Comcast just made a bid for 21st Century Fox. $65B USD offered to Fox to compete against Disney.
Massive acquisitions and mergers are becoming commonplace.
Netflix and Alphabet will need to become ISPs, fast
191–200 of 284 posts
Re: Netflix and Alphabet will need to become ISPs, fast
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
Difference is mobile platforms, as their name implies, are not geographically locked. There aren't android or apple only counties, there are however Comcast or Spectrum only counties. This means the cost of switching is too high to really be considered in competition.
More than half of households have two or more broadband providers at 25 mbps+; with 5G, the typical household is going to have 2-4 such providers. Two providers isn't a highly competitive market, but it's the same level of competition as exists for mobile platforms, and that seems to work fine.
The current mobile landscape is far from fine. It could be a lot worse, but it’s not great.
Re: Netflix and Alphabet will need to become ISPs, fast
#193Comcast acquiring Fox would also mean they gain control of Hulu -> that would make things really interesting for Netflix, and narrow it's moat - especially if Comcast starts bundling Hulu with it's internet services.
Re: Netflix and Alphabet will need to become ISPs, fast
#194Can Netflix and Alphabet ‘reverse’ the problem and block the ISP that throttle them?
I imagine some consumers would rather change ISP than stop using Netflix/google. (I would but that’s my UK perspective)
Re: Netflix and Alphabet will need to become ISPs, fast
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having wireless providers who are able to provide landline-level speeds means that many markets will go from having one or maybe two real ISP options to having three or four. Competition means that if the benefits of net neutrality are desirable, customers will prefer an ISP (wireless or otherwise) that provides those benefits. Of course, most actual counterexamples to net neutrality are seen as positives (free Netfl…
I really don't get why people think this is possible. Even with microcells and loads of spectrum, you might be able to get 2gigabit/sec of internet per cell, which would be enough for perhaps a couple hundred streams (not including all the other internet services people require all the time). Considering most cells right now serve thousands if not tens of thousands of devices, there is simply no way that wireless bro…
5G changes things dramatically. 5G deployment will be heavily focused on small cells. That means you can go to higher frequencies, because you don't care as much about propagation, and you've got much more bandwidth available at higher frequencies. So cell size goes down, users per cell goes down, and bandwidth per cell goes up.
That still ends up being massively cheaper than FTTP. Getting fiber into peoples' houses is an incredibly labor-intensive and high-touch process. I just had fiber installed at my house. It took half a day to run fiber down the main road about 1/3 of a mile to my subdivision. Another half day to run it 200 feet down my residential road. Almost a full day to dig under my driveway into my house. And a solid half day to install the CPE. With small cells, you'd basically only have to do the first step. You could've installed a small cell serving hundreds of people in the time it took to retrofit just my house.
Re: Netflix and Alphabet will need to become ISPs, fast
#196well that didnt take long...
https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/13/17457244/comcast-21st-cen...
Re: Netflix and Alphabet will need to become ISPs, fast
#197Alphabet is already an ISP, though not a major national one.
OTOH, they could probably afford to buy a major ISP outright quite easily if not controlling one was seen as an existential threat.
Re: Netflix and Alphabet will need to become ISPs, fast
#198I don't think ISPs have any power in this situation at all. They are just delivery mechanisms when it comes to providing internet connectivity. All of the power lies within Google, Netflix and other content providers. Google could one day deny access to all of its services for all Comcast customers. If all of the content providers / big sites band together and do this, then there would be no value in paying for a Com…
That only goes to serve Comcast who then has the possibility to create a product shittier than Netflix and force it down their client's throat.
> That only goes to serve Comcast who then has the possibility to create a product shittier than Netflix and force it down their client's throat.
This is more than just video content. It's access to critical internet websites.
Re: Netflix and Alphabet will need to become ISPs, fast
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The next step beyond the mail was the telegraph and then the telephone. Those were built out by private companies Yes, and no. The electric and telephone companies built out the cities and big population centers, but left 50%+ of the nation without service. Much like today's ISP's would like to do. Some places only got wired because they formed local electric co-ops and what were called "rural telephone" cooperative…
The idea that the industry should self-fund universal coverage is massively distortionary. If we want everyone to have electricity and broadband (an admirable goal), that's fine. The government should build electricity and broadband to places that don't have it (and I'd posit they should do it in a cost efficient way, e.g. with wireless). Forcing the places that do have it to subsidize the places that don't have it,…
>The government should build electricity and broadband to places that don't have it
Except every time a government tries to do just that, the ISPs sue to stop it. Even if they have no plans to provide the service, themselves. They don't want the precedent.
Re: Netflix and Alphabet will need to become ISPs, fast
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
How exactly would the government do it without "forcing the places that do have it to subsidize the places that don't have it?" Taxes are how the government funds those sorts of things, and taxes are collected from everybody. So the subsidization still happens.
All taxing and subsidization is distortionary; but some methods are less distortionary than others. Imposing a tax on "everybody" and using it to pay for a public service dampens economic activity, but at least doesn't distort one industry relative to another. Imposing special, industry-specific taxes, however, dampens demand and investment in that industry relative to the rest of the economy. Take tobacco taxes, for…
>Imposing a tax on "everybody" and using it to pay for a public service dampens economic activity
Yes. That's why we have no interstate highways to move goods around, spurring commerce.
Oh, wait...