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Time Warner Cable Customers Beg Regulators To Block Sale To Comcast
An anonymous reader sends this report from Ars Technica:
New York is shaping up as a major battleground for Comcast's proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable. While the $45.2 billion merger will be scrutinized by federal officials, it also needs approval at the state level. TWC has 2.2 million cable TV, Internet, and phone customers in 1,150 New York communities, and hundreds of them have called on the New York Public Service Commission to block the sale to Comcast. Comcast doesn't compete against TWC for subscribers, and its territory in New York is limited but includes a VoIP phone service offered to residential and business customers in 10 communities. "Both Time Warner Cable and Comcast already have monopolies in each and every territory in which they do business today, and combining the companies will reinforce those individual territorial monopolies under a single corporate umbrella, with NBC-Universal thrown in to boot," resident Frank Brice argued in a comment to the PSC posted yesterday.
Customers: Please don't!
FTC: Hmm, the customers seem vocal about this one.
Time Warner/Comcast to FTC: Don't you dare...
FTC: We'll need to study the issue.
(One U.S. election cycle passes)
New FTC Head: What's good for Time Warner/Comcast is good for America! Full steam ahead, job-producers!
The deal will indeed be scrutinized by federal officials, to ensure that campaign contributions are large enough.
anyone there cares about customers.
TWC has 2.2 million cable TV, Internet, and phone customers in 1,150 New York communities, and hundreds of them have called...
I'm thinking that's not going to impress the FTC.
This is like reading the comments section of a Fox news story. So everyone on slashdot wants to believe their own myopic version of reality so badly they're willing to accept something that so obviously biased, so obviously skewed that it's not dis-similar to a lot of the anti-global warming stories I see elsewhere?
The Comcast/Time-warner merger involves 32,000,000 customers total. The FCC got a total of less than 2000 comments... good or bad. The article only mentions ONE PERSON that stood up and spoke out against the deal at the hearing. ONE.
Now, I don't dispute that if you asked the majority of customers they'd probably prefer this deal didn't happen. But to portray it as if there is this massive customer revolt? This submission and that article are, at the very least, intentionally misleading.
None of this would matter if people would just kill their TV.
As for the Internets, that's different. Like, Daffy Duck compared to Hugh Jackhman different.
It would be nice if someone posted where we (the customers) can protest this sale... I'm OK with TWC right now, but Comcast is the devil. Really don't want them combining.
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== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
... But cable companies still have monopolies for the cities. We do need competition between cable companies like in my area. I can't get DSL, FIOS, etc. I can get dial-up, satellite, etc. but why when cable is affordable and fast. They can be faster and cheaper with competitions! :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Free market capitalism is very beneficial to the consumers...when there is open competition. Once someone wins, and becomes a monopoly, then *all* the benefits of this model vanish.
But...in order to keep the businesses competing there must be the possibility of them winning. If we impose laws that guarantee winners do not prosper, the competition will dry up and with it all the benefits.
So there is the paradox. We must promise the businesses the possibility of their rise to total dominance in order to ensure that they compete for it...to our benefit...but if any of them actually do win, we have to destroy them so the process can reset.
That slam people into contract bundles they dont want and did not buy.
I am waiting for the news story of one tech getting his head chopped off.
That is why they dont go to your house to collect the equipment they so ready over charge you for.
Like Cox 8 bucks a month for modem ad says it is fastest just a 300 N my 1900 ac has a problem with all this theft by deception and not one DA in the whole country on it.
Next time the install get there drivers license so you know who you are dealing with and if they pull this shit on you go to their house and fuck them up.
Only way it is going to stop.
The subtitle should be: From the Devil You Know Department.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
What do you mean "if a company achieves monopoly status"? They are GIVEN monopoly status by local governments. The NYC web site has a map showing which boroughs each company is allowed to operate in.
What are they really buying? It's not about the network, because you could build a network for much less than $20k per subscriber, so what they are really bidding for is control of a regulatory monopoly.
If it were not for regulatory capture there would be plenty of competition to TWC, and this deal would be a non-starter, it is only through government control and intervention that TWC and Comcast are able to maintain such a stranglehold on American telecommunications.
Good job, America, Good job.
-puddingpimp
Way too much market power for one company.
Every day, every single day, snatch up one employee of Time Warner or Comcast. And you burn them alive in front of their family. Continue until their business model changes.
Comcast has great internet (at least in my area).
Given that Comcast and TW don't have any overlapping areas (for the most part), there's no reduction in competition, so no reason for the FTC/FCC to block...
The merger will go through, regardless of what anybody says. Dollars are the literal coin of the realm, and Congress is incapable of responding to anything else. And, as has been pointed out, these companies have been spending millions to get their attention. So get ready for lousier service, data caps and higher prices. Because it's "good for the consumer".
Zooperman
...little people, for that's all you lot are. A bunch of beggars. We will decide what's best for you and we will tell our underlings who pretend to regulate us what that is. You will kindly shut up and enjoy your bread and circuses.
Regards,
Your Telecom Corporate Overlords
So only it took less than 2000 comments to cause their web server to choke? Seems a tad disingenuous. A cheap web server could easily handle that in a day. Perhaps the FCC didn't share the totality of messages they received? Reddit even ran a campaign, and the armies of reddit are vast. I think you're purposefully misrepresenting the dissent here.
Again, I see these things as somewhat easy -- TWC Customers, call _Comcast_ and threaten to leave TWC if they proceed with the sale. Then, when they do anyway, and the FTC approves it (read: says "go job creators") then actually leave. Actually go to your town meetings and push to have it switch, and if it can't then write the FTC en masse and complain about the (in)effective monopoly, and go with a smaller company (which gets reduced rates from those you're trying to get rid of), etc. Don't give in because you can't fight on the level the TelCo's want you to fight on. People still have sway power when they're not fragmented by cheap (political) ads.
You really don't see a problem in a single company having a near monopoly in a single area and also biasing competitors ability to transmit across their networks? You're the moron. It doesn't matter if they had pudding internet speed. The problem is a monolithic monopoly with one of the largest political donors that exists. They already purchase almost every single regulator and politician. That's a major problem.
I have dealt with Time Warner Cable, specifically in New York City. I have also dealt with Comcast. I think this merger is a natural for them because of several factors:
I think they should rename the combined company "Crappy Cable Internet and Phone" which will appropriately re-define what the consumer is about to experience. Renaming themselves CCIP would be a positive step.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
As a Comcast customer, I don't want the merger to go through because I live in the Detroit market. The plan is to spin off Detroit into a small Comcast/Charter shared business that won't benefit from big deals for TV contracts or get significant network upgrades for Internet. I don't even know if I'll be allowed to keep my business class Internet service after the deal or what the new terms might be.
The managed monopolies have caused stagnation in service to the end customer, with steadily rising costs. Thats the rub in any monopoly. Why is this permitted? Do we need to start a class action suit to get some competition back in telecom? What is the metric we need to review to show how far behind the US is behind Rest-of-World in this space? This sort of cronyism/protectionism can't be tolerated.
Time for a new Political party in the US (or two!) One is off the rails Other cant pony up a leader.