Comcast Says Time Warner Merger Will Mean Faster Internet

[DJFunk]

Regulators will block it because it violates Antitrust laws.

They can spin out the rural and other steady-but-lower growth systems to the like of CenturyLink, and others. That's the usual justification, along with claims of all the 'synchronicities' they'll bring the general public (mbleh. . .).

Antitrust laws currently exist to provide a pretext for doing what you want, not for acting on behalf of the claimed reason. The principals of both companies have historically been big net Democratic backers, not to mention of the same ethnicity. They're insiders (and in a radically different strategic position from a Dish Network, for instance). Plus, Comcast's NBC News provides leverage because of its policy promotion and CYA silence for this administration. That's the value in top-shelf news, despite its terrible nominal financials. See Bezos & WaPo.

The fun part will be to see if their fellow cronies, eg. AT&T and Verizon, push back. That's where the battle lies on this deal, and the outcome is not certain.

 

[mouse24]

Some of you guys are hilarious. You recognize the corrupt 'justice' system, yet you want that same government to 'nationalize' (ala Cuba, et al.) an entire industry, Utopia to follow. . .somehow. *dopeslap

The reason some countries have lower internet prices is because they have sky-high tax rates. Those countries mostly have suicidal immigration policies, so don't expect that gravy train to last, as with their 'socialized' medicine, which is an obstacle in the best of times and completely unworkable in an empire.

You should be demanding that the government step aside from commerce, not regulate it more (at least as regards telecom). The name of the current game is private profits at the expense of public costs. It is the government itself which facilitates this via crony regulation, under the (false) label of 'capitalism.' It's no such thing. But the relevant parties have you in a heads-they-win/tails-you-lose position psychologically. Your 'alternative solution' is to double-down on your own oppression.

For another current example, look at how the feds keep blocking Dish Network from succeeding in wireless. They (and others) have the wherewithal to bring competition to telecom, yet it's the government that screws them and us--and in the name of competition!

As others have observed (from painful experience), these are two god-awful companies, Comcast & Time-Warner. They're truly made for each other. They'd sink like a rock if the feds weren't running a de facto protection racket for them. Let them make their own way, like adults.

Kudos for recognizing part of the serious problem, but there is a far, far better way.

I really don't understand how higher taxes will make companies not incur internet caps and get rid of spotty connections.

 

[razor512]

Comcast is 1000% worst than time warner. I am lucky enough to have verizon fios, but for a friend of mine who has time warner, pays for the 20mbit package, and can consistently get around 10-12mbit's with drops down to around 5mbit during the evening, but the service is not capped, so services such as netflix can be used reasonably wellif comcast takes over, then the service will likely get worst as the infrastructure in the area is not likely to be improved, but on top of that, rates will go up to comcast rates, and then the bandwidth caps will come into place.though even with the crappy false advertising of time warner, they actually offer faster service for things like netflix (I personally do not use it, but a few days ago when my friend tried logging in to netflix from my house, he could not get it to stream in HD. Other services will work fine, and I can consistently get 50mbit/s down 24/7 (no speed drop at peak usage times of the day), and many other streaming services, can stream perfectly, but as soon at the net neutrality failed, they kicked in the throttling hard. The netflix site needs to be updated again, as getting 1mbit from netflix is a huge stretch.Compare this to a about 3 months back where netflix streaming here in NY, could easily jump to over 5-7mbit/s and had no buffering issues at all.It seems that the netflix performance varies by location, but here in NY, the streaming was good (just wish netflix had proper collection of up to date TV shows and anime)

 

[cemerian]

i just still cant believe you Americans got data caps on internet, its just lol how stupid one has to be to move from unlimited(like most of the world has) to a caped limit, lol guy's dhow could you let them get this far already it like none in America cares about it

 

[sunflier]

I wish I still had my US Robotics 56K v.92 modem.

 

[Jgriff]

@vemem I have Comcast...no data caps here??

 

[catfishtx]

Time Warner is absolutely terrible (Road Runner customer), but sadly, they are much better than Comcast. I await my throttled Internet with a data cap and a price increase.

 

[vir_cotto]

Comcast is terrible, they should use the money to upgrade their failing infrastructure. I call them 3-4 times a week because I have a customer with bad lines, or some other issue causing data loss over their shoddy network.

 

[RCguitarist]

Go direcTV. Much better than the cable companies. Also, there are alot of local wireless broadband internet companies out there that offer speeds just as fast as cable companies but are not big greedy corporations trying to take over the world.

 

[oxiide]

This is the same Comcast that (along with Verizon) is already throttling the competition (Netflix) on their network since the net neutrality got struck down by a sold-out judge. If anyone believes their spin on this, I am also selling Brooklyn Bridge.

I'm definitely not on the side of Comcast, but there is an awful lot of bullshit and outright non-truth in your post. Net neutrality was not "struck down," that's not at all what that ruling said.

 

[childofthekorn]

Regardless if this goes through or not its not gonna change a damn thing.

 

[capt_taco]

What it's actually going to mean is double prices. Comcast was charging $70 a month (!) for a regular Internet connection because they had a government-allowed monopoly in my area. Eventually we moved into an area that had Time Warner, and we got the same exact thing for $35. There is no difference in speed, just Comcast has more ways to screw you with price.

 

[mj4358]

At what point will people stop paying for this service instead of complaining? The best way to hurt a company is thru profits....stop using the service and they will notice and adjust to the customers needs. The big question is....can you go without TV?

 

[mf Red]

At what point will people stop paying for this service instead of complaining? The best way to hurt a company is thru profits....stop using the service and they will notice and adjust to the customers needs. The big question is....can you go without TV?

TV is easy to go with out... but Internet? Not really. Comcast is the only provider where I live and I do not want to use my Verizon phone as a hotspot. 6GB shared per month is not enough to stream on.

 

[g-unit1111]

Faster = lines will be down longer for maintenance and upgrades = more expensive long run to pay for maintenance and upgrades = more money for Comcast.

And what sucks even more than that is I have Time Warner for my ISP as they're the only option where I live - no AT&T or Verizon DSL where I live, and well, guess I will have to live with that.

 

[Some Internet Dude]

"Comcast Says Time Warner Merger Will Mean Faster Internet"At a great new price. I bet it wont be lower.

 

[one_with_shadows]

Here is an idea...it is time for the government to step in and start funding telecommunication infrastructure build out. Then, let Verizon, or whomever use said infrastructure along with other providers. This will create competition and do away with the monopolies...oh wait, never mind. I forgot that Cable/Fiber giants use their lobbyist to ensure this doesn't happen. It'd be pretty terrible if they couldn't charge a ****in arm and leg for their services. Have to keep the shareholders happy!

 

[Some Internet Dude]

if there are going to get that big, they should be forced to provide ala cart service.

 

[Narcissistic_Martyr]

I've had both. Comcast is definitely the worse of the two though not by much. Of course I could switch to 1.5 Mbps DSL for the same price I pay for 20 Mbps but I'd rather gnaw my own leg off so I'm stuck.

 

[caughy]

There is no competition between Comcast and Time Warner in my area of Columbia, SC. TW is the dominant force here outside of AT&T. I have never been a fan of either of the two companies. In Richmond, I had numerous complaints concerning their digital cable. Their internet was pretty good. I've had nothing but complaints with TW. The biggest complaint was that the audio would drop out on a cable channel. Changing channels then back again would correct the problem, but it should not be a problem to begin with. They would also overly compress many of the channels, including the network ones. I remember watching the Late Show with Dave and noticing how the video appeared to have every other frame missing. It was like watching the show with an 8mm projector, The internet was even worse. The DL speeds were okay but the UL speeds were like 386kbs, hardly enough to upload any serious content to Youtube. Even worse, the DL speeds would drop to almost nothing every night after 12:00. This happened in Columbia and at Pawleys Island. My biggest concern with TW is that they seemed not to care about my complaints. I dropped them last year for AT&T UVerse. While not perfect, they are a big improvement over TW. My point is that having Comcast move into the TW arena may not be a bad thing, especially since they have never competed head to head, at least in my experience. We will have AT&T and Verizon keep them honest with their pricing and performance.

 

[cemerian]

Here is an idea...it is time for the government to step in and start funding telecommunication infrastructure build out. Then, let Verizon, or whomever use said infrastructure along with other providers. This will create competition and do away with the monopolies...oh wait, never mind. I forgot that Cable/Fiber giants use their lobbyist to ensure this doesn't happen. It'd be pretty terrible if they couldn't charge a ****in arm and leg for their services. Have to keep the shareholders happy!

the thing is the fiberoptics calbes run all over USA its the last part to your house thats copper and would need and upgrade, the whole infrastructure moved to fiber a long time ago you just dont have the last bit for it

 

[stevenrix]

In my area the only cable provider is TWC, and if the merger deal comes to an agreement, I will either move to another location where we can get google fiber or I will choose the radical solution to stop using the internet.

 

[applegetsmelaid]

If there is anyone worse than TWC, it's Comcast. I have never met a person that had anything good to say about them. I'm amazed how they continue to grow as a business.

 

[velocityg4]

I don't really see why everyone is in a huff about this. In every city/county I know of you only get one cable company. It's not like you can choose which one you want. There is only one servicing your house.This would be a big deal if it was Comcast buying a Fiber Optic provider. Since then they would have a complete monopoly in a region. On that note I'd love to hear of Verizon or Surewest buying out AT&T Uverse. Since Uverse is a joke running fiber to the curb then using existing phone line the rest of the way. Making the fiber optic pointless as the Internet connection is so slow and TV is so grainy at only 5mbps streaming for HD. Which also eats away your internet bandwidth.Then again this could effect the agreements setup between local governments and cable. As they would have fewer companies to negotiate with. Meaning Comcast could setup laxer rules about cable infrastructure maintenance, service and expansion.

 

[cemerian]

i have at least 6 companies in my small town here in Germany