Slashdot Mirror
Comcast-TWC Merger Review On Hold
An anonymous reader writes: When the U.S. Federal Communications Commission began reviewing the merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable, it imposed a 180-day deadline on the review process. The agency has now pushed that deadline back a few weeks after learning that TWC withheld over 7,000 documents they shouldn't have. TWC originally claimed the documents fall under attorney-client privilege, but that appears not to be the case.
Perhaps more disturbing, the article says another 31,000 documents "went missing" because of a vendor error. (Perhaps even more disturbing is that this is a drop in the bucket compared to the sum total of information TWC dumped on the FCC — apparently over 5 million pages. How they can be expected to properly review that much material is beyond me.)
The FCC is also ready to close the public comment period for the merger, during which over 600,000 comments were filed. Critics are making their final arguments and Comcast is tallying up all the nice things people (and paid public relations agencies) had to say.
Perhaps more disturbing, the article says another 31,000 documents "went missing" because of a vendor error. (Perhaps even more disturbing is that this is a drop in the bucket compared to the sum total of information TWC dumped on the FCC — apparently over 5 million pages. How they can be expected to properly review that much material is beyond me.)
The FCC is also ready to close the public comment period for the merger, during which over 600,000 comments were filed. Critics are making their final arguments and Comcast is tallying up all the nice things people (and paid public relations agencies) had to say.
Personally, I would like see one of two things happening:
1. Break up Comcast and make the new pieces share infrastructure (so they would have to compete with each other).
2. Allow the merger, but with the stipulation that laws would be put in place to spur competition. Such as allowing municipalities to bulid their own network (like Chatanooga).
While few people actually have a choice, I'm still left wishing I didn't have to choose between AT&T & Comcast.
Of course while they like to point out that their service areas don't overlap so "competition" won't be impacted, they fail to note that because their service areas don't overlap, there has never been any real "competition" to keep prices down.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Yes, but I think the threshold of proof here is not just one bad company, but two bad companies coming together and creating a better company. I'm pretty sure the anecdotal evidence for that is scant.
Somebody please provide ONE case of a merger making a bad company better.
Apple bought Next. The next decade and a half was pretty awesome for the computer industry, and no one can deny Apple's (Next's) role in that.
And in general, these mergers should be allowed. I also think Comcast / TWC should not have to release any territory as a stipulation for approval.
What should be stipulated is the removal of any "anti-competitive" agreements these companies have with various municipalities restricting competition in the local broadband market. If you want great service, make the providers compete for your business, and empower consumers with choice!
This particular cable merger would be bad. With that out of the way:
Tons of mom-and-pop shops with a good product but terrible process get bought by companies like Proctor & Gamble who have far better and more efficient processes. They then produce the same great product with more reliable quality at a much lower cost.
My own company may well become an example- we make terrible products, and have bad process, leading to very slow customer service, etc. That's because I'm very good at designing innovative new software systems, and very bad at running a business. I can think of a dozen well-run software shops that would make us better by taking us over. Their process, their customer service, billing department, etc and our products would be a huge improvement.
Aside from small companies who just never developed good processes, there have been many famous brands that have been bankrupt or on the way to bankruptcy before being aquired by a better company with a clearer vision or better execution. Given that these companies were going bankrupt, or already bankrupt, for them to survive at all (as a division of a larger company) is better.
One big, big name is Youtube, who was burning through other people's money faster than a drunk Kennedy and getting rightfully sued every 5 minutes for copyright infringement. They had a cool idea, and a completely non-sustainable business model that was guaranteed to put them belly-up within 36 months until Google bought them. Google brought to bear their expertise in funding a free service in a way that keeps customers happy (aka the best targeted advertising available) , allowing YouTube to survive and thrive rather than burning away investors' money until investors got sick of it and'the whole thing imploded.
The apple next acqusition didn't matter much until apple mattered again with the iphone.
The iPod was available years before the iPhone, and was what really started Apple's rise to where it is now. Additionally, the introduction of OS X was around the same time, and drew from NeXT's OS quite heavily.