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Comcast Acquiring Time Warner Cable In All Stock Deal Worth $45.2 Billion

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Re: Comcast Acquiring Time Warner Cable In All Stock Deal Worth $45.2 Billion

#101

Post by jcampbell1 »

rayiner wrote: post #69
chimeracoder wrote: post #59

Earlier 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…

> 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.

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.

Re: Comcast Acquiring Time Warner Cable In All Stock Deal Worth $45.2 Billion

#102

Post by bunderbunder »

wmf wrote: post #65
beambot wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that simply because they have a "gentlemans agreement" not to have overlapping coverage, so that (to an individual customer) they are essentially a monopoly?

Or cable is just a natural monopoly.

The physical network is absolutely a natural monopoly - the cost to run copper out to every house in a region is fixed, and any player in the market would need to do just that in order to compete effectively. From a cost efficiency perspective, the ideal number of such networks is one, just as it is for electricity and water.

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.

Re: Comcast Acquiring Time Warner Cable In All Stock Deal Worth $45.2 Billion

#104

Post by brubaker »

nine_k wrote: post #66
chimeracoder wrote: post #57

I can't wait until we finally get around to relegating broadband providers as common carriers. 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.

Among other things it would kill Google Fiber.

That is fine in the short and long term if it means splitting the content distribution from the broadband access providers.

Re: Comcast Acquiring Time Warner Cable In All Stock Deal Worth $45.2 Billion

#105

Post by rayiner »

fiatmoney wrote: post #77
rayiner wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building the expensive infrastructure that Silicon Valley depends on to get its cat videos and advertisements to users is a low value add, rent seeking concern that doesn't benefit from economies of scale? Its exactly the opposite.

The most valuable infrastructure that Comcast and Time Warner run is ye olde copper coax lines in the "last mile", often built a long time ago and at a large public subsidy (either explicit or implicit via a grant of monopoly). What little infrastructure investment they do make (eg, laying fiber) is a result of actual competition, which would be lessened by the merger. By way of analogy, having clean water is importa…

Cable companies spend $17 billion a year on CapEx, and telecom services, excluding wireless, spend another $46 billion more. http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/datafile/.... That's a lot of money for companies that are just resting on the publicly subsidized networks they built in the 1980s... Snark aside, most of the modern hybrid fiber-coax network that cable companies actually use today were built after deregulation in the 1990's. And it continues to be upgraded, which is where that massive CapEx comes in.

Re: Comcast Acquiring Time Warner Cable In All Stock Deal Worth $45.2 Billion

#106

Post by bunderbunder »

famousactress wrote: post #3

As a TWC customer I've been long certain based on conversations with others that I have the second worst cable company in the country. So my reaction to this announcement is approximately "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK."

The baseline I had from years of living in a Comcast market is so rotten that I really was deeply, fervently in love with TWC for the first year or so after I moved to a market that they own. It was hard for me to believe that a cable company could really be that awesome.

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

Re: Comcast Acquiring Time Warner Cable In All Stock Deal Worth $45.2 Billion

#107

Post by PaybackTony »

I think I'm seeing some people here upset with the possibly deal because service already sucks (for both companies).

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.

Re: Comcast Acquiring Time Warner Cable In All Stock Deal Worth $45.2 Billion

#108

Post by hueving »

yarou wrote: post #94
hobs wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Actually, they wouldn't arbitrarily price their products that way. Companies engage in a little thing called price discrimination. The only difference in a monopoly is that you are the sole price leader. That doesn't mean you can arbitrarily set the price high. Most cable companies have monopolies thru license in municipalities.

>That doesn't mean you can arbitrarily set the price high.

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

Re: Comcast Acquiring Time Warner Cable In All Stock Deal Worth $45.2 Billion

#109

Post by rayiner »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #101
rayiner wrote: post #69

Earlier 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…

> 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. 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 r…

I was addressing chimeracoder's point about vertical integration. There might be tons of Android manufactures peddling phones, but Apple and Samsung are eating up all the profits because they are verticicaly integrated. That's the major play Comcast is making.

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.

Re: Comcast Acquiring Time Warner Cable In All Stock Deal Worth $45.2 Billion

#110

Post by amurmann »

Can we get a god damn amendment to the constitution that enforced net neutrality and prohibits ISPs from doing anything but being ISPs, already?! The net is part of the infrastructure of our country and needs to be neutral! Anyone who fucks with that should be charged with terrorism.
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