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AT&T Buying DirecTV for $48.5 Billion
AT&T is acquiring satellite TV provider DirecTV in a deal worth $48.5 billion. This will bring 20 million more U.S. television subscribers under AT&T's roof, making it the second biggest TV provider, behind Comcast. The deal is subject to regulatory approval, and to help that along, AT&T says it will sell its 8% stake in America Movil, which is a competitor to DirecTV in some areas.
"By acquiring the country’s biggest satellite television operator, AT&T will help bolster its competitive position against Comcast. Though pay television is considered a mature market whose subscriber growth has slowed dramatically in recent years, the business nonetheless generates billions of dollars in cash. ... Part of the attraction may be DirecTV’s ample cash flow. While its business has shown little growth in recent years, it generated about $8 billion in earnings last year. Much of that will go toward future investments in growth, AT&T said, including bidding at least $9 billion for wireless network capacity that the government plans to auction off soon. By gaining satellite TV, AT&T may also be able to free up capacity on its existing broadband network."
AT&T can't be allowed to get any bigger than it is now. They had to break it up once already.
Now, take that AT&T from its shareholders and just liquidate it. Disgusting.
So ATT&T is pulling a Comcast and limiting our choices. Eff'em.
They are the last real competitor to terrestrial cable tv. And the only one whose DVR was bright enough to back up 10s when you fastforwarded through a commercial and released when you saw the show start whizzin' by.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
We know where all the money they should be using on upgrading their network is going.
If you spent HALF that on your network you'd crush your competition! What a crock of shit.
Wait, DirectTV is worth 50 Billion so...
So the question is, where is competition anymore? You have Comcast wanting Time Warner, ATT now wanting DirectTV and what merger is next? Does any of this help the consumer? I doubt it very much, and in fact it looks like ATT is trying to garner more customers into its web of Internet, phone and now TV services.
Funny how the break up of Bell Telephone did nothing to put a end to big communication companies. What comes around goes around. I have always been stuck with one broadband provider. Absolutely no real competition. Yea, a couple Wireless ISP's and of course another giant in cellular broadband. But other then that you have DSL which is not even high speed in my book. Most consumers are stuck with their ISP and have little choice which means no competition.
Yeah! Less choices and higher cost!
This cannot be allowed..
Actually the Comcast / Time Warner thing should be stopped too.
Its crazy these company's have billions of money laying around to buy competition but cannot upgrade their networks..
I remember them complaining back in day how it would cost millions to upgrade their network.. Partitioned congress to increase rates so they could afford to upgrade, then did not actually upgrade, instead they bought out other company's and forced mini monopolies around various locations. (like how I can get Comcast only at my old house in MI, yet Charter at new house in MI)
Yeh F this..
anyone know why this is announced on a Sunday?
Nooooooooo!!!
cable television is something noone cares about [in] the age of the internet
That might be true once decades-long carriage contracts between the networks and the cable system operators expire and once decades-long contracts between the major professional and collegiate sport leagues and the networks expire. Until then, we're left with games that get blacked out online if shown on national or regional cable networks.
We have too low prices and too much speed. Think of the poor telecoms! They are just struggling to stay relevant and if only they owned all the last miles then how could they grab amazon and Netflix by the balls and tripple dip since they already charge both ways?
http://saveie6.com/
No reason why my bill should pay to run cable for people who live in the middle of no where
Because the people who grow the food you eat need a way to find the best market to sell the food that they grow.
is that correct? how can they be worth that much?
So if i say start a new tv service and give every new user say a free big flat screen I can get millions of users and sell out to AT&T?
Two companies I refused to do (any more) business with trying to become one company I won't do any business with.
How long til we end up with just ATT&T and Comcast as players?
Cannot help but observe how convenient it will be for the American surveillance state when we have only two sources for delivery of media and internet to the home. But I'm sure this is just paranoid lunacy, right?
A little over 10 years ago, Comcast merged with AT&T Broadband, which was the USA's largest cable television operator at that time. Now it comes down to one AT&T operation versus another. If divestiture hadn't happened, they might still be a utility, which is probably why we had divestiture.
Customer growth with UVERSE was not happening fast enough -- content distributors (Disney/ESPN, premium movie channels, Scripps Networks, etc.) charged AT&T more because they did not have the subscriber numbers to leverage lower channel costs. After the merger, I expect those contracts to be renegotiated for much lower costs per subscriber for AT&T. Not that the consumers will see any of those savings...
I am afraid that, by owning a satellite television provider and a satellite internet provider, AT&T will proclaim that they have fulfilled the "universal service" mandate and refuse to upgrade any more legacy copper wire plant. There have been rumors that AT&T will not run new copper lines to a home or business if they are covered by any cell phone tower or any competing phone provider (including VoIP from another provider); nor will they replace faulty or noisy existing copper lines, since you could get service from a competitor.
It acquired AT&T's Cellular and Long Distance businesses as part of the deal, so really it was just reintegrating AT&T assets with SBC. Calling the new entity AT&T isn't entirely incorrect, since both were divisions of Ma Bell before the breakup.
Is this the "competition" that is supposed to "self regulate" the internet providers once net neutrality is dead?
directv also happens to be the programming distributor upstream for many, many cable systems; as well as private distribution systems in apartments, condos, hotels, school/dorms, and other places.
i dont see how this could possibly be approved.. seeing how there is too much overlap of markets using different technologies..
its been disallowed before, it'd better be disallowed again even though the industry's buddies control the fcc.
Satellite TV With UVERSE for backup due to rain fade even at a lower bit-rate will be so cool
Okay, so let them make that part of the "cost of doing business", like other just about every other business has to do. Farmers also have to have fuel to operate and haul equipment, seed, fertilizer/herbicide/pesticide, and product to and from "civilization", and they manage to do that just fine without my fuel getting taxed extra to pay for their fuel. I'd argue that fuel is a lot more important to the process than cheap high-speed Internet.
Fuel Tax in the USA /. which is pretty hard given all the competition but you have won the /. lottery this night my friend.
IRS definitions for non-taxable fuel uses "On a farm for farming purposes"
You might want to do a little research BEFORE embarrassing yourself on
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
You could probably buy a country with that much money. Like, if you offered Castro a large briefcase full of $48 billion, I think he'd probably go for it. Just saying, you can buy a shitty satellite TV company or Cuba. One of them, you can start assembling an army and working toward world domination. One you can beam reruns of "Friends" to customers you hate.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
This is really about crushing their Union, and offloading their central offices that are needed to copper service. ATT is going mostly with contractors now.
FCC, please explain to us how this merger would benefit us consumers.
America used to enforce antitrust laws.
How the fuck is that good for competition?
Seriously I was being sarcastic, but how the fuck was that allowed to pass with the FCC?
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
Assholes always preaching the gun. Meanwhile less than half the population bothers to vote. Lets actually USE the ballot box before we switch to the ammo box, huh? I mean, I get the allure, but that sort of things has a really shitty history of actually working.
Hell, if we all organized and stopped buying NIKE products until they told congress to behave, then moved from company to company just NOT buying products, we'd get immediate action. We could NOT do things and if we did it in an organized fashion, shit would change.
Or you could try taking your AR-15 and going up against military hardware and training. Good Luck!
Say goodbye to affordable internet and tv boys & girls....
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
I vote for Octan to step in and buy all these guys up. Wayland or Lexcorp would be good too. Let's go for real villains and not just petty thugs after money. We have only got the evil corporations we need, not the evil corporations we deserve.
Let's go for Illuminati and Lizardmen vs Masons and Knights Templar!
Well, Charter's been trying to find a way to get me back after I switched to DirecTV.... this might do it. If AT&T tries to merge things so DirecTV and UVerse share the same features, I'll be happy to get something else.
Let's just borrow all the money, buy up all the competition and then people will be forced to pay us - so we can then pay off our loan.
Ta da
2014 -- AT&T Merges with Dish. Comcast Merges with Time Warner
2015 -- Verizon merges with Dish
2015 -- Sprint merges with T-mobile
2018 -- Comcast merges with Charter
2018 -- Sprint files chapter 7 bankruptcy, all assets are divided between Verizon and AT&T
2020 -- AT&T merges with Verizon
2025 -- AT&T merges with Comcast
a sheit of a company buying another sheit of a company
I am a DirecTV customer. I live in a rural area and my only choice for internet is DSL. I use a CLEC, as opposed to CenturyLink who sucked big time. I am very happy with my internet connection and don't understand why you folks who get everything bundled are worried about this merger. Here's why, I pay around $150 per month for DirecTV with two DVRs and a few other boxes. I also pay around $70 per month for my internet service which I am happy to have. So if you complainers are getting phone/TV/Internet bundles with more than a 5MB/s data rate for less than $220 per month, please just stop your whining. You will never have to pay so much for so little unless you move somewhere there is no cable.
...I have to ask: When did we say hello to those things here?
Imagine how much they will charge now. It will be awesome.
what we really need to do is kill off the zombie dipshits that prevent intelligent organized protests like you suggest.
The same standards should be applied to AT&T acquisition.... and they should be blocked since it would reduce competition in markets where AT&T already has a terrestrial cable monopoly/duopoly.
All the big companies are buying up the smaller ones in this Fascist takeover of America.
Assholes always preaching the gun. Meanwhile less than half the population bothers to vote. Lets actually USE the ballot box before we switch to the ammo box, huh? I mean, I get the allure, but that sort of things has a really shitty history of actually working.
What about swords?
Oh great, higher rates for crappier service. QOS is the last thing on AT&T's mind.
No good deed goes unpunished.