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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

#311

Post by wpietri »

ahomescu1 wrote: post #307
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Many people really, in a practical sense, do have to have the Internet, and at reasonably high quality. Work and school being two common cases.

The 'rational actor' model is to economics what spherical cows [1] are to dairy farms. It is a simplifying assumption that is useful for certain general cases, but if you ever find yourself depending upon it in an argument, you're working at too shallow a level.

In this case, though, even if the rational-actor model were valid, you'd be wrong. In the case of monopolies and oligopolies, the rational-actor approach is to, basically, let yourself be screwed by the monopolist.

For example, in my case I'm in an area where I pay more money for worse broadband (ADSL) because I hate monopolists like Comcast. From an economics perspective, I'm an irrational actor, because I'm not optimizing for my own interests.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cow

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

#312

Post by wpietri »

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…

Yeah, it's ridiculous, even to this American.

The best way I can explain it is that it's putting the accent more on "free" than on "market", and it's a 14-year-old's definition of free: "You can't make me do anything! YOU'RE NOT MY DAD!"

However, I worry that the more accurate explanation is that it is a neofeudal structure cloaked in free-market terms.

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

#313

Post by phunge »

pirateking wrote: post #98

Is anyone here familiar with the costs (regulatory and financial) associated with direct backbone fiber access?

Verizon spent an average of $817 per household to deploy FIOS. Though that may not be the stat your asking for! :) Source: http://newamerica.net/sites/newamerica.net/files/policydocs/...

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

#314

Post by einhverfr »

Aloha wrote: post #269
einhverfr wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That said - the only way natural monopolies do not become abusive natural monopolies is thru intense and careful regulation - mostly by setting a fixed rate of return for the infrastructure, and then building rates from that. Or better yet, having the natural monopoly infrastructure, narrowly defined, run by local government and rented out at standard rates to all private service providers.... You know, have the ci…

I don't like government monopoly owned telecommunications infrastructure - I'd rather see something larger scale and privately owned, regulated monopolies are OK, unregulated ones are not.

At what point can you distinguish between a county-run infrastructure and a subscriber-owned coop? I assume the latter would be ok with you?

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

#315

Post by deelowe »

jordo37 wrote: post #303
deelowe wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's pretty easy to do lag compensation on RTSs. You have the server run a copy of the game locally and just sync with the clients. Typically, RTSs have a lot of actions, but timing isn't as crucial. So, if things get out of sync, you just buffer until you everything catches back up again. You can even do things like vary the speed of the game (FPS) without the players noticing much. With games that rely on precise timing as a core mechanics (e.g. a shooter, fighting, or rhythm), the player is going to notice that an action took 10ms and then the next time they did it, it took 20, because they'll actually miss their target.

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

#316

Post by pyro56 »

This merg will be the worst thing that could happen, 1) Prices of the packages will go up what will that do with the people who already have a package with TWC. Will it make there prices go up? 2) Who would trust comcast will all the talk of them throttling internet. Its will casue full chaos and they would end up losing more money then they would gain from the merg.

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

#317

Post by gaadd33 »

dba7dba wrote: post #257
flavor8 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The lobbyists already sounded out (lobbied/paid-off/promised-job-in-future) enough people in govt to feel that this will go through, or at least there is enough chance of it happening. I don't think that follows. AT&T / TMobile gave it a shot a couple years ago, and that was shot down.

In the end ATT ended up paying hundreds of millions of dollars as a fine to TMobile. I doubt Comcast would repeat the same mistake. This will largely go through with the ironic claim that they don't compete against each other, when they were NOT designed to compete in the first place.

Was that a fine? I thought it was a breakup fee common in merger contracts so that you can't have the other company show you all their internal details then you say "nah nevermind" and you walk away with their roadmap/customer numbers/etc.

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

#318

Post by gaadd33 »

yeukhon wrote: post #81

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?

Your options in NYC tend to be driven by the deals your building has made. My building has TWC, RCN and after Sandy destroyed the copper infrastructure FIOS. From what I understand about getting FIOS, it comes down to your building being big enough and receptive to having them wire it up. Most are not very receptive.

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

#319

Post by ahomescu1 »

wpietri wrote: post #311
ahomescu1 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Many people really, in a practical sense, do have to have the Internet, and at reasonably high quality. Work and school being two common cases. The 'rational actor' model is to economics what spherical cows [1] are to dairy farms. It is a simplifying assumption that is useful for certain general cases, but if you ever find yourself depending upon it in an argument, you're working at too shallow a level. In this case,…

> Many people really, in a practical sense, do have to have the Internet, and at reasonably high quality. Work and school being two common cases.

Work and school are economic investments with concrete returns; financially, you get more out of Internet access than you pay. If you didn't need Internet for either of these, and just used it for Netflix or World of Warcraft (or any kind of recreation), would you reconsider paying for it?

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

#320

Post by nostrademons »

valas wrote: post #85
SEJeff wrote: post #70

Earlier 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

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.

That's what Google Fiber is, which is (slowly) rolling out to multiple cities.
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