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The AT&T-Time Warner Merger Must Be Stopped (backchannel.com)
New submitter mirandakatz writes: AT&T's proposed merger with Time Warner is evidence that AT&T doesn't ever plan to invest in fiber to the home, writes Susan Crawford at Backchannel -- and that's just one of many reasons the merger is a catastrophic idea. Crawford writes: "It's hard to think of a single positive thing this merger will accomplish, other than shining a bright light on just how awful the picture is for data transmission in this nation. This deal should be dead on arrival. In fact, AT&T should spare us by dropping the idea now. This merger must not happen."From the report: Think about it. AT&T sells wires to about 51 million homes, far more than any other telephone or cable company in the country. Because of its large presence in many markets, it overlaps with cable companies in many places -- AT&T overlaps with Comcast in 45 percent of Comcast's footprint and with Charter in 52 percent of its footprint. But, after a flurry of debunked press releases, it's totally clear that AT&T has no real interest in upgrading its copper networks to fiber to the home. Its capital expenditures keep going down, not up. (Would you trust the future to a company that doesn't see the need to increase investments in its core business, and instead is content to harvest profit from its subscribers?)
Even Google isn't interested in fiber to the home at this point. It is very expensive. And they have billions of excess dollars lying around.
Should the conversation be about breaking up AT&T and Time-Warner in order to create MORE competition in the marketplace not discussing a merger that would basically make the United States serviced by a single broadband provider (I assume that an AT&T/Comcast merger would quickly follow).
actually it was
the railroads were built by cheap government backed loans and the protection of the US Army. lots of other infrastructure was built by the government or with heavy government support. very few are dumb enough to risk their own money on risky business adventures
once the cable companies got rid of analogue cable it freed up a lot of bandwidth for internet and HD video and lessened the need for fiber to the home
The government actually backs up these organizations with regulation. New ISPs struggle against incumbent operators. If we can get rid of cable regulations, cable and phone line monopolies and actually bring in fair competition, we can revitalize the industry overnight. Actually a good first step would be nationalization of telephone poles and cell towers. Then allow open access and boom, things are much easier for ISPs.
Time Warner is the entertainment wing. Think Warner Bros and the former Turner networks.
Time Warner Cable is the former cable wing that was spun off years ago and is now owned by Charter Cable. The only common ground was their name since it never changed it when they spun it off. That's why their changing their name to Spectrum now that Charter bought them.
This would have no effect on broadband. If anything it will make DirecTV cheaper (since they won't have to pay for the Turner channels anymore since they own them) and possibly other cable companies more expensive by raising the retransmission rates to Turner channels.
Still not good for consumers but its not going to kill broadband as we know it.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
Water, Electricity, Gas, Data - it's all at the same level of national importance.
The network should not be in the hands of a profit driven company.
Me thinks Ms. Crawford is confused. The proposed merger is with TW, not TWC. TW is the content arm, owning such interesting properties as HBO, CNN, and of course the Warner Bros. Studios library.
The proposed merger is not with TWC, which is the infrastructure arm.
That said, the ATT / TW proposed merger is still a very, very bad idea. It's all about making money from giving their own content a free ride (or at least a less expensive ride) on ATT's infrastructure. That is, it's about killing off net neutrality.
But it's not about fiber vs. copper. Indeed, ATT just offered fiber on my street a few months ago. Because Google is currently stringing fiber on my street. While ATT got here first, I'm waiting (perhaps futilely) on Google.
Actually a good first step would be nationalization of telephone poles and cell towers.
Hugo, is that you?
I don't like this potential merger, or the current situation, any more than you do.
However, let's not go overboard.
People have had this opinion before. I have this opinion.
But it isn't news.
Watch when this merger is approved. The head of the SEC will resign and take a cushy new job on the board of the company. It happened with the Comcast/NBC merger.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
It's a unique situation, where government would work, provided that they didn't have an oppressive permit process. Most of the poles and some towers are owned by localities, and most of the remaining poles by government owned utilities. It would just be shifting everything to an easier and national process.
Nobody is doing fiber to the home, even Google has now bailed. It's way, way too expensive. Leverage the copper you already have in place that was built back when it didn't cost so much to do it.
Nobody except the rest of the world maybe. You know, that place where there is actual competition in the market.
Wanna buy a shirt?
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What needs to happen in the US is what you guys had back in the 90's and early 00's where the last mile providers were required to rent out their infrastructure to other ISP's. There was an incredible glut of ISP's, and I can remember driving down I75 seeing the billboards for $19.95 5/1 DSL with no caps, and the new higher speed cable connections for $29.95 with no caps. This is what we have running in Canada now, after nearly 14 years with Bell, Rogers, Telus and so on saying "it'll be the death of our companies!!!!!111111" and so on. It hasn't happened, and most recently they got a huge slap in the face when the CRTC told them they must lease last mile FTTN and FTTH to third party ISP's(called TPIA's here).
Om, nomnomnom...
It's a unique situation, where government would work, provided that they didn't have an oppressive permit process.
Most of the poles and some towers are owned by localities, and most of the remaining poles by government owned utilities. It would just be shifting everything to an easier and national process.
Although I think poles owned by the local government wouldn't be a horrible idea (and as you said they mostly already are), I think being owned by the federal government is a horrible idea. The federal government was never suppose to regulate stuff that goes on inside of the state. The federal government shouldn't be maintaining poles (or roads for that matter). The state and local governments are more than capable of taking care of their own poles. Now if the federal government wanted to mandate that there is open access to them or set certain rental rates I *might* be ok with it but I still think it should be a state level issue and I definitely think that the federal government shouldn't own the poles or really anything inside of the sovereign states.
Would you trust the future to a company that doesn't see the need to increase investments in its core business, and instead is content to harvest profit from its subscribers?
What exactly is your problem here? Just because you don't like AT&T is no reason to single them out for engaging in the standard acceptec business practices of all other major Corporations in America
Maybe you haven't paid attention, but for the last 20 years, the standard business practice is to commit fraud against the plebeian population of "wage slaves" in order to generate billions in profit against which they pay millions in "business costs" via "settlements" once their fraud is "exposed" and the DOJ gets involved
So why shouldn't this deal go through?
Why you ask? You just got done listing the very (corrupt) reasons as to why this deal should not go through, and then defending it with the notion that they need even more revenue (as if they're financially suffering) in order to continue their corrupt business practices, all under the guise of keeping up with the corporate Joneses.
Fucking hell, talk about nonsensical. I sure as hell hope my sarcasm meter is broken or something. Yeah, I think we all agree that regulatory agencies need to do their fucking job, but bullshit corporate loopholes brought on by lobbying is certainly no excuse to justify or defend this behavior.
Nobody except the rest of the world maybe. You know, that place where there is actual competition in the market.
It is a lot more complicated than that. Most of the rest of the world actually has less competiton. Many countries have a single "national champion" provider. America has more older infrastructure, a legal system that favors obstructionism, and a political system that favors NIMBYism.
Not to mention governments who properly enforce specifically consumer-friendly regulatory regimes.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Yes, I was a CLEC for a brief shining moment. Good business. My competitor is now 20 years in business, delivers reliable DSL service far further than the ILEC, several TIMES faster, for lower fees. The ILEC virtually stopped advertising their service.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Your sarcasm meter was broken by the sonic boom of the woosh.
yeah, most of those guys went out of business because they never made any money. a few like RCN are still around on perpetual life support
and the way it worked was you needed a POTS line and service for the $20 DSL and they would rip you a new a$$hole with the POTS prices and charging you per minute on calls
the cable companies were doing $30 internet for a little while because a lot of people were buying their VOIP as well, but once AT&T and Verizon went unlimited cell minutes that was the end of that.
Depends on your point of view. Citizens are protected from "abusive" governments that want to tear up part of their property to lay down new stuff (fiber, water, sewage, copper) -- NIMBY (Not in my back yard). So while the government may want to lay down new stuff because 80% of the people in an area want something (or maybe just 10%), they can't because they need permission (or regulation) to be able to tear up people's property because there is one crazy person that claims the internet fiber will give him headaches if it's within a mile of his house.
I agree completely with this. It's a state/local government issue, not a federal government issue. That said, I have no issue with the federal government doing what they are supposed to be doing... Mainly maintaining inter-state commerce and a federal militia. Other than those two things, they should butt out and leave it to the states -- as our constitution says it is supposed to be.
If they don't eventually invest in fibre, companies like Google that are laying fibre will eventually eat their lunch.
the railroads were built by cheap government backed loans and the protection of the US Army. lots of other infrastructure was built by the government or with heavy government support. very few are dumb enough to risk their own money on risky business adventures
Conservative business people, they are the biggest hypocrites. They supposedly hate socialism but when it suits them they let the taxpayers foot the bill for transportation systems that they use for transportation of goods and make profits off of those goods. Who's not getting skin in the game again?
Millenials want everything for free without getting any skin in the game? What about businesses not wanting to succumb to the almighty cost of doing business but want to reap all the profits? Who's the free loader again? It's all selfish greed no matter where you look. Everyone trying to spin their own self interest into some crusade for principles to appear to be some hero while they take the shirt right off your back. We are a mess in this country.
Socialized medical care? That's evil unless it's for the military then it's noble.
Disclaimer: I'm MUCH older than the millenial generation
We'll make great pets
Cox compresses the shit out certain channels but not others. It seems like someone at AMC finally bitched them out. The 2 episodes this season, at least during the first run, didn't have the usual blockiness and color shifting (it shifts to magenta gradually over a few seconds then the green pops back in on, probably when it hits a keyframe, only for it to shift back to magenta, repeating endlessly).
It's a unique situation, where government would work, provided that they didn't have an oppressive permit process.
Most of the poles and some towers are owned by localities, and most of the remaining poles by government owned utilities. It would just be shifting everything to an easier and national process.
Although I think poles owned by the local government wouldn't be a horrible idea (and as you said they mostly already are), I think being owned by the federal government is a horrible idea. The federal government was never suppose to regulate stuff that goes on inside of the state. The federal government shouldn't be maintaining poles (or roads for that matter). The state and local governments are more than capable of taking care of their own poles. Now if the federal government wanted to mandate that there is open access to them or set certain rental rates I *might* be ok with it but I still think it should be a state level issue and I definitely think that the federal government shouldn't own the poles or really anything inside of the sovereign states.
Good thing the Internet is only limited to my state.
These are businesses that are out to make a profit, not to do the right thing and equip people for the future. Why would anyone be surprised that AT&T would buy Time Warner because it would be a good idea for its customers??
i've heard they use an algorithm that gives more bandwidth to shows that more people are watching. which is why sports looks awesome and your average STARZ or some other rerun movie looks like a used VHS tape
As everything in life. It depends where in the US you have Cox service.
That wasn't my experience when I used Speakeasy DSL up to eleven or twelve years ago. The phone was flat-rate and cheap, and Covad was the CLEC and passing through to Speakeasy.
The problem comes when something breaks. The ILEC has no incentive to fix it because you're not really their customer. My DSL was out for seven weeks while AT&T and Covad pointed the finger at each other and miss each other's appointments at the central office. The only time they actually fixed it is when AT&T started to mess with it and the voice on our phone also went out, then they realized that whatever hardware at the CO our line was plugged into had a problem and replaced the blade... and voila!
Very disappointing.
It's time to put AT&T back in its place. What was done in the early 80s should be done again soon.
Except for Eminent Domain.
There are plenty of examples where Eminent Domain has been used to put an easement on a property for utilities.
The rest of the world plus a lot of the U.S. already.... and for the record, AT&T fiber is available in my neighborhood right now. I don't get it, but I could, and it's only marginally more expensive than the 75Mbs I'm getting from the cable company. If I weren't under contract, I'd be tempted.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
My neighborhood is 40+ years old, and after Comcast came in and upped their max in my area from 25 to 75Mbs, AT&T put in fiber... My house was built in 1970, and, as of last January, I could get 75Mbs from Comcast, of Gb fiber from AT&T. Competition works when there actually is some, I suppose.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Republicans constantly try to reduce military health insurance, so you're wrong there.
I only have one HBO HD channel, the rest are standard. Might be the same with STARZ.
Why is fiber to the home needed? Copper is capable of much more than it's currently being used for.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
As the saying goes: socialize the cost, privatize the profits.
That's not what socialism means - that's just the government supporting businesses. Socialism means "government controls the business, and keeps the profits". Fascism means "government controls, but private owners keep the profits".
Also, spare us the "you didn't build that"..
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Good thing the Internet is only limited to my state.
Which is why we have the interstate commerce clause. The interstate commerce clause is horribly abused for everything under the sun but it does have a limited use in this situation. The federal government shouldn't control the poles but it is perfectly acceptable for it to say that states need to maintain a right of way so that people can use the roads and the internet for interstate commerce.
fixed that for you. The problem is that the Sherman anti-trust act was set up to prevent anti-competitive monopolies within an industry. Time Warner is content while AT&T is delivery so there's no problem here except probably a few FCC mandates related to the handful of TV stations which most likely will be sold or given away to make the deal go through.
Of course, that doesn't mean it's not a problem or an effective monopoly. This large scale vertical integration is the same as what happened with Comcast / NBC Universal and to a lesser extent Disney/ABC and could and will most likely seriously hinder new entrants to a broad swath of services as well as dictate consumer and b2b pricing for programming on a mega scale.
For AT&T's part, this is their response to their loss of the natural monopoly they had in the 80's, which reformed into the near anti-competitive monopoly they have now but which is seriously threatened by the advent of mesh area networks which could in theory obviate the need for ISP's altogether. They are attempting to get the jump on this by developing it with an eye on controlling it themselves, and they will need very good content for one. I have no idea how they intend to charge for using your own devices but the overall goal is to eliminate all last mile wiring and maintenance and all the personnel that go with it which is a huge expense. This is why you now have a hard time ordering uVerse and are oversold on the cellular products and if you want old school pots service, you'd better take a gun.
I'll add to my previous comment to say that Google Fiber would have been a great threat that;s why it's sad to see them pull back.
Where I live - a semi-rural area outside of Austin TX (sadly *just* outside of Google Fiber's coverage area), there are only four ways to get Internet:
1) AT&T (their service is basically cellular-to-the-home - they don't own wires).
2) Time Warner Cable (they have cable TV wires to my home)
3) Dish Network (they have satellite for downloads and use AT&T cellular for uploads).
4) Carrier pigeons.
Since Dish is AT&T - if TWC gets merged into AT&T - then there is literally no other way to get online than to buy from them...or else, maybe, the pigeon thing.
That's intolerable.
The problem is that when AT&T own the area, it would cost an absolute fortune for someone like Google Fiber to come along and dig up all the streets to get some competition going. It's really not going to happen.
In my opinion, what's required is what it done with electricity supply in my area. We can buy electricity from half a dozen suppliers. Some are "green", some have better customer service, some are much cheaper. They all use the same copper wires that lead to my house though - so what's happening is that one company owns the wires and the others handle supply and customer support, etc. We never have to deal with the company that owns the wires. If there is a problem, we go to our "supplier" and they are responsible for fixing it. They take a portion of our electricity bill and pay the guys who own the wires for the capacity their customers consume.
That's what the Internet (and CableTV - which is really "the internet" these days) should be.
There should be companies who own the wires and the routers and such - and companies who handle pricing, bandwidth allocation, customer support and billing. Those guys can compete for my business.
www.sjbaker.org
For AT&T's part, this is their response to their loss of the natural monopoly they had in the 80's,
It would be silly to claim that they're thinking about something from almost four decades ago when they consider merging with Time Warner. AT&T from four decades ago is a very different company from what they are today.
And it wasn't a natural monopoly, it truly was a government-granted one. Even then, there were other local telcos. General Telephone, for example. They had to jump onto Ma Bell's long distance circuits to provide that service, however.
but which is seriously threatened by the advent of mesh area networks which could in theory obviate the need for ISP's altogether.
It is hard for them to be threatened by something that exists only "in theory" and will probably stay that way for a long time. A working mesh network requires a density of devices that isn't likely to happen outside a dense urban area, and even then the buildings necessary to pack that many people into an area would be a hindrance to the signals the network would need to work.
People are just not going to buy new wireless devices so they can donate their capacity to other people, and this will result in a limited throughput for those who do. The only way a mesh network will come about anytime soon is if an ISP does the installation and sells access.
No Socialism means the people control the business, sometimes through government, sometimes through co-ops, worker owned businesses, credit unions and similar. Sometimes the government does a good job such as in Scandinavia, though too often it turns corrupt, as seen in most 3rd world authoritarian regimes, sometimes government is thrown out, such as Spain in the civil war (until the Stalinists showed up) and northern Italy. Actually currently in Spain, http://archive.is/SvI7U
Most Americans forget, or rather never knew, that the first Libertarians were Socialist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Think for yourself instead of the propaganda that has been fed to you by the main stream media, who are all owned by the likes of AT&T and your government, who is also owned by the likes of AT&T.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
our ruling class has convinced 35%-40% of the voting public that gov't can't work so that they could get tax cuts and run the gov't themselves unfettered by voters.
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Stop this Globalist/Fascist economic system I want to get off.
Gag me.
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
the railroads were built by cheap government backed loans and the protection of the US Army.
Neither of these is an example of socialism. Socialism means that the government owns the means of production. That's all there is to it. If the railroad was produced by the private sector, then it's by definition not socialism.
- Government financing is not the same as government production. Otherwise this is the same as saying that if you take out a loan to build a house, then the bank built the house.
- There isn't a requirement to work for the government in order to receive military protection. And in fact most of what the military has is produced by the private sector and purchased by the government (for example, companies like Bushmaster and Colt make most of the firearms, Lockeed-Martin/Boeing make most of the aircraft, Brunswick makes much of the naval equipment, etc.)
Conservative business people, they are the biggest hypocrites. They supposedly hate socialism but when it suits them they let the taxpayers foot the bill for transportation systems that they use for transportation of goods and make profits off of those goods. Who's not getting skin in the game again?
That is like saying democratic business people are the biggest hypocrites because they supposedly love government, but when it comes to paying taxes they pay no more than have to.
but not old enough to be mature.
There are at least 50 shades of gray I'm told.
As a grumpy old bastard, is it possible for us to use our experience to help adopt new systems that benefit most people while harming few?
Or will you try to re-infuse life into the word whipersnappers in you response?
I'm just wondering... when you retire, will you stand on your own principle and turn down social security? After all, you'll take out 3-4 times more than you put in. And what's worse is that you had the benefit of baring a much lighter burden than these little bastards you rant about. Your mommy and daddy popped out kids in full litters. While they worked, supporting one old fogy that lived to be 80 was easy. These little shits were popped out at 2.4 kids per household and will bare the burden of keeping you in internet porn until you're 100.
Things have to change and you will live the last 30-40 years of your life for free... on welfare... because social security is precisely the same thing.
So get over it.
"The people" control the business in the US, where most of us own stock, and collectively control all publically traded companies. But keep telling yourself that Socialism is about the people.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
but not old enough to be mature.
Ad hominem, nice. :)
There are at least 50 shades of gray I'm told.
Agreed. I think you're assuming I'm engaged in black and white thinking meaning conservative vs. liberal. Think again, friend. You know what they say about assumptions.
As a grumpy old bastard, is it possible for us to use our experience to help adopt new systems that benefit most people while harming few?
How do you know you can't do it? If you assert it can't be done, how would you prove such a thing? Think about that for a minute and let it sink in. That came from a former CEO I used to work for who is now an early retired millionaire.
Or will you try to re-infuse life into the word whipersnappers in you response?
I'm not sure what you mean by this...
I'm just wondering... when you retire, will you stand on your own principle and turn down social security?
I have planned my finances around not expecting social security to exist. If it does, it'll be a bonus and allow me to travel the world. If not, no big deal. See? You assumed I'm a type of personal that doesn't take personal responsibility. Think again. Who's engaged in black and white thinking again? It's all economic Game Theory dude. You're engaged in it too. You sent your Bush tax cut check back to the United States Treasury on a matter of principle right?
After all, you'll take out 3-4 times more than you put in. And what's worse is that you had the benefit of baring a much lighter burden than these little bastards you rant about. Your mommy and daddy popped out kids in full litters. While they worked, supporting one old fogy that lived to be 80 was easy. These little shits were popped out at 2.4 kids per household and will bare the burden of keeping you in internet porn until you're 100.
Sounds like more ad hominem mixed in with false assumptions that quite frankly don't apply to me or my immediate family.
Things have to change and you will live the last 30-40 years of your life for free...
No, I plan to live on my own money and if the money is available that I paid into medicare/medicaid/social security then I will certainly take advantage of it. Look, if there was a way to opt out of those social programs, I would do it in a heartbeat. There isn't and that's a failure of federal policy. That's not a failure of citizens that weren't around at the time that FDR's New Deal came into existence.
on welfare... because social security is precisely the same thing.
You could argue this might be logically true or not depending on how you look at it. Look at your pay stub. There are specific line items for medicare, medicaid and social security. There is not a specific line item for paying into welfare. What you're saying is that all these programs are paid for by tax dollars. I think it would more correct to say these are all federal social programs. You're just using emotional/polarizing language because that's what the media outlets like to do to get people like you riled up so you can make them advertising revenue.
We'll make great pets
Fiber to the home can be very fast. And if you're building a new network it's the way to go. But existing cable companies can do nearly as much with a fiber to the pole infrastructure, and do it without the expensive operation of running new fibers to every house.
Cable via DOCSIS 3.0 can already deliver 300Mbps to the home, using its maximum of 16 channel bonding. DOCSIS 4.0 will be able to deliver gigabit speeds. That should be fast enough for home use for quite a few years, and by the time it's no longer fast enough there will be a more advanced cable standard that can go even faster.
What would seem to be more limiting is that the total bandwidth of coaxial cable is lower. It won't be possible to deliver the existing bundle of local broadcast and cable channels (especially once they start upgrading to 4K) and gigabit internet at the same time, though changing to HEVC encoding rather than MPEG-2 will help a lot. Eliminating the wasteful practice of sending both SD and HD versions of the same channel will also help; next generation set top boxes will always receive the highest resolution version of the channel and downconvert as needed for the customer's TV. But it's not actually necessary to deliver all those cable channels to your house simultaneously; you only need to receive the ones you are watching or recording. The key will be a smarter in-home box that interacts with the device on the pole; the pole then only sends the active channels to your house. Users will be able to self-install the new smart box, eliminating the expense of sending out technicians.
The problem is that AT&T also isn't making the investment in doing that. They're basically letting the technology of their wired networks stagnate. I'm not in love with Comcast and I think the Comcast-NBC merger should have also been blocked, but at least they are actively upgrading their network and testing next-generation solutions.
This Susan bint seems like a spaz. ATT just installed fiber in my neighborhood 2 months ago, and now I'm running at ludicrously fast speeds.Comcast was all butthurt, trying to offer a competing "faster" service after I dropped them after 5 years of shoddy "fast" net access. When they realized their own 2gigabit service wasn't available in my area, they gave up. ATT didn't even try to waste time using my existing in house connections (which sucked) and just drilled a new hole through the wall and straight into a modem. Couple days later, they came back and buried everything.