1) Americans can expect some of the worst Cable price gouging they have ever seen

2) NetFlix, Amazon Prime et al will become really popular as a result of all the customers saying "FU ComcastWarner"

I agree with your first point, but your second point doesn't follow. If anything, Comcast will price gouge Netflix out of business, and we'll be back to being stuck watching their awful "On Demand" instead.

They can do this, because Comcast owns the content (NBC), the delivery mechanism for said content (cable TV), and the only delivery mechanism (broadband Internet) for their competitor (Netflix/Amazon Prime).

On the other hand, the (failed) merger attempt between AT&T and T-Mobile was the best thing to happen to consumers in a long time, due to the breakup fee that AT&T had o pay T-Mobile($1+ billion worth of spectrum).

I'm trying to imagine a similar silver lining that could happen here, though I can't think of any.

So tell me - how does this 'FU ComcastWarner' gonna work? Move to the one or two towns that have alternative internet (e.g. Fibre)?

What they do is they build public roads. You wouldn't allow a company to build a public road, and then go:

"Safeway trucks get a free pass, cause we have a deal with them; everyone else, $5 per vehicle. Except for you, Best Buy, you pay $25 - except Saturday and Sunday, when you may not pass at all."

I agree with your position, but I think your analogy is tortured.

Secondly, if you think the "no trucks over 3 tons" signs impinge on your "liberty", then go ahead and drive a 25 ton truck down that road, see what happens. I'm having this discussion about "liberty" versus common sense with my 3rd grade son all the time.

I recommend blind trust in nobody, as a rule. But with the government, at least there's the option of voting against the current office holders. Whereas when a Comcast-TimeWarner super-juggernaut takes over the whole market, what are my options? My lawyers versus theirs? Yeah, that would end up "well".

Or I could choose to not buy, therefore starving myself of the resources they provide. That's even better!

EDIT: This is the behavior of "rational economic actors", IMHO. If the benefit you get from the expensive Internet they offer is bigger than the cost, it's rational to take it. If it isn't, then it's rational to pass on it. If enough people do this, then the corporation realizes they get more customers by lowering prices (if they also act as "rational actors").

The 'rational actor' model is to economics what spherical cows [1] are to dairy farms. It is a simplifying assumption that is useful for certain general cases, but if you ever find yourself depending upon it in an argument, you're working at too shallow a level.

In this case, though, even if the rational-actor model were valid, you'd be wrong. In the case of monopolies and oligopolies, the rational-actor approach is to, basically, let yourself be screwed by the monopolist.

For example, in my case I'm in an area where I pay more money for worse broadband (ADSL) because I hate monopolists like Comcast. From an economics perspective, I'm an irrational actor, because I'm not optimizing for my own interests.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cow

Work and school are economic investments with concrete returns; financially, you get more out of Internet access than you pay. If you didn't need Internet for either of these, and just used it for Netflix or World of Warcraft (or any kind of recreation), would you reconsider paying for it?

One fat wallet, one million votes.

Makes me wonder if it'll have to get to the point that a municipality says fuck you to both the broadband provider suing them and the county/state courts that allow such nonsense to implement their broadband anyway.

That being said, Targa is famous for playing for a while via a 4g connection in Australia. So playing the game well is certainly possible.

[1] http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Actions_per_minute

Tripilolopopy

Besides, if it doesn't equal bittorrent, what is an amoral person going to choose? I think I'll choose s/stealing/borrowing/.

The best way I can explain it is that it's putting the accent more on "free" than on "market", and it's a 14-year-old's definition of free: "You can't make me do anything! YOU'RE NOT MY DAD!"

However, I worry that the more accurate explanation is that it is a neofeudal structure cloaked in free-market terms.

The competition here is from Local Loop Unbundling [1], where the non-ISP part of BT, BT Openreach, works on the exchanges and cabinets. Rollout stats [2], compare Scotland and London for the rural/city development. There's up to 9 choices in London, I would expect iPlayer would work on all of them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_the_United_Kingdom#... https://www.samknows.com/broadband/statistics/regional

You forgot Universal, which together still amounts to only a fraction of Netflix's content. There's a reason that Netflix doesn't carry many titles in their streaming service: it's already too costly to acquire the rights to stream them all. If Comcast were to raise the price on that content, Comcast could simply stop streaming those movies/shows. Given the size of their library at this point, I doubt any of this would be missed. The "content" you mention is no longer as critical to Netflix's business strategy as it used to be, especially as they move to more original content.

It's not like many of their users could opt for a different service, anyway.

I'm not understanding your point about an alternate universe in your statement. I must be missing something.

If Netflix et al want to survive, they have to evolve from being mere middlemen, funneling someone else's content through someone else's pipes.

That is devil's idiot. I can choose between 4 different cell carriers and dozens of smartphone makers. Many people only have one option if they want >10Mbps internet.

Fortunately I get to choose between Optimum and FiOS. Optimum gives me 60/25 for the basic rate to keep me from switching to FiOS.

I wouldn't be surprised to see this coming soon to wireless. Imagine movie caching servers integrated into the backhaul network instead of going over the public internet. The improvement in QoS would make being a Netflix type entity untenable.

I also don't see how Samsung is vertically integrated. They don't make the OS, the App store, or have content/DRM. They have in-house manufacturing, but Apple doesn't. The two companies are vertically integrated in totally different ways, thus vertical integration is a weak argument for their success.

There is no use for Google to participate in long-haul wholesale. There is a lot of supply there. The real issue is last mile, where consumers have no choice.

But the rules just changed. It remains to be seen what those guys will do. But I agree that the last-mile competition, or lack of it is far more important.

I don't see how a monopoly helps anyone but the corporation, and even then just in dollars today. Strangling the entire market doesn't help anyone in the long run.

Comcast is different because it already operates as a monopoly in many areas, and it's trying to change the rules so that it can leverage that monopoly, to the detriment of everyone but themselves, and there's not really anything that anyone but the regulators can do about it.

Solution seems obvious.

You can if you corner the market and the good is required like food is.

Cable has a bit more leeway with the crowd I'd imagine, though there'd still definitely be consequences. Just not as dramatic consequences. I'd hope people protest gouged cable prices peacefully.

Comcast should have created the caching infrastructure that Akamai did. Comcast should have implemented cloud backup services. They have the capability to have 50+ Mbps from the customer to their datacenters. This is freak'n huge.

Why didn't comcast create a colo system so that providers could get as close as possible to the customer?

No, Comcast will go down with the Titanic with all of their riches. They have squandered more than they have protected.

what?? Does Apple or samsung have any control on how much carriers charge?

By your logic, ATT wireless, verizon wireless, and other cell carriers have to make their own cell phone and not just be a middlemen that funnel someone else's content on someone else's smartphone.

Not when they're direct competitors to Comcast, Comcast is the only ISP for most people, and Comcast can legally charge Netflix et al out of the market.

No throttling yet

I just hope it doesn't take 10 years for fiber to get to Chicago

Call me a pessimist but I think this will go through. Why? The lobbyists already sounded out (lobbied/paid-off/promised-job-in-future) enough people in govt to feel that this will go through, or at least there is enough chance of it happening.

I bet this will go through, especially using the point that they don't compete against each other (which would be stupid reason to accept by AntiTrust people). They were NOT designed to compete against each other in the first place. They were given geographic divisions by regulators for that very reason.

I don't think that follows. AT&T / TMobile gave it a shot a couple years ago, and that was shot down.

The FCC previously had a 30% coverage limit but that was struck down by the courts in 2009: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB125147230997266951

I think this will go through. Then they will have a huge "content and subscriber" stick to wave around at Aereo, Netflix, Apple and anyone else wanting to play the net content hero.

That's really the play here. Get a ton more captive users in order to better extort Netflix et al for access to those customers, and beat that stick until all their over the top service competitors are either out of business or uncompetitive. Then the real screwing of customers can commence in earnest.

1) More spectrum. But it's massively in demand (read: expensive), nobody wants to give any up, and even if you had "all" the spectrum there are still practical physical limits about how much data you can transmit without using a wavelength that won't penetrate walls.

2) More towers that each use lower power. This is the one that can get you almost arbitrarily large amounts of wireless bandwidth, but it's also the one whose cost converges on the cost of building a new fiber optic network as the number of towers you need approaches the number of users you have.

Neither one of those is going to make for an inexpensive roll out of a wireless network capable of handling Netflix's video traffic to millions of customers simultaneously in the same city.

So if whomever runs your sewer decides that they will not accept solid waste anymore, there is a regulator who will prohibit that from happening.

In many states, the Public Service Commission or similar entity has lots of regulatory authority over cable television, landline and electric rates, but no authority over cellular or broadband. Shockingly, the utilities have invested nothing in the regulated markets for 20 years.

Leasing infrastructure works great in lots of cases.

Places all over the US have already done so, but someone has to show there is local demand.

For cable, we have Netflix, Amazon, etc. as a possible alternative. And I guess for broadband internet, we always have DSL to fall back to.

But Google Fiber can't get here soon enough.

If anything, I'd expect prices to stay the same, because they have far greater leverage over the other media companies.

Obviously, I'm just speaking out from my experience, but how common it is that certain region is served by multiple cable operators? (And that you get to choose from?)

Political influence is a major and underexplored negative externality of monopolies.

By way of analogy, having clean water is important, but water infrastructure is not high-value-added ("buy Water Premium Max Plus! only 79.99/month!"); it's a basic utility. The alternative to Comcast isn't "no internet", it's a public utility wire-owner. Which would provide roughly the same level of service that Comcast actually provides, in the vast majority of areas.

And exploiting a monopoly on infrastructure is almost the Platonic ideal of rent-seeking.

I was going to ask what revenue they were bringing in with that CapEx. Am I right in thinking this means they're bringin in $34,000 million from sales and spending only $17 million on infrastructure. That doesn't look like "a lot of money" in relative terms - I must be misreading those figures?

I believe in the concept of a natural monopoly for most utilities though - Building outside plant is horrendously expensive - it to me makes as much sense to have multiple cable providers as it does multiple sets of power/telephone/water/sewer infrastructure.

I'd even like to see a fewer wireless carriers (consider that each for carrier are spending billions of dollars to roll out what amount to essentially identical network infrastructure often even from the same vendors - how on earth does that even begin to make sense? We - the rate payer ends up paying for it in the end thru higher rates - economy of scale is a thing, and it works.

Having been in the industry for about 2 years now, looking at the spectrum, I believe that we have enough for two, possibly three really competitive national wireless carriers - as in a complete nation wide footprint. That means 20x20 LTE even in rural areas, plus whatever 2g (CDMA 1x or GSM) tech you need for circuit switch voice, and whatever legacy 3g you need too (EDGE and HSDPA or EV-DO), with the eventual goal of multiple 20x20 or 40x40 carriers once we can replace all the legacy stuff - but consider the current for a moment, that Sprint in Seattle on 1900 mhz only has 20 mhz duplex, and nothing on 800 at all - this is excluding the acres on 2.5, because of the obvious limitations of use with atmospheric issues.

That said - the only way natural monopolies do not become abusive natural monopolies is thru intense and careful regulation - mostly by setting a fixed rate of return for the infrastructure, and then building rates from that.

Your wireless carrier example would be a single wireless network with as many as wished service providers.

This would slow down new technology deployments, but the market might be mature enough to get it's evolution slowed down two or three times without major inconvenience I think (for instance, we'd be stuck with LTE for a while if we go this way now ?)

Consider that for the carrier that I work for - the equipment was installed originally in the 1996/97 timeframe, and while there has been some upgrades for EV-DO - the equipment and cabinets are largely of that generation.

Or by getting the fed' to build and handle the infrastructural side, and lease it to service providers (see: interstate).

Then the expansion and improvement can be added to other infrastructural projects e.g. digging for a new interstate or rail line? Put that nice big bundle of dark fiber along will you? It'll serve.

Compare historical AT&T/Bell System to any of the government owned telecoms in the Americas.

Good thing I'm not advocating government-owned telecoms then.

> Compare historical AT&T/Bell System to any of the government owned telecoms in the Americas.

I've no idea what you're trying to say here.

I'm not an expert municipal telecom policy, so I'm interested in your perspective, but I would propose a finite number of lines that companies bid for.

There's definitely benefit from a natural monopoly in cable, but I'm not convinced they outweigh the costs of alternative solutions.

Wireless (cellular/radio/tv/...) affords some competition.

Wired (power/water/sewage/copper/fiber) affords little last-mile competition it seems like. Unless municipalities made a real effort to make adding wire a simple proposition which does appear to happen in some places (Scandinavia springs to mind for some reason).

These are real issues that keep cropping up and it would be nice to do some actual social and economic simulations and historical analysis to see which models benefit whom.

The classic blunder in my neck of the woods was the British Rail privatization fiasco. Network Rail owned the tracks which suddenly ceased seeing any innovation and funding (so no high-speed-rail like practically everywhere else on the European continent). Train providers get their own non-overlapping corridors just like cable providers in the USA. Don't know if there is a limit to the train provider's size though. Same happened with water. Please correct me if I am wrong or painting this in too negative a light.

Since the most common objection to this is privacy, I propose that the government provide the infrastructure (fiber, airwaves, satellites, etc) and that the use of that infrastructure have strong privacy guarantees and the protections of the existing unalienable rights in the forth amendment of the constitution:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

ISPs already have strict privacy guidelines, and if anyone thinks that corporations act to insulate users from government surveillance, they are fooling themselves. The protections must start with government itself and require constant vigilance. With regard to the commons, the profit motive should be limited to government contractors in service to the people, not the other way around.

What was once a state of the art network, the first all-digital telephone system, is now worse than what they're deploying in Eastern Europe. Prices have never been higher for a service that should be cheaper.

How do they even charge for long-distance voice calls these days? It's borderline criminal.

Or better yet, having the natural monopoly infrastructure, narrowly defined, run by local government and rented out at standard rates to all private service providers.... You know, have the city run roads, not taxi cabs.

The same thing could be done here regarding the internet component. City and local governments could set up last mile infrastructure and rent out access to these lines to ISP's....

That's how things work here in Brazil, some cities have 2 DSL providers or 2 cable providers. Big capitals may have both, and fiber. Also, there are a bunch o local radio providers.

It is way better for the consumer, as all of them suck and at least you can choose the least sucking one.

Telecom infrastructure is very different from electricity/gas/water/sewer infrastructure.

The identical network infrastructure argument only works if you assume it's a big part of the cost. I don't think that's true, only a fraction of your cell phone bill is spent building or maintaining the network.

The tiny cost savings we would get by eliminating competition in Wireless aren't worth the huge increases in cost we'd undoubtedly have to pay in extra profit to those same organizations.

We only have to look at Cable / DSL to see how that ends. Or look at wireless carrier pricing before T-Mobile woke up and actually started to compete. It's not a coincidence that Sprint, AT&T and Verizon all dropped their prices as soon as T-Mobile woke up. They aren't eating those costs, every non-Sprint carrier can drop prices and still record millions of dollars in profit, even with their existing spectrum footprint, because their primary infrastructure costs are actually very low in comparison to the rates they charge for service.

- - -

> Having been in the industry for about 2 years now, looking at the spectrum, I believe that we have enough for two, possibly three really competitive national wireless carriers - as in a complete nation wide footprint

I don't know where you get that. We have four carriers now, and none of them are hurting for spectrum, except in a handful of specific markets that are interrupted by other players or outside forces.

Seattle, for instance, has plenty of spectrum. However, some of it is being hoarded for speculation (Allen/Vulcan Inc sitting on 700a in Seattle and Portland comes to mind, or Dish sitting on nationwide AWS, or Sprint sitting on tons of 2.5ghz). If the unused spectrum becomes used, and the smaller carriers like US Cellular / Leap / Cincinnati Bell merge into T-Mobile / Sprint, everyone has a pretty decent playing field in every market nationwide, and there's plenty of spectrum for 4 nationwide carriers nationwide.

- - -

> but consider the current for a moment, that Sprint in Seattle on 1900 mhz only has 20 mhz duplex, and nothing on 800 at all - this is excluding the acres on 2.5, because of the obvious limitations of use with atmospheric issues.

If your in the industry, you know that Sprint's problems are not spectrum related, they're all execution related. Sprint's got plenty of capacity on spectrum, they are just too cheap to deploy it properly. Seattle is a perfect example of this.

There are no "atmosphereic issues" with 2.5. There's no issues with 2.5, period. The only issue is Sprint trying to pretend 2.5ghz is 800mhz, and deploying 2.5 as if it is as low as 800mhz. The spectrum is not at fault, Sprint is.

Seattle's a major market, there's no reason downtown Seattle doesn't have Sprint small-cell 2.5 radios on every street intersection in the whole city - it would allow Sprint to offer multiple 20x20 LTE carriers on 2.5ghz to work properly, even indoors, throughout the majority of the city. Sprint phones shouldn't be using data over PCS in the urban area, except in the most strenuous of situations (deep underground).

Seattle's density supports this deployment, the tech is easily available, off the shelf equipment. Sprint's just not executing properly. Hopefully, SoftBank forces them to wake up and care about fixing their service.

You missed the other argument I made, you know at the bottom. If pricing was regulated - as in the old days, based on rate of return - this strategy would work, if the carriers are left up to their own devices, they will just try to extract the greatest dollar they can out of the rate paying public.

- - - >> Having been in the industry for about 2 years now, looking at the spectrum, I believe that we have enough for two, possibly three really competitive national wireless carriers - as in a complete nation wide footprint > I don't know where you get that. We have four carriers now, and none of them are hurting for spectrum, except in a handful of specific markets that are interrupted by other players or outside forces. > Seattle, for instance, has plenty of spectrum. However, some of it is being hoarded for speculation (Allen/Vulcan Inc sitting on 700a in Seattle and Portland comes to mind, or Dish sitting on nationwide AWS, or Sprint sitting on tons of 2.5ghz). If the unused spectrum becomes used, and the smaller carriers like US Cellular / Leap / Cincinnati Bell merge into T-Mobile / Sprint, everyone has a pretty decent playing field in every market nationwide, and there's plenty of spectrum for 4 nationwide carriers nationwide.

2.5 works great in a dense metro area, where you have the customers required to support the density to pay for the much higher required number of cell sites, clearwire has done wonders with it. 2.5 doesnt work anywhere near as well outside the urban core. I read a study that right now there is 350 mhz of spectrum nation wide for cellular/mobile - I did a back of the napkin and figure you need about 100 mhz in a market (the largest ones) to make it really viable (by viable I mean wired equivalent speeds).

I personally believe in something of a use it or loose it concept for spectrum, either offer service on it, or you loose the right to do so, it's a public resource, not private property.

- - - >> but consider the current for a moment, that Sprint in Seattle on 1900 mhz only has 20 mhz duplex, and nothing on 800 at all - this is excluding the acres on 2.5, because of the obvious limitations of use with atmospheric issues. > If your in the industry, you know that Sprint's problems are not spectrum related, they're all execution related. Sprint's got plenty of capacity on spectrum, they are just too cheap to deploy it properly. Seattle is a perfect example of this. > There are no "atmosphereic issues" with 2.5. There's no issues with 2.5, period. The only issue is Sprint trying to pretend 2.5ghz is 800mhz, and deploying 2.5 as if it is as low as 800mhz. The spectrum is not at fault, Sprint is. Seattle's a major market, there's no reason downtown Seattle doesn't have Sprint small-cell 2.5 radios on every street intersection in the whole city - it would allow Sprint to offer multiple 20x20 LTE carriers on 2.5ghz to work properly, even indoors, throughout the majority of the city. Sprint phones shouldn't be using data over PCS in the urban area, except in the most strenuous of situations (deep underground). > Seattle's density supports this deployment, the tech is easily available, off the shelf equipment. Sprint's just not executing properly. Hopefully, SoftBank forces them to wake up and care about fixing their service.

There are most certainly more atmospheric issues with 2.5 compared to 1900, in so much as higher frequency brings more atmospheric attenuation. That aside - Sprint has not even begun 2.5 deployment yet, not even close, none of the NV sites have 2.5 on the tower, and the only 2.5 is the legacy clearwire network, and if you look at the NV documentation thats been leaked/released it shows that Sprint is expecting a lower overall footprint for 2.5 compared to either 1900 or 800 (in the markets that have enough 800 mhz spectrum to be viable) - without the PCS G-Block Sprint would have a hell of a time deploying LTE.

Another factor complicating the LTE deployment, I've been told that EV-DO Carrier demand is well outstripping LTE demand - even in areas where LTE is fully turned up - I suspect this is because of the demand MNVO's place on Sprints network - I was also told that something like 20-40% of the devices on the network are 1x only (I wish I could remember the exact number, I know it was large enough to surprise the hell out of me).

Supposedly microcells are part of the future planning for Sprint, but nothing is past the post yet, which will solve the problems in the downtown core. The problem of course is out in the suburbs which is where the majority of the population lives - the density is simply not present to make microcells pay, you need more spectrum at 1900 or 800 to really make it fly, and even if you had more 1900, in many places you'd still need more infill sites to make it really work.

For what its worth, no one up here is doing wide deployment of microcells, unless you count all the in-building systems out there, they are sort of the exception.

The solution is to nationalize the infrastructure and privatize the access but this is politically a non-starter. We will always have a compromise because of the quasi-public/private partnership that is infrastructure. It is better to treat this as a condition of the game theory that governs our universe than it is to complain about the lack of fairness in the system.

As far as microcells, they don't really solve the problem of spectrum in aggregate only for individuals and they're, at best, a stopgap solution. Proximal networking is a potential alternative worthy of consideration, but that's at least a few years away right now.

Source: I'm a Sprint MVNO and a Telco nut.

I don't believe in nationalization - I do believe private ownership with open access requirements is a better answer.

I agree in re microcells - frequency reuse only gets you so far - and is only helpful at the levels proposed in very very dense places - like NYC/Tokyo/SF/London

http://www.businessinsider.com/comcast-to-buy-time-warner-ca...

This is crazy I don't see how this can get past any sort of anti-trust. Particularly with Comcast's stake in NBC. Comcast would own both the content and distribution of too large a chunk of the broadcast industry.

https://www.google.com/search?q=http://online.wsj.com/news/a...

Well, this might be one way it goes through.

Upshot being. . . yeah, Comcast is so heinous that simply spending any amount of time in contact with them will actually warp your mind.

Nothing in your life has prepared you for Comcast.

Now we could be back with ... Comcast? Yuk. Hey as long as they don't mess with our current unlimited plan with TWC, I guess we can deal with them.

As it turns out that is incorrect. The higher price is an arbitrary number, not the retail value of the package.

I asked a TWC representative once where on their website I can find the retail price of their plans and his response was "You won't find them anywhere."

By far Comcast was the worst of my experiences.

At the very least, we need a broadband version of Glass-Steagall, which forces ISPs, cable companies, and content providers to be separate entities.

The current situation is laughably awful for consumers. I can't imagine a single informed customer actually supporting the status quo.

Just wait till Aereo gets screwed in their Supreme Court case. Then we really will be.

In fact no matter which way they rule in Aereo's case we are screwed. If they rule in favor of Aereo the content companies (Comcast owns NBC) will just start taking content "cable only".

The courts having upheld a decision on what the current law says doesn't really preclude the passing of a new law - the only time court decisions trump legislation is when the Constitution comes into play.

Also, the DOJ does not have sole authority to challenge. Here is the breakdown for telecommunications (taken from DOJ website, http://www.justice.gov/atr/icpac/3b.htm)

  Telecommunications. Mergers involving telecommunications    
  service providers usually are subject to competition policy 
  review or challenge by:


  One of the federal antitrust agencies (only the DOJ has 
  jurisdiction to review mergers involving telephone 
  companies; both the DOJ and the FTC have reviewed mergers 
  between cable television firms);

  The Federal Communications Commission (FCC);(8)

  The PSC of each state in which the parties do business 
  (although most state PSCs lack jurisdiction over cable   
  television mergers and some lack jurisdiction over mergers);

  In the case of cable television, county and municipal   
  authorities with responsibility for granting and overseeing 
  cable franchise agreements;

  The attorney general of each state in which the merging 
  parties do business; and

  Private entities such as competitors to the merging parties.
  As with mergers involving electric power firms, review by 
  any of these entities is nonexclusive. Approval of a 
  transaction by one entity does not preclude a separate 
  challenge by any of the other entities, nor does it bar 
  another entity from seeking adjustments that exceed 
  concessions that resolved the concerns of other bodies.

What's different is that electricity tends to be heavily regulated, and water is generally a public utility. Cable providers are historically under no such constraint, because we tend to think of them as television content providers first and foremost, and the TV bit of the business is not a natural monopoly. Unfortunately that is where they make their money, and that leads to some really obnoxious behavior, including price gouging people who want their network services but not a TV content subscription.

Probably the best solution would be to go the same route that many other countries do and require network operators to share network bandwidth with anyone who can pay for it. That would allow us to re-instate market competition on top of the bit where it cannot occur naturally, while still allowing them to maintain their regularly scheduled TV industry whatever-ness.

In the US, this fact was pretty clearly demonstrated when the regulatory overhaul of the telephone industry in the 1990s introduced competition by requiring owners of the local copper to share it, and also by how people are able to choose their long distance carrier. The latter would be analogous to being able to choose among any number of ISPs while still using the same copper to handle the last mile.

Unfortunately, cable companies live under a different set of regulations, so the same rules don't apply to them. Meanwhile the industry progressed to the point that in many markets companies that were once just cable and phone companies now offer the same menu of services. But the law hasn't changed to keep up with that, so the net result is that we've got a regulatory regime that cripples an already anemic competitive environment by arbitrarily giving an enormous advantage to only one of the players.

http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702304...

Summary: On the one hand, there are the obvious consumer concerns about the impact on pricing and service if the two largest cable companies were to merge. Besides Justice Department and Federal Communications Commission review, Congress will likely seek hearings where they can be seen being involved in such a high profile matter. On the other hand, Comcast successfully practiced completing the 2009 acquisition of NBCUniversal from GE by agreeing to a wide array of commitments with the Justice Department, FCC, and state attorney generals.

Article concludes that the acquisition may well go through: "This is the first major merger review under new FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, who once served as the cable industry's top lobbyist. Mr. Wheeler suggested in 2011 the Commission should have allowed AT&T to buy T-Mobile in exchange for agreeing to a new slate of regulations. Lawyers and analysts in Washington believe Comcast could similarly secure the Commission's approval by expanding its existing regulatory commitments."

It certainly feels like little else than a handshake deal to create a monopoly.

You might think the share holders. Not correct. Though they don't lose.

Think: the law firms handling the deal. This type of deal is worth millions in fees; banks - both investment (for finding the cash) and traditional (for providing the cash); and the governments which would levy taxes and fees. And of course anything below the public view (kick-backs, trips, outright campaign donations). I mean it's no surprise they picked a campaign year to merge. ;) The companies have probably been talking about this for at least a year.

It might not go through. If there is enough back lash from other companies. Happened with ATT recently. What will matter are other content providers (Disney, Fox, Viacom, etc etc) - though it wouldn't surprise me if they get certain guarantees they we won't know about.

Netflix doesn't really have any muscle on the ground to fight this. But if they could form a coalition of sorts, with the likes of Amazon, Google, Apple, FB, Twitter, (maybe even) MS and Sony (they have a stake in this too), etc, etc - combined they'd be a formidable force that Commcast/TM would have to deal with.

And then there's us. But I hold little hope for the american public to rally around any cause. Plus too many are too easily swayed.

My hope lies in a the coalition of net companies I mentioned.

At first, the deal makers: executives, bankers, lawyers, auditors, consultants and assorted advisors.

Down the road... nobody.

Not really much different than how Comcast and TWC are individually competing right now (as their service areas don't overlap). Though I'm not suggesting either one is a shining paragon of customer service or fair pricing (I don't have any first-hand experience to speak of there; I'm in Canada).

TWC has a mere $1b in cash, and negative $22.8b in net tangible assets. Comcast shareholders just bought a massive black hole.

Gouge downward by charging the consumers higher prices. Gouge upward by charging companies like netflix to have their content not be horrendously throttled over your pipes. With such a large customer base, it becomes much harder for folks to resist.

And, of course, with more customers they have more revenue, which better positions them for future acquisitions. Comcast already owns NBCUniversal, so they are already positioned to become an even larger media conglomerate.

How about this? No monopolies at all. If I want to run cable and I get the easements, I should be able to...

I don't want to do business with one of the worst American companies, too bad both my choices are just that.

Customers in areas not currently served by FiOS may be able to get 4G from Verizon Wireless, which is up to four times faster than Verizon High Speed Internet (DSL).

http://www.fiercecable.com/story/charter-recruits-time-warne...

https://news.google.com/news/search?q=Comcast+Acquiring+Time...

Could someone enlighten us with some points of how this possibly could benefit consumers?

Will they have more capital to build out fiber networks like Google has been doing to compete with that? If this goes through how much control can be put in place by the regulators to make sure pricing is not increased, they don't throttle or block out certain content providers such as Netflix?

Even though they server different markets it seems insane that this gets approved from the knowledge I have.

A national Google Fiber is needed more then ever with this potential merger and Net Neutrality being struck down.

If that's how you feel, then this deal is good. One large company can be taken down much easier than two large companies. Just one less competitor Google Fiber (and other up-and-comers) have to deal with.

The part that irks me is that Comcast will own everything from the content, network all the way down to the subscribers. It just doesn't feel right that one company has that much power.

But then again, as a business owner, controlling your own destiny is your utopia.

I must be one of the lucky ones because I've had Comcast for over 10 years and the quality of service (customer service and cable/internet) has always been great. Pricing could be better but if you call they're always willing to give me promotional pricing deals, and there's always satellite TV and/or internet, DSL, or cellular.