Charter Said to Be Near Deal to Buy Time Warner Cable
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
edit: this is actually a more complicated issue and a large part of the blame needs to go to state/local governments who impede progress and competition in broadband infrastructure. http://www.wired.com/2013/07/we-need-to-stop-focusing-on-jus...
Which they will literally never do. They have no incentive to. The absurdly low caps allow them to consistently charge overage fees/print money.
They do, though. I pay ~$50 a month for my cable - if an LTE mobile operator offered a higher cap for even $45 a month it would be tempting to switch over.
These things will matter more as high quality content increases in availability. I also suspect you haven't recently tried to upload any amount of volume (photo albums, videos) on your mobile connection. I'd even consider it dangerous to compare the two, because the only folks I've ever seen consider them analogous are the ISPs themselves and only during takeover conversations, and only in reference to monopolies for service in particular areas (Comcast isn't your only option, you could also use your phone!).
Not to mention how completely untenable it is to play video games on a mobile connection.
AT&Ts UVerse VDSL rollout is flawed (the cabinets are generally too far from customers premises), so speeds are too slow. Verizon has given up with further significant FiOS rollout.
I don't really think this matters too much. TWC and Charter serve different areas, so there is no real change in competition. You could argue maybe there is some changes in bids for content, or perhaps peering and transit, but I think the much more important thing is getting a competitor on the ground.
Everywhere Google Fiber has rolled out (or even said they may roll out) has seen huge service improvements from the incumbents. Instead of bickering over these merges, there should be more thought on how to get more Google Fibers out there.
Is their plan to literally sacrifice their reputation for a few short term profits?
Sad fact.
"..possibly pave the way for another major acquisition - that of a sizable cable or satellite company - to create a vertically integrated business. Morgan Stanley's analysts note that: 'In effect, Liberty would be reverse engineering into the structure of the original TCI before Liberty was spun off.'
This would represent a monumental volte face for Malone. His New Age strategy and McKinsey thinking would have all been for nought. Far from being the freewheeling deal-making machine of its youth, Liberty would be a much more sober proposition. Malone would back where he began.."
The other thing is, TWC is terribly managed, completely inept. Yes I know everyone hates their local monopoly, but I’ve lived all over the US in the past five years and can say with some authority that TWC is worse.
Rumor has it that the rank-and-file at TWC was hoping for the Comcast merger to go through because they knew their own management couldn't fix the company. Perhaps Charter could pull it off? They are the one broadband ISP I have no experience with.
TWC's internal issues are completely and entirely beside the point.
If Charter cleans house I'd expect a pretty big improvement in service quality for TWC customers.
$WORK is a customer & competitor of Charter and TWC, they've sued $WORK for something dumb and lost. I'd still rather deal with Charter over TWC.
There is absolutely 0 chance TWC is worse than Frontier. I've had both, it's not even close.
Charter cable and internet seem pretty solid. Their business phone service has had terrible growing pains over the last year [maybe two years? my memory fails me], with multiple, multiple-hour outages during the middle of business days. Our sales guy told me they've recently decided to implement rolling switch restarts after future emergency outages, instead of trying to restart every switch in their network at once and getting their shoelaces tied together. I told him that sounded like a good idea, so good that perhaps they should have had it from the very beginning.
Basically anyone who can get locate a solid urban fiber backbone can build a network off it, in the same way that https://www.monkeybrains.net/ is doing in San Francisco.
There's no reason a city can't support multiple competing wireless line-of-sight networks, given that they don't face the same high infrastructure cost of wireline service.