WTF Comcast

"Santiago of Escuderia Boricua" (sdiglesias)
04/03/2014 at 11:29 • Filed to: None

Comcast's top lobbyist David Cohen (who skirts lobbying disclosure rules by simply !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ) says he's yet to hear any "rational, knowledgeable voices" objecting to his company's planned $45 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable.

This merger would effectively give Comcast a monopoly. There are other competitors, but Comcast/TWC would have such a majority that they could dictate whatever they wanted and everyone would have to play by their rules. There is no overlap because they intentionally don't compete to have geographical monopolies. They lobby against having any real form of competition like Google Fiber.

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Comca…

DISCUSSION (13)

6cyl > Santiago of Escuderia Boricua
04/03/2014 at 11:33

What cable/telecom monopolies?

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > Santiago of Escuderia Boricua
04/03/2014 at 11:34

Look at a coverage map and get back to us on that. If their geographic coverage overlapped to some material amount there would be reason to oppose the merger. But every coverage map I've seen to this point shows that they compete in very few geographical spaces. Merging does very little to affect competition if they don't compete geographically as it is.

deekster_caddy > Santiago of Escuderia Boricua
04/03/2014 at 11:36

Hmm. Just switched to Comcast at home. My choices are Verizon or Comcast. (or a reseller of them) Went with Comcast because their service is very good in my area. Had them for about 10 years with no problem. Got 25 MB for $40/mo (internet only), will go to $50/mo for the 2nd year. Not a bad price, and most of what we watch is Netflix, which just moved some of their hosting directly TO Comcast, which I think is a good thing.

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > deekster_caddy
04/03/2014 at 11:45

This example right here is why there shouldn't be any anti-trust issues with this merger. TW and Comcast compete in near-as-makes-no-difference zero geographical areas. The two companies merging would have done nothing to affect competition in your area, just as it wouldn't affect competition in 99% of geographical markets in the country.

deekster_caddy > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney
04/03/2014 at 11:48

Yeah, I'm okay with that. Geographically TW is not much of a competitor to Comcast. There are still plenty of major players, Cox, Verizon, umm Hmm. Not really that many big players actually. Charter, Cablevision... wait, Cablevision still exists? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_b…

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > deekster_caddy
04/03/2014 at 11:51

I'm sorry, what? Cablevisions still exists?! It's as much news to me as it is to you!

I'll be the first to suggest that the telecom industry has issues due to the firms essentially being in an oligopoly with too few choices in most geographical areas, but this merger just doesn't do anything to limit competition.

Optimistically, this gives the combined firm access to much more capital and economies of scale to help develop the kind of infrastructure we need to move our broadband speeds forward and into more areas, which has the potential to actually be positive from a competition standpoint and not just neutral. We'll see, though.

deekster_caddy > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney
04/03/2014 at 11:54

The whole broadband industry is close to a monopoly. You have "Broadband" or Verizon Fios as pretty much your only choices. Broadband seems to differ by provider geographically. Verizon seems like your only choice for non-broadband. Ahh hmm, the challenges of a regulated 'luxury' industry.

deekster_caddy > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney
04/03/2014 at 11:57

Hah, just realized the wikipedia link to Cablevision is quite muddled. It's "Optimum Online" which then takes you to the Cablevision page, which is apparently still serving parts of NY.

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > deekster_caddy
04/03/2014 at 11:58

lololololololololol. What is this, 1990?

Their website doesn't look like it's been updated since the late 90s/early 00s:

http://www.cablevision.com/

Santiago of Escuderia Boricua > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney
04/03/2014 at 12:00

They won't invest it in infrastructure, more likely they will just spend it on lobbying to keep competition away. Even all those companies will be dwarfed by the merger, because just the large userbase will give them leverage to do whatever they want, like extorting Netflix to pay up because they can't be bothered to upgrade their own infrastructure.

deekster_caddy > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney
04/03/2014 at 12:02

Somehow I get the feeling Cablevision is kind of like ValuJet. Had to change their name to AirTran to ditch a bad reputation...

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > Santiago of Escuderia Boricua
04/03/2014 at 12:07

That's incredibly presumptuous and would require anyone evaluating the anti-trust issues with regard to the Sherman and Clayton acts to run down a line of reasoning that would withstand very few legitimate legal challenges.

And either way, they don't have to invest in infrastructure for the merger to not be anti-competitive. Interconnecting a series of hypothetical, worst-case scenarios doesn't change that.

Santiago of Escuderia Boricua > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney
04/03/2014 at 12:12

They would control about 3/4th of the market. Content providers will have to play by their rules, because subscribers have no choice but to use them in most cases. How is that not a monopoly?