Comcast Acquiring Time Warner Cable In All Stock Deal Worth $45.2 Billion • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by mgkimsal » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 2:02 PM UTC

gorner wrote: post #222

mgkimsal wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but... they only don't compete because of govt sanctioned monopoly status in the first place, no?

Originally (and perhaps still in some specific areas), yes. Most regions have deregulated though, which is why FiOS, U-Verse and Google Fiber TV are able to exist. But the infrastructure costs for Comcast to build out a brand new network in TWC territories (or vice-versa) on a mass scale would be pretty high. For the sake of comparison (Google Fiber): http://news-beta.slashdot.org/story/12/12/08/1810244/nationw...

"pretty high" but they've got $45b to 'invest' in buying out competition, instead of spending a fraction of that to compete head to head in specific markets, then eventually more markets?

If it's deregulated, then they can enter the market and compete on service and price, not buy up the competition so there's no chance of anyone else ever being able to enter. TWC has been pretty active in trying to prevent municipal fiber in NC, and I suspect with even more money/muscle/lobby power behind them, it will be easier to squash any semblance of competition in any form.

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

#232

Post by mkempe » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 2:14 PM UTC

einrealist wrote: post #173

This might be an opportunity for the antitrust agencies, to force Comcast to open up their network to the competition like Netflix. I would not be so pessimistic about the deal.

Will net neutrality be a regulatory condition of the merger?

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

#233

Post by ulfw » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 2:21 PM UTC

00rion wrote: post #221

ulfw wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how would this 'FU ComcastWarner' work in America? Anywhere you live you only have the choice of paying your cable provider, your telephone carrier or your wireless carrier for internet. - DSL infrastructure hasn't evolved in a decade or more. You're lucky to get mid-single digit megabits/sec. I had 0.7 mpbs offered to me in Mountain View by at&t. - Cable is the only speedy one, but they can price gouge you, limi…

municipal internet

Sure. But how many 'municipal' providers are there in places where a lot of the HN activity lies (i.e. SF/Silicon Valley) in say Mountain View, Palo Alto, Santa Clara, Redwood City, Menlo Park, San Mateo, Cupertino, Los Altos etc? It's a small patchwork all over the country.

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

#234

Post by geargrinder » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 2:27 PM UTC

00rion wrote: post #221

ulfw wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how would this 'FU ComcastWarner' work in America? Anywhere you live you only have the choice of paying your cable provider, your telephone carrier or your wireless carrier for internet. - DSL infrastructure hasn't evolved in a decade or more. You're lucky to get mid-single digit megabits/sec. I had 0.7 mpbs offered to me in Mountain View by at&t. - Cable is the only speedy one, but they can price gouge you, limi…

municipal internet

When municipalities offer cable they roll out with a competitive package but often fall behind in technology over time because they are slow to upgrade and have no leverage with content providers. I imagine it would be the same for internet.

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

#235

Post by zerohm » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 2:29 PM UTC

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."

In the past 5 years, I've had Comcast, Insight, TWC, and FIOS. (TWC bought out my previous ISP, Insight, less than a year ago)

By far Comcast was the worst of my experiences.

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

#236

Post by gorner » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 2:29 PM UTC

mgkimsal wrote: post #231

gorner wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Originally (and perhaps still in some specific areas), yes. Most regions have deregulated though, which is why FiOS, U-Verse and Google Fiber TV are able to exist. But the infrastructure costs for Comcast to build out a brand new network in TWC territories (or vice-versa) on a mass scale would be pretty high. For the sake of comparison (Google Fiber): http://news-beta.slashdot.org/story/12/12/08/1810244/nationw...

"pretty high" but they've got $45b to 'invest' in buying out competition, instead of spending a fraction of that to compete head to head in specific markets, then eventually more markets? If it's deregulated, then they can enter the market and compete on service and price, not buy up the competition so there's no chance of anyone else ever being able to enter. TWC has been pretty active in trying to prevent municipal…

It's an all-stock deal though. Comcast isn't actually paying any money (in fact I believe they still have a significant amount of debt from buying NBC), instead they're proposing giving TWC shareholders the equivalent of $45B in new Comcast shares in exchange for giving up their collective ownership of TWC.

But yeah, Comcast and TWC's recent lobbying efforts in general sound pretty suspect. Not defending that aspect by any means.

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

#237

Post by jader201 » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 2:31 PM UTC

suprgeek wrote: post #11

If this merger goes thru, (and the AnitTrust people would have to be really asleep at the wheel for that) two things are certain: 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"

As someone who bailed cable/satellite a long time ago in favor of OTA broadcast, I'm personally less concerned about the impacts this will have on cable vs. the impacts this would have on cable broadband internet (though I definitely agree with concerns expressed over the impacts of cable).

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.

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

#238

Post by rjbwork » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 2:37 PM UTC

00rion wrote: post #220

ulfw wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how would this 'FU ComcastWarner' work in America? Anywhere you live you only have the choice of paying your cable provider, your telephone carrier or your wireless carrier for internet. - DSL infrastructure hasn't evolved in a decade or more. You're lucky to get mid-single digit megabits/sec. I had 0.7 mpbs offered to me in Mountain View by at&t. - Cable is the only speedy one, but they can price gouge you, limi…

We could all pressure our local governments to provide municipal internet. Many cities have already created services that are much faster too.

Unless/until the state or local governments pass laws that make that illegal and grant even stronger de facto monopolies to the cable companies.

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

#239

Post by b3b0p » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 2:52 PM UTC

I don't have access to Time Warner or Comcast. I currently have Cox and I have never had Time Warner or Comcast my entire life. I have only read online from sites like Hacker News or Ars Technica in the comments about how bad it is.

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.

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

#240

Post by _mulder_ » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 2:56 PM UTC

coldcode wrote: post #230

kjhughes wrote: post #226

If you're wondering how this could possibly go through, see another WSJ article on the topic: "Comcast, Time Warner Deal to Spark Regulatory Debate, Outcome Uncertain" 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 F…

That's why the cable industry put this guy into that job, to make deals like this easy as pie. Soon we will have The Cable Company and The Phone Company. Or maybe just The Company.

Competition Theory does suggest every market tends towards a Monopoly position. As companies get bigger and bigger, they acquire one another, until eventually there's only one huge 'Company' left. Of course, that's one reason why the free market is regulated.