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

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 8:09 AM UTC

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…

Post by Aloha » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 8:22 AM UTC

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #162

Aloha wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. 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 ident…

I used to install internet for Comcast. I appreciate the natural monopoly line of thought, but I would love to see solutions that worked around it. 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 alternativ…

Post by redwall_hp » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 8:37 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #99

alttab wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheaper and faster urban mobile networks will take over before that reality is allowed for an extended period of time in some protracted way.

I think people are overly optimistic about the ability to endlessly increase the performance of wireless networks. The existing networks make fairly efficient use of the spectrum they're allocated. That means you really only have two options to make it go faster. 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 practi…

Post by serge2k » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 8:48 AM UTC

midas007 wrote: post #131

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…

Netflix partnering with, or potentially acquired by, Amazon to take on other platforms makes sense. There needs to be consolidation and I think Bezos could do a better job bringing in bigger licensing deals.

Post by thedaveoflife » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 8:59 AM UTC

Aloha wrote: post #154

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #97

Does it strike anyone else as curious that the two largest cable/internet providers merge, and it doesn't matter because they already don't compete? It might be a sign that something's odd if the premise is that there's no competition between identical products to harm in the first place.

No. 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 ident…