One thing I find stupid is franchise. In NYC Comcast, TWC, Verzion and RCN get franchises. Sometimes living a block away from where one used to live means a different provider and you are locked. TWC isn't so badly in the last 2-3 years after the major pool expanison and relatively stable, but in the end, why the hell is FiOS still not available to me when they promised they would have it complete by now?
Comcast Acquiring Time Warner Cable In All Stock Deal Worth $45.2 Billion
81–90 of 332 posts
Re: Comcast Acquiring Time Warner Cable In All Stock Deal Worth $45.2 Billion
#82I hate TWC with a great and fiery passion. I literally shake when I think about the company. And from my understanding, most Comcast subscribers feel the same way about their service. This sort of thing makes me angry, not because I think the monopoly will be worse than it currently is. But because these mega-companies have so much power and influence that they can make their own laws. A free and open internet simply doesn't stand a chance against that much money. Because all of the protests will happen online. And if I'm ComWarner and I see a site protesting me what am I going to do? I'm going to ban hammer them. And if the public complains about it the I'll slip some judges a few mil each to get them to interpret the law in my favor. And that's the simple fact: America is one of the most corrupt countries. If not the most corrupt. Because our law makers at every level are in the pockets of billionaires.
Re: Comcast Acquiring Time Warner Cable In All Stock Deal Worth $45.2 Billion
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google has threatened to go nuclear over net neutrality and open up their dark fiber network should things get ugly. Google has more fiber than most any one single company in the us and could be a legitimate threat should comwarner try to call their bluff. I have a feeling google would win that fight
I would love to see Google enter that fight instead of trying to regulate their competition away. Not because I'm that anti regulation, but because I don't appreciate the irony of Silicon Valley always bitching about regulation, but then demanding that the government create an artificial reality where owning the pipes doesn't give you a natural competitive advantage.
Would you appreciate it if one supermarket bought all the food and then price gouged you 100 dollars for meat?
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.
Re: Comcast Acquiring Time Warner Cable In All Stock Deal Worth $45.2 Billion
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 cont…
To play devil's advocate, what it means is that Comcast has the better business model. After all, that's why Apple and Samsung dominate the cellular industry. iApps running on iOS running on an iPhone using an Apple A7 offers the ability to optimize the user experience and integrate the layers that vendors doing things piecemeal can't match. If Netflix et al want to survive, they have to evolve from being mere middle…
Comcast is relying on last mile monopoly. Samsung/Apple have alternatives.
Re: Comcast Acquiring Time Warner Cable In All Stock Deal Worth $45.2 Billion
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
To play devil's advocate, what it means is that Comcast has the better business model. After all, that's why Apple and Samsung dominate the cellular industry. iApps running on iOS running on an iPhone using an Apple A7 offers the ability to optimize the user experience and integrate the layers that vendors doing things piecemeal can't match. If Netflix et al want to survive, they have to evolve from being mere middle…
Google has threatened to go nuclear over net neutrality and open up their dark fiber network should things get ugly. Google has more fiber than most any one single company in the us and could be a legitimate threat should comwarner try to call their bluff. I have a feeling google would win that fight
Citation?
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.
Re: Comcast Acquiring Time Warner Cable In All Stock Deal Worth $45.2 Billion
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think they compete directly in vast majority of markets and for this to go through they will surely forfeit those smaller contested ones. 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.
> Then they will have a huge "content and subscriber" stick to wave around at Aero, 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 o…
Cheaper and faster urban mobile networks will take over before that reality is allowed for an extended period of time in some protracted way.
Re: Comcast Acquiring Time Warner Cable In All Stock Deal Worth $45.2 Billion
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can confirm that you do. Nothing in your life has prepared you for Comcast.
We had Comcast in Cali, in Texas TW was a breath of fresh air, about 3 years ago all these weird fees kept showing up. A year ago we were fed up and dropped all but Internet, went digital TV OTA (over the air) plus Roku and Netflix (my brother clued me in that Netflix actually had streaming now). Roku has some interesting channels we never got on any cable. Now we could be back with ... Comcast? Yuk. Hey as long as t…
Have you ever noticed the prices on the TWC site for new subscribers? How they say something like "down from." What does that mean to you? To me, it means the regular price is one thing but that new subscribers get a deal.
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."
Re: Comcast Acquiring Time Warner Cable In All Stock Deal Worth $45.2 Billion
#88Who benefits from large corporate mergers like this? What does an all stock deal mean at that kind of magnitude? It certainly feels like little else than a handshake deal to create a monopoly.
In a word, shareholders. Many won't benefit but there is money in this sort of deal and it is likely going to the business owners.
Re: Comcast Acquiring Time Warner Cable In All Stock Deal Worth $45.2 Billion
#89The Obama Administration had better prod some serious anti-trust consideration on this -- not to mention Congress.
The NBC deal a couple of years ago, and now this?
Meantime, my Crapcast service contains consistently more crap (as opposed to quality), for consistently more money.
Step by step, this country is flushing itself down the tubes. Ha... bit of an unintended pun, there. Fitting.
Re: Comcast Acquiring Time Warner Cable In All Stock Deal Worth $45.2 Billion
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Looks like a VPN service for a few dollars more could let people circumvent the throttling.
Sort of. I stream from Apple TV so this doesn't work for me and it shouldn't be required :P
You might have to install dd-wrt on a router beefy enough to run a VPN client. That way your ATV doesn't need to understand VPN.