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Charter buys Time Warner for $55 billion

bradl said:
Definitely less of an issue than the TWC/Comcast merger, but I think the same issue of Net Neutrality would come into play again.

BL.
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TWC/Comcast basically failed for anti-competitive reasons and there's a good chance Charter/TWC might suffer the same fate. It's not much different then when the ATT merger with T-mobile was blocked. An already very powerful company would become even more powerful if allowed.

For mergers like this to get approved there are supposed to demonstrable advantages to consumers for the reduction in competition and consolidation of power. Comcast and TWC are by far and away the #1 and #2 cable providers so their merger would've created a super-power that no other provider could hope to match. Charter/TWC would solidify TWC as the #2 (more than they already are) which would basically turn cable in the US into a duopoly. Hopefully the FCC blocks this merger as well.

Net Neutrality was probably one of the things shown that could have been negatively impacted buy such a consolidation in power, but there is nothing in the Net Neutrality language that specifically stops mergers like these.

The most interesting merger on the table right now is AT&T & DirecTV, IMO. AT&T wants DirecTV's TV subscribers and DirecTV want's AT&T's broadband subscribers, so this isn't just a straight up consolidation of market share and power like Comcast/TWC would've been. The other interesting thing is that if AT&T & DirecTV merged it would become the nations largest TV distributors (passing Comcast by a few million subscribers). That *might* induce some competition since an otherwise sterile battle of broadband ISPs and TV distribution.

I think AT&T/DirecTV could pass and Charter/TWC could still fail, but if Charter/TWC passes I would be surprised if AT&T/DirecTV failed.
 
rhett7660 said:
Pretty soon we are going to have the big two or three when it comes to cable!
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This is why I'm barracking for Google Fiber where I'm currently at (more than likely not going to happen), and where we may be potentially moving to (definitely will be happening, as it's on Google's list of potential cities). Comcast is just horrible, especially after the NN debacle.. ATT's UVerse isn't available, and that leaves me with Frontier, which doesn't look so good. There's more options, but I haven't had the time to look yet. But I'm hoping Google makes the expansion. Then it's party time.

BL.
 
Century Link just had crews trimming trees by the street I live on because they're installing FIOS to the house.

They own most of the fibre optics in at least my neighborhood if not a small share of the big pie. Pales in comparison to any TW/Comcast deal. Or Charter buying TW.
 
From bad to worse. I had TWC and it was very spotty. I since temporarily moved to a Charter area and modem resets need to be done every couple of days (yeah its that bad and yes, I do know a bit about this as it required a back end refresh). Darn shame there are no laws governing quality of service with heavy fines levied when they charge customers full price for shoddy services.
 
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phrehdd said:
From bad to worse. I had TWC and it was very spotty. I since temporarily moved to a Charter area and modem resets need to be done every couple of days (yeah its that bad and yes, I do know a bit about this as it required a back end refresh). Darn shame there is no laws governing quality of service with heavy fines levied when they charge customers full price for shoddy services.
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That is too bad, I have had very good luck with Charter.
 
phrehdd said:
From bad to worse. I had TWC and it was very spotty. I since temporarily moved to a Charter area and modem resets need to be done every couple of days (yeah its that bad and yes, I do know a bit about this as it required a back end refresh). Darn shame there is no laws governing quality of service with heavy fines levied when they charge customers full price for shoddy services.
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My brother had a similar problem like that a few years ago on Time Warner. His TV also started flicking when HD channels started showing up. Well after repeated calls DNS threating to disconnect Time Warner sent over a old timer tech who went out to the pole and found two shunts on his line that were really old (Time Warner bought out a private ISP that had been running cable since the late 70's) and once the tech removed them his service unproved drastically!

So when you have a Tech come out have him check the box at the pole to make sure there isn't done old parts in it. Also make sure your internal cable are all up to speed and it is a current modem.
 
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