Time Warner Cable Shareholders Approve Sale to Comcast
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
That said, I think this merger would be a terrible thing for all cable consumers in the US.
1. Disposition of all content assets (e.g. NBCU).
2. Permanent net neutrality with verification + penalty mechanisms.
[Note: I still don't think this would be a large enough concession to make the merger a net benefit to the public though.]
Essentially, as part of the Master Settlement Agreement, the government just said, "You have to put X dollars into this independent anti-smoking group."
TheTruth.com uses web, print and television promote
its message.
As for forcing them to stop + lobby for it? You might even run into some Supreme Court issues, and they might challenge it on free speech grounds. It would be an uphill battle for something that might not even be enforceable (which is why I also said that it's not enough of a concession to make the merger a net public gain).
Regardless, if the FCC is nonetheless going to act as errand boy in ramming this down our throats, it could at least be somewhat mitigated by a well-structured ruling that municipal et al. broadband is legal, permitted, and shall not be impeded including and especially at the state and local level.
If we can't get these corporate behemoths to actually compete against each other, then let others step in to provide the competition. There seem to be plenty of volunteers eager to do so.
Anything less, and people need to start talking about jail time because someone is on the take.
I'd love for you to be right, but if I were you, I'd prepare to be flabbergasted.
http://consumerist.com/2014/05/10/why-starting-a-competitor-...
http://www.wired.com/2013/07/we-need-to-stop-focusing-on-jus...
A couple of years back, this would have been tin foil hat territory. But not today.
Personal story: I live in SF Bay Area and got Comcast. Net was working really slow and got outages few times each week. To get any support I had to wait 40m to hear basic advice like restarting router.
Switched to smaller provider Sonic.net. Everything works, just once got some problem (in last 3 months). My call was immediately connected to competent human which diagnosed the problem in less than 3m. Next day they proactively call to improve one more thing.
Contenders usually got so much more will to do things right than monopolies.
Unfortunately, when I bought my house, it was a new development and while it was pre-wired for Comcast and AT&T, those are the only options.
In the consumer class connections, they simply did not offer fast enough speeds, and Comcast just blew them out of the water. Really wish they'd get their speeds up as I would definitely consider switching.
I can only hope at this point.
#1 is ridiculous and the public push-back has been strong that it likely won't happen (let's pray to God it doesn't). However, in the context of asking for industry-wide de-regulation (that still might go through), a merger between industry leaders, which happens all the time, doesn't seem that ridiculous. Plus, having an FCC chairman who used to be your head lobbyist helps the merger even more[1].
As Thiel said, if they are a true monopoly they will lie and say they are part of a much bigger market.
In my hometown, each apt may at least have two providers with similar bandwidth, but here we have few choices because comcast may hold most of the infrastructure and just no one can compete.
If this merge got approved, over half of US's residential internet infrastructure may under its control, I cannot imagine what will happen. The most expensive internet in the world? maybe.
I don't think the buying power difference would be that large.
I moved here last year as well and signed up for a promo that got me 50/7, their Blast service, for ~$45/mo with the intro rate. It went up to ~$70-80+ and I talked them down to just under $70.
Then they recently decided to double my bandwidth for the same price and now I regularly get 100/12 for their Blast service. I'm in Mountain View and know someone in SF with a similar package. I JUST have internet, none of the other crap.
Their service is what you would expect, and while I fully expect prices to go up on average if this finishes going through, I have to say that I was shocked at what I got for my money here compared to say, Chicago, where there are a few larger ISPs in competition.
Realistically, there is basically never more than 1 cable company per city anymore that I can see. Fiber internet and television is all but nonexistant as an option for the vast majority of people.
Long story short, after this merger, Comcast will be an even bigger media conglomerate with almost no competition in their core business. Expect higher prices and worse service.
That's comcastic.
Here is the anti-trust lawyer's explanation:
Antitrust lawyer here.
For one, we're talking about different antitrust issues. Broadly speaking, the antitrust laws prohibit (1) concerted action that harms competition, like price fixing cartels; (2) unilateral action by a monopolist that harms competition; and (3) mergers and acquisitions that significantly diminish competition.
Microsoft was alleged to have used its position as a monopolist to undermine competition. That's (2) above. Typically, monopolization entails an element of foulplay. Achieving or maintaining a monopoly through normal, reasonable business practices is not illegal.
Comcast and TWC are proposing to merge. That's (3) above. When evaluating a merger, the DOJ looks at whether the companies directly compete in any markets, and whether the merger is likely to reduce competition in those markets.
Comcast and TWC claim that they do not directly compete. That's true, but there's more to the story. Comcast and TWC will point out that cable systems are "natural monopolies" -- it costs a lot to lay cable, and where one company has already laid cable in a given area, it enjoys a huge cost advantage over other would-be competitors, who would have to lay their own cable to compete.
But on the other hand, Comcast and its rivals have also done some dubious stuff in the past that has led to the current competitive landscape. For example, Comcast, TWC, and others have engaged in a number of anticompetitive deals, such as geographic market allocation and customer swapping, to create large regional monopolies. These deals themselves arguably violate the antitrust laws -- see (1) above -- and indeed are the subject of ongoing litigation. But unfortunately, the DOJ most likely would not take this background into account when evaluating the likely effect of the merger on competition.
So when Comcast and TWC say that the merger will not reduce competition because they do not currently compete, that is in part due to the fact that they have already agreed not to compete. It's like two members of a price fixing cartel saying that merging would not reduce competition because, hey, they aren't competing anyway.
We don't know yet whether the DOJ will challenge the merger. The Obama DOJ has been decent in this area; they challenged the AT&T/T-Mobile merger and US Air/American Airlines merger. But neither of those cases played out -- the FCC killed AT&T/T-Mobile, and the DOJ caved once politicians began pressuring the agency to let US Air/American Airlines go through.
Given that Comcast is so well connected in Washington, and in light of the potential difficulties in establishing that the merger will actually reduce competition, I expect that the DOJ will approve the Comcast/TWC merger, subject to certain concessions.
Politics is a core issue when it comes to antitrust enforcement. In fact, I don't think the Obama DOJ would sue Microsoft today. Clinton's DOJ was a bit more aggressive in this area.
Hope this helps.
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2h87ob/e...