FCC Grants Approval of AT&T-DirecTV Transaction [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

FCC Grants Approval of AT&T-DirecTV Transaction [pdf]

apps.fcc.gov

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"The conditions imposed by the Commission address potential harms presented by the combination of AT&T, one of the nation’s largest telephone and Internet service providers, and DIRECTV, the nation’s largest satellite video provider...These targeted conditions, which generally will remain in effect for four years after the merger closes"

So the commission admits that there are potential harms of merging two large firms, but will only keep the conditions that prevent these harms from happening for only 4 years.

Why would the commission see the potential harm of combining these two large enterprises and yet have time bound conditions like Non-Discriminatory Usage-Based Practices, Discounted Broadband Services for Low-Income Subscribers and Internet Interconnection Disclosure Requirements around for only 4 years?

AT&T is only interested in DirecTV because AT&T's DSL services don't have enough bandwidth to carry simultaneous TV and Internet service. The DirecTV acquisition is a stopgap until AT&T can catch up to DOCSIS/Fiber networks, at which point satellite TV will be mostly dead regardless of whether AT&T buys them or not. If the conditions and restrictions work as intended, then by the end of the four year period AT&T will be on a more level playing field with the cable companies and their conflicts of interest should be managed through industry-wide regulations.

It's hard to believe that AT&T has any serious intention of improving their network.

If they wanted to spend $50 billion they could run optic fiber to 50 million houses at $1000 a house, then they would have a competitive network in every way.

Given that AT&T hasn't expanded speeds or quality for about three years, investing only in highly competitive gigabit areas, I agree with you. AT&T has absolutely zero interest in investing in a generally better network.

My boss told me something interesting the other day. AT&T has been around for a hundred years, and they have ran a lot of copper wire over those years. They also hired a lot of linemen to maintain the copper wire, and they eventually formed unions of workmen that maintain copper wire. AT&T is interested in rolling out fiber for several reasons, but one of which is that they get cheaper labor because they bypass the union. The union contracts are written in terms of copper wire, they say nothing about fiber optic, so the annoying unions can be ignored.

Also, AT&T has been pretty good about rolling out fiber to businesses at least. I can thing of several older buildings with numerous T1 circuits and plenty of pots lines, yet AT&T still added fiber. Every brand new building that I've been in is served by fiber, for internet, phones (pri trunking), or a data connection to another campus. There are only a couple of pots lines for backup. They might not be too interested right now about running fiber to residentials, but they are very interested in running fiber to businesses. It's possible that it's simply not profitable enough right now, but I can't think of any reasons why the technology won't trickle down eventually.

Source: I work as a subcontractor of a subcontractor of AT&T, basically installing Cisco routers and equipment in businesses.

I wonder what the AT&T unlimited TV package will look like. I assume it will be limited to 10 hrs of TV a month, and then once you go over you only get commercials.

You're being too harsh. They'll probably just downgrade from HD/16:9 to SD/4:3 after you've exceeded your 10 hour limit. And you will always have the option to rollover hours you didn't watch last month!

they are getting closer to their final form.

let them keep wasting their profits on old business models, their well will dry up soon enough.

How did the model work for for recording artists?

MP3 killed the CD and Apple replaced MTV. Now the artists don't make as much money.

And I'm sure Taylor Swift was so sad that evil spotify was stealing all of her due profits, so she pulled her songs from their service.

The whole industry is garbage, for both successful and indie artists.

Perhaps that's a good thing. I look at the content market wrt. movies and music and see a thing that would be better off not existing, leaving the field for those who do work for the love of their craft.

> leaving the field for those who do work for the love of their craft.

In their free time, after their accounting gig?

not sure if troll is trolling or you are serious.

Yesterday only chosen artists made a real living; Today more artists can make a living off their music.

Unfortunately, AT&T is sometimes the only available internet provider, and DirecTV the only available TV provider.

Time for me to cancel my DirectTV

I'm waiting for Apple to acquire a common carrier.

Seriously?

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