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Comcast to buy Time Warner Cable for $45 billion (USA Today)


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what most people don't understand about the cable indestry, is they are almost always "RE" broadcasting someone elses signal. so that being said broadcast companies have been pushing cable companies around for the last 10 yeas. in some cases asking for a 500% raise in revenue case in point when i worked for insight communications "the game show network" said "pay us 400% more or we won't let you broadcast our signal anymore" insight thankfully said bye bye GSN another network that costs absolutely TOO much is ESPN which makes up about 1/4 of what we all pay for our cable bill. most cable companies lose money on "Cable" but internet and phone are theirs and its 100% pure profit, hence the reason why double play offers and triple play offers are often less then having cable by itself. i currently work for comcast through a contractor servicing the greater boston market and western new england market that includes states like CT NH NY ME. currently if you have just cable, every channel will cost you around 170 dollars plus tax. every channel plus 50 meg internet plus unlimited phone costs 167 plus tax both  packages are 1 DVR HD and every channel and just so everyone knows ESPN cost to insight was 57 dollars per subscriber i don't know what it costs time warner or comcast but it wouldn't be hard to guess that its close to the same if not more as the number i have is from 4 years ago 

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just so everyone knows ESPN cost to insight was 57 dollars per subscriber i don't know what it costs time warner or comcast but it wouldn't be hard to guess that its close to the same if not more as the number i have is from 4 years ago 

 

$57 per month? year?  there is no way it costs $57 per month per sub.  it is more along the lines of $5 or so.

 

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/09/27/226499294/the-most-and-least-expensive-cable-channels-in-1-graph

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$57 per month? year?  there is no way it costs $57 per month per sub.  it is more along the lines of $5 or so.

 

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/09/27/226499294/the-most-and-least-expensive-cable-channels-in-1-graph

thank you for the clearing up my confusion on that so it was 57 a year per sub not month back when i worked at insight 

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If I am wrong on that count, I will stand corrected.  But I believe I am correct.  Local governments may enter into exclusive cable franchise agreements.  Or they may choose not to grant additional cable franchise agreements because of aesthetic or logistic reasons relating to buildout, for example.  Regardless, MSOs are not chomping at the bit to overbuild and compete -- too risky for their ROI.

 

AJ

Oh, I'm not saying you are wrong, just that officials who would choose to cut long-term exclusive deals are dumb. A city would be STUPID to tell a provider no if they really want to overbuild and compete with the incumbent cable provider. The economics of network building will almost always prevent the nightmare that city officials and urban planners imagine, twelve different providers festooned through every conduit and pole. That bad ROI is exactly what prevents the number of entrants from becoming too large and discourages competition. 

 

Right up until new technology gives a newly built network some kind of cost/performance advantage over the existing players. Once a potential entrant sees that a new network will have a durable advantage over the existing players, then they can consider entering the market.  

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Dont confuse other cable companies not coming into an area to overbuild with your town or city somehow having an exclusive agreement not allowing it.

 

Other cable companies dont simply because it makes no sense to do it.

 

You do realize if you had the coin YOU could put up your own cable company right?

 

Time Warner puts all of their franchise agreements with towns and cities online at least for my division.  Im not sure what it will show for others who try to access it: http://www.timewarnercable.com/en/about-us/legal/regulatory-notices/programming-legal-notices/franchise-agreements.html

 

For other cable companies simply go to your town office.

 

I chose franchise agreements from two of maines largest cities.  One of which goes back to 1985.  Both state within the first page that they are non-exclusive agreements.

I didnt confuse it i went to the town council and asked straight up when i moved there...there is a request to allow cox in but that has fallen on deaf ears at the town council even with petitions 

 

cox has been trying to get into the town for years but cant get the town council to approve it... it may work your way in maine but out here in AZ it doesnt 

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I had no idea that Mediacom existed outside of Iowa.

well thats not surprising all the Iowa Snowbirds/transplants  out here in AJ probably had something to do with saying hey i had mediacom they worked great in iowa..  i had never heard of them till i moved out here... i thought the entire valley was serviced by cox.  hell even cox customer service was confused by it... its weird.. 

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well thats not surprising all the Iowa Snowbirds/transplants  out here in AJ probably had something to do with saying hey i had mediacom they worked great in iowa..  i had never heard of them till i moved out here... i thought the entire valley was serviced by cox.  hell even cox customer service was confused by it... its weird.. 

After looking at their Wikipedia page, it seems that outside of Iowa they are kind of hodgepodge of different areas.

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If I am wrong on that count, I will stand corrected.  But I believe I am correct.  Local governments may enter into exclusive cable franchise agreements.  Or they may choose not to grant additional cable franchise agreements because of aesthetic or logistic reasons relating to buildout, for example.  Regardless, MSOs are not chomping at the bit to overbuild and compete -- too risky for their ROI.

 

AJ

That was correct until recently in North Carolina. The state took franchising power away from the counties. Now a cable entity has to apply to the state for a franchise.

https://www.secretary.state.nc.us/cable/ThePage.aspx

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If I am wrong on that count, I will stand corrected.  But I believe I am correct.  Local governments may enter into exclusive cable franchise agreements.  Or they may choose not to grant additional cable franchise agreements because of aesthetic or logistic reasons relating to buildout, for example.  Regardless, MSOs are not chomping at the bit to overbuild and compete -- too risky for their ROI.

 

AJ

 

The 1996 Telecommunications Act made exclusive franchises illegal for cable and telecom and voided all existing agreements with exclusivity clauses in place. That year, all franchise agreements with exclusivity clauses were re-negotiated without the clause (though most of them wound up doubling the term of the contract, instead).

 

Most municipalities are perfectly willing to grant more franchise agreements, but nearly all telecom and cable companies have standing implicit no-compete agreements to prevent overlap. Notable exceptions are RCN, WOW!, Google Fiber, and C Spire Fiber. All of these are classed as "competitive cable franchises", and they operate in the same framework that a cable company does. RCN and WOW! are both cable companies in the traditional sense (they use coaxial cable networks and use "cable" standards like DOCSIS), while Google Fiber and C Spire Fiber are cable companies only in the legal sense (being classed as a telecom company would open them to common carriage and universal service provisions on the books for telecom companies). With the exception of WOW! (which has some areas where it has no overlap with another cable company), all of them completely overlap in the territory of another cable company.

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I had no idea that Mediacom existed outside of Iowa.

My dad has Mediacom in Iowa. It's actually pretty decent service and much better prices than Comcast here in Florida. He pays nearly half what I pay and I even bought my own cable modem and Tivo boxes to try to cut my bill. Now if Sprint would just bring service back there (used to be Nextel coverage), I could go visit him again...

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Hawaiiantel cannot get fiber here fast enough after this news. I don't use any cable TV service but we do have uncapped cable from oceanic which is twc. Not looking forward to this merger. Whilst they don't compete geographically there was some element of being able to compare prices between companies and when one brought out a new technology ( say docsis3.0) the other pretty much had to. Sadly since cable rapidly outstripped dsl in speed local pots companies have found it hard to compete,  even with vdsl etc as one you get a mile or two away from the exchange you are back to relatively poor speeds. I would love to see the spur at least fttc if not ftth.

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I didnt confuse it i went to the town council and asked straight up when i moved there...there is a request to allow cox in but that has fallen on deaf ears at the town council even with petitions 

 

But did you request and read the actual cable franchise?  Does it say exclusive agreement or is this simply coming down to town council members taking kick backs and such to vote no?  Does Cox have incentive to grease the town council wheels?  Also, are you saying there is a request to have Cox overbuild or completely take over as sole cable company?

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVhLQIBCckE

 

 

Just saw this and thought it might apply to comcast.

 

No, it is a parody of TWC.  See the logo.

 

Time-Warner-Cable-Logo-269x300.jpg

 

AJ

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There is no no-compete clause.

 

Any cable company can come in and over build in your neighborhood if they want..it would be stupid of them to do it but they can.

The de facto non compete clause is between Comcast-TWC and VZ as part of the SpectrumCo transaction.

 

 

Many municipalities will not grant more than one cable franchise.

 

AJ

I am glad that wasn't the case here where I live. I had the choice of two cable providers here at my house in South Dakota. WOW and Midcontinent. First time in my life I've ever had two cable providers available at my house. I usually only had one...and sometimes none.

 

And the result is I was able to get 100Mbps/15Mbps cable internet for slightly less than I paid for Windstream DSL 12Mbps/768kbps back in New Mexico. And my cable internet runs 90%-100% of stated speeds always, but my old DSL was less than 50% most of the time.

 

I also got all the install and modem fees waived when I threatened to use the other cable provider. Competition is a wonderful thing.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

 

 

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I am glad that wasn't the case here where I live. I had the choice of two cable providers here at my house in South Dakota. WOW and Midcontinent. First time in my life I've ever had two cable providers available at my house. I usually only had one...and sometimes none.

 

And the result is I was able to get 100Mbps/15Mbps cable internet for slightly less than I paid for Windstream DSL 12Mbps/768kbps back in New Mexico. And my cable internet runs 90%-100% of stated speeds always, but my old DSL was less than 50% most of the time.

 

I also got all the install and modem fees waived when I threatened to use the other cable provider. Competition is a wonderful thing.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

Two is certainly better than one. It'll keep prices somewhat in check. But here in richmond Verizon and Comcast are pretty much content to split market 50-50. You'll pretty much pay the same price at either one. Neither tries to push the other for better services. Internet speeds are pretty much the same as well as channel packages.

 

Really seems like 3 providers is required to really push things.

 

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

 

 

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My dad has Mediacom in Iowa. It's actually pretty decent service and much better prices than Comcast here in Florida. He pays nearly half what I pay and I even bought my own cable modem and Tivo boxes to try to cut my bill. Now if Sprint would just bring service back there (used to be Nextel coverage), I could go visit him again...

"Sorry dad, I don't get cell service where you live still. I'll check to see again in three years to see if I can see you."

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"Sorry dad, I don't get cell service where you live still. I'll check to see again in three years to see if I can see you."

If Sprint doesn't cover an area, then it probably isn't worth going to. Besides, it gives him more of an excuse to come to Florida to spend some time golfing, swimming and playing tennis. Not that bad, if you ask me. Isn't it snowing up there? It's pretty much 70 and sunny here.

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If Sprint doesn't cover an area, then it probably isn't worth going to. Besides, it gives him more of an excuse to come to Florida to spend some time golfing, swimming and playing tennis. Not that bad, if you ask me. Isn't it snowing up there? It's pretty much 70 and sunny here.

I like Snow.

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If Sprint doesn't cover an area, then it probably isn't worth going to. Besides, it gives him more of an excuse to come to Florida to spend some time golfing, swimming and playing tennis. Not that bad, if you ask me. Isn't it snowing up there? It's pretty much 70 and sunny here.

Hey now.

 

 

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If Sprint doesn't cover an area, then it probably isn't worth going to. Besides, it gives him more of an excuse to come to Florida to spend some time golfing, swimming and playing tennis. Not that bad, if you ask me. Isn't it snowing up there? It's pretty much 70 and sunny here.

Wow. Cold. And hateful.

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Wow. Cold. And hateful.

Whenever the topic of Comcast comes up, it just brings it out of me. I'm convinced that they have the worst customer service of any company since the history of mankind and probably going forth.

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Whenever the topic of Comcast comes up, it just brings it out of me. I'm convinced that they have the worst customer service of any company since the history of mankind and probably going forth.

No doubt. I have some horrendous stories with Comcast. Everything they touch turns to shit and dealing with them over the phone is pointless. It took me 3 full days on the phone with them just to get my new service setup and to have some issues fixed from their total incompetence. When I say 3 full days, I mean almost 8 hours each day, plus 2 additional days off work waiting around for a tech that never showed up and when he did, he was from the wrong department (they sent the wrong tech).

 

They also spelled my name totally wrong as well as the wrong address, when initially setting up my service. That alone took 2 hours on the phone and another 2 hours to fix.

 

It took another 4 hours of waiting at the service center to pick-up my equipment - and they gave me the wrong modem (docsis 2.0, instead of 3.0) and the wrong DVR boxes, so I had to go back and waste even more time.

 

I really miss my U-Verse TV. I don't miss U-Verse Internet, although it was adequate at 24mbps down.

 

Basically, f**k Comcast.

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Whenever the topic of Comcast comes up, it just brings it out of me. I'm convinced that they have the worst customer service of any company since the history of mankind and probably going forth.

 

No doubt. I have some horrendous stories with Comcast. Everything they touch turns to shit and dealing with them over the phone is pointless. It took me 3 full days on the phone with them just to get my new service setup and to have some issues fixed from their total incompetence. When I say 3 full days, I mean almost 8 hours each day, plus 2 additional days off work waiting around for a tech that never showed up and when he did, he was from the wrong department (they sent the wrong tech). They also spelled my name totally wrong as well as the wrong address, when initially setting up my service. That alone took 2 hours on the phone and another 2 hours to fix. It took another 4 hours of waiting at the service center to pick-up my equipment - and they gave me the wrong modem (docsis 2.0, instead of 3.0) and the wrong DVR boxes, so I had to go back and waste even more time. I really miss my U-Verse TV. I don't miss U-Verse Internet, although it was adequate at 24mbps down. Basically, f**k Comcast.

 

This summarizes how I feel about Comcast very well. I was so glad when I finally had another option and was able to dump their sorry a$$es.

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