed to dig up streets? People's property?

Re:Ok

[Nephandus]

How's it a natural monopoly when it only continues to exists through continual government intervention? That's quite artificial. Even allowing such limited intervention, there's nothing limiting access to just a single company, outside cronyism.

Re:Ok

[icebike]

So lets see, out of your local government taxes, you want to:

Pay present market rate so seize all phone lines,
Tear down all those phone lines that you just paid for,
Re-install Fiber in their place over the entire town.

I bet you want this all for free too. No increase in taxes.
And anytime yesterday would be fine.
Want Unicorns on that?
 

Re:Ok

[Karmashock]

And in some markets in the US there are as many as three cable companies though they seem to be in less developed parts of the country. Since having that many cable companies in one area is LESS viable in a less developed area we can assume there is something preventing such companies from competing with each other in more developed areas.

That is interesting.

Can we at least agree that the situation would be improved if cable companies had to compete against each other? That if in every major market customers could choose between a couple different entirely separate companies?

Or are you going to keep clinging to irrationality?

Re:Ok

[hermitdev]

Ok (and admit it), your initial post was kind of "herp derp". Your next post made much more sense technically.

Who is he talking to

[neminem]

Certainly not us. We don't really have a choice. Comcast could merge with freaking Verizon, thus giving us the granddaddy of all broadband monopolies and dooming to forever pay too much money for a crappy connection and no recourse when stuff breaks (which would be often), and our choices would be to suck it up, or just suck it. So I'm not sure what he thinks we should be doing about it...?

Re:Who is he talking to

[admiralh]

Why do we have to take it?

We need to insist that High-speed Internet is regulated as a "Common carrier", like electricity.

We have Public Utility Commissions that oversee quality and cost for electric, water/sewer, and gas. Why in the world is broadband not added to that?

Re:Who is he talking to

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

It isn't like there is a choice in cable company subscriptions to begin with. This is just moving from oligopoly to monopoly. It is bad, but it already is bad, and there's nothing people can do about it when the politicians who are supposed to regulate it are bought and paid for by corporations.

Context on Paul Krugman, 1998

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-krugman-responds-to-internet-quote-2013-12

Comcast challengers? What is K been smoking?

[mveloso]

Who exactly is rising up to challenge cable monopolies? What downstream challengers is he talking about? Netflix? Aereo?

Did someone forget to pay off Krugman today?

Re:Comcast challengers? What is K been smoking?

[MarkWegman]

If you read the article you'd know he was pointing out that with this merger Comcast could force other companies that provide them with content sweetheart deals.

Re:Comcast challengers? What is K been smoking?

[Rhys]

Projects like municipal broadband. Comcast and co are terrified and buy state legislators in order to shut it down. Hopefully we'll get a few of them out of the gates quickly enough that are fantastically wild successes that comcast and co get shot down.

Re:Comcast challengers? What is K been smoking?

[evilviper]

Who exactly is rising up to challenge cable monopolies? What downstream challengers is he talking about? Netflix? Aereo?

Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Apple, Google, etc.

If I'm some dinky little neighborhood cable company, and I'm negotiating a contract with Viacom for carriage on my network (with my 30,000 subscribers) and I insist that part of the agreement is that they can't license any of their shows/movies for streaming from Netflix, Viacom would tell me to fuck off.

Now, if it's Comcast instead, Viacom has a hard choice... Do they cut access to all their shows off from the 40 million Netflix subscribers, or from the 30 million Comcast subscribers? How about if they do the same to HBO, and their DVD releases have to be delayed an extra year...?

Re:Comcast challengers? What is K been smoking?

[hermitdev]

Except the fact that Comcast has methodically been working on both vertical and horizontal monopolies. Did you miss their acquisition of NBC Universal? Funny thing about that acquisition, as a Comcast subscriber, I lost channels I used to have. One offhand was Universal Sports. Between then Versus, now NBC Sports Networks and Universal Sports, I used to be able get TV coverage of nearly all major cycling events. Comcast dropped Universal Sports, and now the only cycling I can get are maybe 1 or 2 spring races, and the grand tours.

Re:Comcast challengers? What is K been smoking?

[evilviper]

Am I missing the conspiracy, here? Comcast bought NBC Universal, and at some point dropped Universal Sports from whatever package... Okay. How does that (sinister act?) supposedly benefit Comcast?

Re:Comcast challengers? What is K been smoking?

[hermitdev]

That is actually where I'm really confused. Comcast doesn't even have the network anymore, but they bought it. The network still exists, but they deny it to their subscribers. I'll admit it makes zero sense.

Re:Comcast challengers? What is K been smoking?

[hermitdev]

That is actually where I'm really confused. Comcast doesn't even have the network anymore, but they bought it. The network still exists, but they deny it to their subscribers. I'll admit it makes zero sense.

One thought, and a bad one, is that they're only offering it to competitors as "see, we're not being a monopoly. the dipshits that bought us can't get those other networks we bought."

Re:Comcast challengers? What is K been smoking?

[evilviper]

In lieu of any (better) theories, I'd just go the simple route... Viewer count may have just been terribly low, so the channel not worth keeping on, and removing it made room for another channel that might do better. Nothing related to the merger nor different than how any other channels are managed.

Like I said, without a much better conspiracy theory coming along, with information to back it up... I just don't see the scheme.

Re:Paul Krugman, 1998

[drooling-dog]

So... A nationwide broadband monopoly is okey-dokey, then?

Let them merge then split

[sanosuke001]

Let them merge and then split into two companies; the one that owns the fiber/hardware and the one that sells services. Force the hardware company to sell bandwidth to anyone that wants to offer services.

Re:Let them merge then split

[phantomfive]

Agreed. If you aren't going to do that, it doesn't matter much if they merge or not.

Re:Let them merge then split

[Obfuscant]

While this kind of arrangement has finally worked itself out in the telecom divestiture, for a long time it was a big big mess. Especially messy for the consumer who was stuck trying to get problems fixed. "It's the local loop." "It's your long distance provider". "If we come out to fix the wire and it turns out to be your CPE, we'll charge you a large fee for a visit."

And for a very long time it was a real battleground for the long distance carriers (i.e. "content"). Consumers would get called regularly trying to get them to change carriers, and then get "slammed" -- involuntary changes. You'd get a number that started out 10-xxx-... and find out after you called it that you had manually picked a shyster LD company that charged astronomical rates.

Sure, yeah, let's do it all again with cable TV.

Re:Let them merge then split

[sanosuke001]

Except they know the issues now for the most part; they can do it right if they want.

Re:Let them merge then split

[don.g]

The trick is to have the lines providers wholesale to the retail ISPs/etc, who then provide CPE. If the service doesn't work, the end user's contract is with their retail service provider, who has to sort it out, no matter where the problem is. That's how it works here in New Zealand on our fancy new fibre network that's slowly replacing the old copper phone network. It's mostly how it worked on the old copper network, too.

My ISP (Orcon) provide CPE (a router with voice ports) that plugs into the fibre company's ONT. If the internet or phone doesn't work, it's Orcon's problem. I don't have a contractual relationship with the fibre company so if it's the fibre that's down, it's still Orcon's problem as far as I'm concerned.

Re:Let them merge then split

[PPH]

sell bandwidth to anyone that wants to offer services.

That's fine for broadband video streaming services. But that's not the way cable works. Content providers and cable companies negotiate to have those cable companies retail the providers' wholesale content to the end customers. And I'm not certain that Disney and others want to be in the Netflix/Hulu business. Dealing directly with consumers is a PITA and exposes people to masses of consumer protection regulation.

Comcast and other network operators make a bundle reselling this content, compared to just running the infrastructure for the streamers. Which is why they hate to have customers bypass their TV service using their own networks to access streaming services.

Comcast and others might wish for a simpler business model of just running a network. But the content suppliers pay them well to keep their mutual interests aligned. And they pay Congress well to keep them on board with this model as well.

Re:Let them merge then split

[Tablizer]

If it's generic internet packets, I don't see how it could really turn into such finger-pointing. The cable companies could already point fingers over such if they wanted to anyhow.

The future of TV is over the Internet; why delay the inevitable?

Re:Paul Krugman, 1998

[MarkWegman]

Krugman admits to not be a technologist. In the above quote he was asked to be provocative and he was -- and was wrong and admits that. However, this merger is more an economic issue and there he's studied (and has a Nobel) and prognosticated with a high degree of accuracy. Can he be wrong -- sure. Can this merger wreak economic problems for the economy -- more likely. We know monopolies can be bad and too much economic power can cause problems. The burden of proof is really on those who want to argue this will be good for the overall economy and other businesses.

Any operational advantages of the merger?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are there any operational advantages to a Comcast/Time Warner Merger? Both companies are already pretty big, would there be significant operational advantages to being a larger cable company? Is the advantage of negotiating power with the big media corporations that important? Is it the power to squash Netflix?

Re:Any operational advantages of the merger?

[MachineShedFred]

Well, Time Warner's operating costs go down, because they are now owned by the same company that owns NBC Universal. Comcast then gets to renegotiate carrier contracts with other content providers based on the combined subscriber counts, leveraging larger volume to get better pricing. Then, they get to put the screws to any content delivery service that uses their IP service by packet shaping and being general assholes, making their shitty pay-per-view service look better than the competition.

Oh, and don't forget the part where the combined entity is less than the sum of it's parts from a quality and customer service perspective - if a company is using a slightly more expensive, but slightly less shitty piece of equipment, that will be discontinued in favor of the cheaper, shittier model gained in the merge.

That's off the top of my head.

Re:Any operational advantages of the merger?

[MachineShedFred]

Why squash one competitor, when you can squash the whole field?

Yes, they could buy Netflix, and that would take care of Netflix. It does nothing about Hulu, Amazon, Google, Apple, etc.

If you buy the subscriber network, and then behave like fuckwits because the government is paralyzed and won't prevent you from being fuckwits, you fuck over all of them (and anyone else that might not be on the radar yet) in one move.

Re:Paul Krugman, 1998

[admiralh]

As long as it's treated under "Common carrier" regulations (like electricity) then yes.

Re:Paul Krugman, 1998

[stinerman]

Yes. That is the kind of logic you get when you've been reading the website he's linking to.

Re:Paul Krugman, 1998

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. The burden of proof is on those who want to interfere with the right of the rightful owners of these companies to dispose of their property as they damn well please.

TimeWarner runs wires across my property in the utility right of way to sell services to my neighbors. I'm not a subscriber. Should I be able to dispose of my property as I please and dig up their lines? The fact that this merger is even being considered is a sign of how out of hand these monopolies have gotten.

The wrong approach.

[plebeian]

Honestly I think blocking the merger is the wrong approach to anti-trust. What we should to is mandate the separation of content distribution and connectivity. The cable companies are leveraging their connectivity monopoly created by the cable Franchise agreements to create a larger monopoly. These franchise agreements were created for the purpose of making content available to under served customers. Now that there are multiple connectivity options (DSL, Cable modem, Fiber...etc) we should decouple the local connectivity from the content distribution. Let those who have DSL or FIBER from another vendor sign up for Time Warner CABLE TV content (via streaming service) and let people served by TW data connections choose another TV provider.

Exactly. Why take it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I stopped my cable because I couldnt' take being fucked anymore by Comcast.

When I tell others why, they just say, "Good for you. I can't give up my sports."

There you go. People love their bread and circuses. They are sheep. They want their NFL and College (slave) ball (its funny that they ARE mostly African American and getting paid shit!). And yet, NFL, ESPN and whatnot are making millions or billions.

I'm not trying to start trouble here, but the black man is still getting exploited..

Just say'in.

Re:Exactly. Why take it.

[Master Moose]

Hell, you could paint me any colour and exploit me for that.

Re:Exactly. Why take it.

[Anonymous Coward]

The AC was talking about college athletics, not pro.

College players don't get paid, despite the fact that schools use them as cash cows. That is fucked up.

Har har, don't care

[viperidaenz]

We've already separated the incumbent into wholesale/retail/network companies.

As a Comcast employee...

[Slartibartfast]

I don't really know how I feel about the acquisition. I think some of the things Krugman talks about -- e.g., no incentive to upgrade networks -- certainly has validity; I also know that we *HATE* network congestion, and just in my unit, alone, spend tens of millions a year to avoid it. Of course, without incentive, that's just 'cause we feel like doing that, not because we have to.

The one that has me really, truly worried, though, is Net Neutrality. I am *STRONGLY* in favor of the FCC saying "F*** you all: it's time," and pushing it out. I think that neutrality, combined with the rise (and eventual commoditization) of cellular networks, as well as good ol' Ma Bell and DSL, will be able to offer competing solutions. Of course, then there's satellite, as well, but the inherent latency makes that a poorer option by definition.

Comcast is, however, essentially right: they don't compete with other cable companies because of the infrastructure; one thing that might be interesting -- though I have a sneaking suspicion Republicans would cry foul about over-regulation all day long -- would be if the gov't enforced a move akin to the telecom and power companies: if cable companies could offer the landline connection, but you were able to get service from anyone. That would go a great way toward leveling the playing field.

Re:As a Comcast employee...

[drinkypoo]

would be if the gov't enforced a move akin to the telecom and power companies: if cable companies could offer the landline connection, but you were able to get service from anyone.

Except that's half-assed in the case of telecoms in the USA...

Re:As a Comcast employee...

[Anonymous Coward]

As another Comcast employee who's job is in network maintenance and capacity upgrades I can tell you that we have a lot of incentive to upgrade networks and we are doing it. Why? Google fiber! In other words, competition. The new DOCSIS 3.1 and CCAP standards will make us able to compete with fiber so we are trying to get there as fast as we can but it's not easy with a network of this size and age.

You're mistaken, though.

[Slartibartfast]

Comcast *does* compete with Verizon -- directly. Their FiOS and DSL options are direct competition for both TV and high-speed Internet -- in the *same* geographic region -- that Comcast offers. There's no way in Hell the gov't would approve an acquisition or merger of those two.

Re:You're mistaken, though.

[Aqualung812]

Comcast *does* compete with Verizon -- directly.

Yet, they are partners:
http://www.verizonwireless.com...

Their FiOS and DSL options are direct competition for both TV and high-speed Internet

You mean the FiOS that they're not going to deploy anymore?
http://gizmodo.com/5503428/ver...

http://www.dslreports.com/show...

Tell me more fantasy of broadband competition. This is fun!

Re:Paul Krugman, 1998

[jcr]

Krugman admits to not be a technologist.

Well, that's a start. Let us know when he admits to not being an economist.

-jcr

Not to mention

[DaveJ45]

Not to mention that this type of merger would give Comcast a roughly 30% revenue boost. Revenue they have already shown us all that they are quite capable of using to bribe government employees at all levels to promote their own financial interests over the rights and protections those same government employees are charged with protecting!

Re:Paul Krugman, 1998

[PraiseBob]

What can be known is that the company tried to stay in business and it died, but not before government prevented it from trying to change its business model.

Did you know that Netflix CEO Reed Hastings TRIED to sell Netflix to Blockbuster? Blockbuster turned him down.

Blockbuster instead wanted to buy more brick and mortar stores, and continue their existing dying business model rather than invest (very cheaply), in a new distribution model. How is Hollywood Video a new model?? Its the literal exact same model! Both companies went out of business! So you can blame the government all you want for killing Blockbuster, but that's complete nonsense. If neither one can survive as a small company, why on earth do you think they could survive as a giant company? Go ahead and say the magic words "economies of scale", as if Netflix and Redbox and On-Demand, and Hulu, and Amazon, and DVD's at Walmart for the same price as a rental and a million other efficient ways to get your movie don't exist...

Honest question: Are there ANY video rental chains still in existence?

Re:Paul Krugman, 1998

[jedidiah]

> I disagree. The burden of proof is on those who want to interfere with the right of the rightful owners of these companies to dispose of their property as they damn well please.

We already have experience in these areas. We even wrote a body of laws to address this particular problem. There is nothing new or interesting here.

We just have libertardians trying to pretend that history doesn't exist and these kinds of problems haven't happened before.

Your notion of capitalism is about 150 years out of date.

Re:Paul Krugman, 1998

[gizmo2199]

So if the economy is depressed because the government is "printing money", why is inflation so low? (1.64% per year since 2008) Why isn't it 20% or higher as has been the case in other economic crises such as in Brazil or Argentina in the 1980s? Furthermore, the move toward consolidation has more to do with deregulation, than with "government monopolies."--the exact opposite. Companies are sitting on so much money (because of lower tax rates, higher stock prices, etc), that it's easier for them to buy their competitors than to invest in their operations to get new customers. Which leads these companies to have even less of an incentive to invest in higher speed broadband, or offer better prices for their customers. That was the whole point of Krugman's article.

finally

[superwiz]

Even a broken clock, as the saying goes... guess it's his 15 seconds of being right for a change.

comcast cable tv sucks next to other systems

[Joe_Dragon]

they don't have SDV or MPEG4 so they don't have

TWC people may even lose channels to be on par with other Comcast systems.

GAME 3-9 HD

TEAM 2-9 HD

ESPN Goal Line HD / ESPN Buzzer Beater HD / ESPN Bases Loaded HD

pac 12 HD (out of market)

BTN ALT's in HD

Some of HBO, SHOW, MAX, STARS HD multiplex channels that most other systems have.

MLB Strike Zone HD

Local NON OTA News channels in HD

Natural monopoly

[iamacat]

I am actually open to the concept that both wired and wireless internet providers are natural monopolies. Laying cables to EVERY residence is expensive and duplicating the work is wasteful. Wireless spectrum is limited and having it a disposal of a single entity provides a best chance of optimizing use.

HOWEVER, natural monopolies must be heavily regulated. If Comcast wants to be one, it should be no more in charge of creating or providing video programming than your water utility should be in charge of making soda. I highly doubt that's what they want, but that may well be what we need.

Of course, there should be no restrictions on competition that manages to succeed even when natural monopoly is allowed to exist. If someone manages to use power lines or sewer pipes to provide fast internet, or finds it economical to lay their own wires or laser beams after all, more power to them.

Re:Krugman Not Wrong?

[RabidReindeer]

I've been living the last few years of doing and believing the exact opposite of anything Krugman says and it's served me very well.
Never before has there been someone as consistently wrong on every subject as that guy...
Yet this time, he gets something right?

I'm so confused as to how to proceed...

Do not be deceived. Krugman is a Communist. The Market wants this merger and Government is interfering with it.

The Government is anti-Capitalist and should not interfere with the Free Market.

Re:Paul Krugman, 1998

[rhodium_mir]

If you think prices aren't falling then clearly you haven't been to the store to buy rhodium recently.

The free market is always right (NOT!)

[whitroth]

Come on, libertarians, show us how this is the free market, and how it's good for all of us.

Yup.

Oh, and btw, as I recall (it's been a few years), in Chicago, Comcast was advertising in the market mostly served by Time-Warner.

So, where's competition? Where I've lived, your choice was the local ex-Baby Bell, or Time-Warner, or Comcast. Lots of competition there for Ineternet access. And for those doctrinaire Libertarians and Tea Party types, enjoy one 'Net provider... and then they can throttle if they want, after they pay politicians to kill net neutrality. The result, of course, is listening to y'all try to tell the rest of us how living in a company town is really great....

                      mark, who does not want to go back to dial-up

Nope. Still wrong, dude.

[Slartibartfast]

Wow. You are truly don't do research. Yes, FiOS. No, they aren't deploying it any more, but that doesn't negate the expenditure and infrastructure that's already in-place. As for their partnership, go read the fine print:
1) It elapses sometime in the next several years
2) This is from *Verizon Wireless*, not Verizon, themselves; I know it's easy to conflate the two, but for right now, they are not one and the same -- Verizon only has a 55% stake in Verizon Wireless, and Verizon Wireless a) doesn't offer broadband, and b) bought cellular spectrum from Comcast in exchange for advertising their (non-competing) wired broadband. Maybe *you*, Mr. ill-informed, should check your facts a bit better. Read more about it here, and note the 2016 sunset.

None of which negates my point about DSL, either.

P.S. I enjoyed your broken link to verizon wireless. Might wanna strip the trailing slash off the next time you incorrectly paste.

Re:Nope. Still wrong, dude.

[Aqualung812]

Verizon Wireless a) doesn't offer broadband

They do. It is called HomeFusion. It costs $120/mo for 30gb, but is constantly used to incorrectly claim that Comcast has competition.

As for your other points:
-FiOS is in very few markets. If FiOS is no longer being deployed, it isn't true competition to Comcast. You can't claim they are true competition if they don't plan to compete for the same market. (5 million FiOS vs 24.1 million Comcast, with only Comcast growing)
-2016 sunset or not, my point was to rebut your claim that Verizon and Comcast are competitors. Their actions over the last year or so are not that competitive.
-DSL is a joke. The speeds do not compare, and the distance limitations mean that the reach will never equal cable.
-The link to Verizon works in Chrome & IE 11. Not sure what the issue is with your browser.

To be clear, you actually feel there is healthy competition for high-speed (greater than 10mbps, unlimited) Internet? Is that the point you're trying to make? That is the point I'm calling bullshit on.
If your point is something else, maybe we agree.

Re:Paul Krugman, 1998

[gmhowell]

Honest question: Are there ANY video rental chains still in existence?

Not exactly. But Red Box seems to be doing rather well.

Re:Paul Krugman, 1998

[jcr]

Why would I envy Krugman or anyone else who proves himself wrong at every opportunity?

Try again, leftard.

-jcr

Re:Paul Krugman, 1998

[jcr]

Krugman actually doesn't prove himself wrong at "every opportunity",

He called for a housing bubble as a remedy for the dot com bubble. He said that the internet would have no more impact than the fax machine. I could go on, but the point is proven.

Your top "thinkers" maintain that it is foolish to pay attention to mere evidence

Evidence abounds to support free markets. If you're too stupid to see it, that's your own problem.

a former libertarian

Bullshit. You were never a libertarian.

-jcr