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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.
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. .
When did the free market have anything to do with the telecommunications industry? At least in the United States, it has been a regulated industry for as long as anyone alive can remember. I really wonder why we've let companies with a government created monopoly in one area (local cable monopolies) leverage that monopoly to improve their business position in another area (content creation).
The subtitle should be: From the Devil You Know Department.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
no, we just need regulatory bodies that have some teeth and backbone enough to say no to lobbyists and bribes. If a company achieves monopoly status, break them up.
This HAS happened in the past, and all the laws to do it are on still on the books. The only reason it doesn't happen is dick douches like Wheeler get spun around the revolving door of government and corporate America.
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.
Free market capitalism is very beneficial to the consumers...when there is open competition.
You have to remember how the government has framed "competition" for companies like Comcast. Comcast and Time Warner are not competitors, any more than New York's MTA is a competitor of San Francisco's BART. Comcast competes with other "Internet Service Providers" or "Video Services" in its exclusive territorial boundaries. ie: Comcast only competes with AT&T, Verizon, and Dish.
As long as you can manage the double-think of "competition" specifically excluding the relationship between multiple providers similar technology, you will understand how having a single, national, coax-cable-based company increases competition, specifically with the twisted-copper-based company (AT&T) and the satellite-based company. As long as you can manage the double-think of competition, you will see that there is no barrier to any new company developing and distributing "Internet" or "TV," as long as that company doesn't use coax or twisted-pair wires. See how easily Google has been able to enter the ISP business by using fiber?
Way too much market power for one company.
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.
Most of the benefits vanish a lot sooner than that. Once there are few enough competitors for them to keep track on each other there is no longer any benefit to rock the boat since the competition will know what is going on and can follow easily.
With five or six companies "competing" there isn't really any competition going on, the numbers only prevents anyone from doing anything drastic in either direction.
You need something closer to twentyish companies competing in each region to get the benefits of competition, not three companies that cover different areas to avoid direct competition.
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.
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
Wow someone with comcast's dick in their mouth. Yo moron, you might want to ask why there is no competition in the first place. Then ask yourself how reducing competition by reducing the number of companies in an industry is a good thing for the consumers. Considering Comcast said prices will not go down but up, this is not beneficial to time warner customers.
Industry regulation does not constitute a non-free market, just as industry deregulation does not constitute a free market. I think you did not mean to suggest that regulation un-frees markets.
While the telecommunications industry has always been regulated, there are many very competitive industries that face regulation. The regulation, in effect, creates a more level playing field for all competitors within a market. For example, the contractor I know faces regulation. He has to register as a contractor and keep his registration current for each state in which he works. The money he pays into the state for that registration goes into a fund that will pay homeowners for botched jobs where the contracting firm goes bankrupt. Contractors are regulated by local laws to require a permit for the work that they do (these regulations also cross-regulate homeowners as well). Work must be subjected to inspection so that the work performed meets building codes. But nobody is saying that contractors have a monopoly, that there is no free market for contractors. Indeed, it's a pretty free market.
To suggest that any regulation makes a market "un-free" is to not understand regulation. Or free markets.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
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.
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.
Industry regulation does not constitute a non-free market, just as industry deregulation does not constitute a free market.
Um, we're talking the telecommunications industry here -- where a free market does not exist. You cannot go into the cable business without the local and/or state (depending on the area) giving its blessing -- and they won't. The local/state governments have create monopolies. This is not a free market.
The same holds for the telephone industry. The norm is that a single company is granted a government monopoly in an area. There is no competition for land lines in a locale.
Don't get me wrong. You only want one company stringing phone lines throughout a community. You only want one company stringing cable coax throughout a community. But please, let's not pretend that these government created monopolies have anything to do with the free market.
Not the same thing at all. Google has risen as the dominant search engine yes, but it's not like there's any real barriers to creating your own. It's just got to be really really good to take them down. Competition on the internet is possible for anyone, provided they've got a good enough product to compete with. There's no real option to compete with existing cable providers unless your local area decides to open the market to other options. I'm lucky enough to live in an area that actually does have competition within cable providers, but the circumstances of the national climate for cable companies has allowed my local options to keep their prices up.