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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

#301

Post by __david__ »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #284
__david__ wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I do see signs on side streets all the time that say "no trucks over 3 tons". And I've seen parking signs that had incomprehensible terms. I agree with your position, but I think your analogy is tortured.

I also see police on the roads, that prevent random lunatics from driving while tripping balls and ramming into my ass at 150 km/h during my morning commute. I think that's also a function of government. Secondly, if you think the "no trucks over 3 tons" signs impinge on your "liberty", then go ahead and drive a 25 ton truck down that road, see what happens. I'm having this discussion about "liberty" versus common se…

I certainly never said "no trucks over 3 tons" impinges anyone's liberty. I was implying that "no trucks over 3 tons" is equivalent to saying "no one is allowed to consume more than X amount of bandwidth" on my public pipe, which is exactly how the network providers are going to couch their arguments when trying to strangle Netflix.

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

#302

Post by D9u »

Damn! I finally got an acceptable deal from Oceanic Time Warner @ $60 a month for "up to 30 Mbit/sec" with no data cap. (I often see speeds over 50 Mbit/sec)

I hope this deal doesn't throw a wrench in my net connection. I live in a rural area with few options.

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

#303

Post by jordo37 »

deelowe wrote: post #295
Phlarp wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've played many games of Starcraft on a Verizon LTE connection. Many (most?) online games have 250ms of latency "built in" to even the playing field for users with ping times below 250ms. LTE latency is usually closer to 50ms

250ms is probably ok for RTSs and turn based games, but would not work for anything fast paced.

I am confused how RTSes are not fast paced. I can't imagine any FPS has players do the same levels of Actions per minute [1] as some good RTS players.

[1] http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Actions_per_minute

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

#304

Post by ahomescu1 »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #282
Shivetya wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well a long time ago I would have been all for public roads, but alas do you really trust the Federal government to dictate what does go down the pipe and who is allowed?

Do you trust the Federal government to dictate what goes down the road and who is allowed to drive? I recommend blind trust in nobody, as a rule. But with the government, at least there's the option of voting against the current office holders. Whereas when a Comcast-TimeWarner super-juggernaut takes over the whole market, what are my options? My lawyers versus theirs? Yeah, that would end up "well".

With the government, at election time, you have the option to vote between one corrupt asshole or the other. With corporations, you can just choose to not buy from them (therefore starving them of money).

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

#305

Post by Aloha »

josh2600 wrote: post #292
Aloha wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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 identical network infrastructure often even from the same vendors) > The identical network infrastructure argument only works if you assume it's a big part of the cost. I don't think that's true, only a fraction of your cell phone bill is spent building or maintaini…

I've been in the industry for about a decade. All of the issues you're talking about stem from the confusion about whether telecom networks are private or public assets. If telco assets are public, net neutrality and network unification are obvious. If they're private, they're not obvious at all. The industry position is to be public when it's beneficial and private when it's not, which is totally rational and emulat…

In my opinion are privately owned, public assets, and while the network is privately owned, the spectrum is held in trust for the public, and duly licensed to the carriers to provide service.

I don't believe in nationalization - I do believe private ownership with open access requirements is a better answer.

I agree in re microcells - frequency reuse only gets you so far - and is only helpful at the levels proposed in very very dense places - like NYC/Tokyo/SF/London

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

#306

Post by Florin_Andrei »

ahomescu1 wrote: post #304
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you trust the Federal government to dictate what goes down the road and who is allowed to drive? I recommend blind trust in nobody, as a rule. But with the government, at least there's the option of voting against the current office holders. Whereas when a Comcast-TimeWarner super-juggernaut takes over the whole market, what are my options? My lawyers versus theirs? Yeah, that would end up "well".

With the government, at election time, you have the option to vote between one corrupt asshole or the other. With corporations, you can just choose to not buy from them (therefore starving them of money).

So, in the case we're discussing here (and directly applicable to my own situation BTW, but that's anecdotal), people will have the "choice" between, let's see... Comcast-TimeWarner and... Comcast-TimeWarner. Great choice, I'll take seven!

Or I could choose to not buy, therefore starving myself of the resources they provide. That's even better!

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

#307

Post by ahomescu1 »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #306
ahomescu1 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the government, at election time, you have the option to vote between one corrupt asshole or the other. With corporations, you can just choose to not buy from them (therefore starving them of money).

So, in the case we're discussing here (and directly applicable to my own situation BTW, but that's anecdotal), people will have the "choice" between, let's see... Comcast-TimeWarner and... Comcast-TimeWarner. Great choice, I'll take seven! Or I could choose to not buy, therefore starving myself of the resources they provide. That's even better!

So you really, really have to have Internet/cable, and they must give it to you cheaply and at high quality? If you're not even considering the option of walking away from them, you're giving them enormous leverage over you.

EDIT: This is the behavior of "rational economic actors", IMHO. If the benefit you get from the expensive Internet they offer is bigger than the cost, it's rational to take it. If it isn't, then it's rational to pass on it. If enough people do this, then the corporation realizes they get more customers by lowering prices (if they also act as "rational actors").

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

#308

Post by elwell »

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"

Get ready for even more outdated internet speeds, YouTube throttling, and underhanded deals for bandwidth.

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

#309

Post by toomuchtodo »

redwall_hp wrote: post #176
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

3) Municipal fiber-optic lines that ISPs can lease access to in order to provide service to customers. Boom, no more monopolies.

So get on it. Find your local city/state reps, tell them you want this, and do it.

Places all over the US have already done so, but someone has to show there is local demand.

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

#310

Post by tobylane »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #197
pelario wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is called duopoly, and is less bad than a monopoly.

A duopoly might help in America but for the rest of us (at least where I'm from) competition is working fine. I can choose between around 5 different providers for internet and/or TV with prices starting at as little as $35 per month for unlimited internet at around 20mbps download speed. I can also choose online between Netflix, Amazon/LoveFilm, free demand services such as BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, 4OD, and paid on…

The $35 includes most calls (all local and ten most-called/chosen national and mobile numbers are free on my package from the last three providers) and line rental. Add another $15 for TV licence.

The competition here is from Local Loop Unbundling [1], where the non-ISP part of BT, BT Openreach, works on the exchanges and cabinets. Rollout stats [2], compare Scotland and London for the rural/city development. There's up to 9 choices in London, I would expect iPlayer would work on all of them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_the_United_Kingdom#... https://www.samknows.com/broadband/statistics/regional

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