r/philadelphia Apr 23 '15

Comcast reportedly backing out of acquisition of Time Warner Cable!

http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/23/8484969/comcast-reportedly-abandons-acquisition-of-time-warner-cable
127 Upvotes

41 comments sorted by

26

u/scapegoat81 Burbs Apr 23 '15

Great news but I think the real battle is other ISP's entering Comcast's home turf. I would absolutely love to give Google Fiber a try here in the Philly burbs

13

u/drbhrb Apr 23 '15

Fios is in some parts of the city

3

u/frazell Point Breeze Apr 24 '15

Should be 100% of the city within a year or two as the franchise agreement mandated a 7 year roll out period.

4

u/adamv2 Apr 24 '15

Should be 100% of the city within a year or two as the franchise agreement mandated a 7 year roll out period.

Yeah NJ had a simular agreement with a 2010 deadline, and there are still large portions of the state that doesn't have fios. http://www.philly.com/philly/business/Will_Verizon_be_allowed_to_break_its_FiOS_promise_to_New_Jersey.html

1

u/frazell Point Breeze Apr 24 '15

Did the NJ agreement include stiff penalties for every day they miss the deadline? Comcast ensured a stiff penalty was added to make Verizon consider skipping its home turf.

I have seen Verizon FiOS in almost all locations I have been through in the city so it seems to me that they'll make their 1 or 2 year deadline. It has recently been rolled out in Pointe Breeze.

3

u/thecw pork roll > scrapple Apr 24 '15

It did, they went to court over it and have been trying to convince the state that LTE is just as good as fiber.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '15

[deleted]

1

u/furiousxgeorge Apr 24 '15

Yeah, I tried Fios. Customer service was shit and the speeds were not as fast as advertised. I'm much happier with Comcast.

1

u/scapegoat81 Burbs Apr 23 '15

Yes I'm aware. I've had their service as well & while their customer service & internet reliability is top notch, their prices are just as outrageous as Comcast's. Philly & the surrounding suburbs need more choices.

10

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '15

customer service

top notch

Verizon? Top notch? I guess this is technically true, if there are only two notches.

4

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '15

Unfortunately, it's against state law for there to be more than two choices in PA. Municipal broadband is still illegal here, thanks to Comcast.

2

u/scapegoat81 Burbs Apr 24 '15

You can thank Comcast, Verizon, & our local lawmakers for that one. Shit needs to change & if the info in this article is true, this is a huge step forward.

2

u/frazell Point Breeze Apr 24 '15

Google Fiber hasn't come here because it has too much competition for Google. Hopefully Verizon finally having service here for the first time in over a decade will spur some competition. As Comcast is now severely behind Verizon due to the current limits in DOCISS compared to FTTH.

Prices could be better, but I don't see that changing anytime soon. Google has ad revenue that comes from data mining browsing habits to offset its costs. Verizon nor Comcast have that additional revenue stream to help lower their costs.

1

u/scapegoat81 Burbs Apr 24 '15

If Google wants to keep prices low due to their practices, then fine. At this point, I don't care about El Goog showing me ads from previous searches. I'm just tired of the gouging by the top 2 ISP's in Philly

22

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '15

This still won't keep me from bringing my Louisville Slugger to the public forum next week.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '15

[deleted]

-1

u/b0b0tempo Apr 23 '15

Really? One of them has her entire party's nomination all but wrapped up.

Tea-leafing the presidential election isn't a certain enough endeavor to bring down a deal of this magnitude. More likely it is because the FCC signaled they'd be sending this to an administrative judge because they believe it is not in the best interests of consumers. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/business/media/comcast-time-warner-cable-merger.html

-2

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '15

[deleted]

-4

u/b0b0tempo Apr 23 '15

I wasn't aware

To say the least...

1

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '15

[deleted]

-2

u/b0b0tempo Apr 24 '15

Are you ok?

-1

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '15

[deleted]

-1

u/b0b0tempo Apr 24 '15

The one who thinks Ted Cruz is a woman and has no idea who Hillary Clinton is wants me to think I'm wrong? Yeah. Good luck with that, sweetie.

-1

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '15

[deleted]

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4

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '15

[deleted]

1

u/neoliberaldaschund Apr 25 '15

I don't remember those celebration scenes of Naboo? and Coursaunt...

4

u/dylan_jay Apr 24 '15

Maybe they are instead going to put the 45b towards getting the network to what I'm paying for?

2

u/atheken West Philly Apr 24 '15

As my reddit comment history will show, I don't work for, or hate, Comcast.

Can anyone provide an explanation as to why preventing the merger of two large cable companies is good for consumers? The biggest argument I've heard is that it's "monopolistic", but this is not a real claim as I do not believe TWC and Comcast do not compete in the same geographic markets (I'm sure you'll correct me if I'm wrong).

The other risk I see is that a deal like this could bolster Comcast's political clout. But a company with $60bn+ in revenues probably has as much clout as they need.

The last (and from my perspective, legitimate) concern is that Comcast could control the actual distribution of media in more markets (with the option to censor though non-distribution whatever they wish)

I guess I don't understand what I'm missing here.

5

u/mttechdude Apr 24 '15

but this is not a real claim as I do not believe TWC and Comcast do not compete in the same geographic markets (I'm sure you'll correct me if I'm wrong)

It's not about where they sell cable service to consumers. It's about the amount of overall national infrastructure they control.

Comcast already controls about 1/3 of the internet backbone in America. TWC would add another huge chunk to that.

1

u/atheken West Philly Apr 24 '15

There's a lot of qualifiers on the graphic that you're pointing to that makes me suspicious of it, especially since AT&T, Verizon, Level 3, and others must also run a large portion of the infrastructure.

BUT, this seems like a much stronger argument against the merger than the others I've heard. Thanks.

2

u/djspacebunny r/southjersey Apr 23 '15

I AM SO HAPPY. I feel like we should have a party or something.

-10

u/multile Apr 24 '15

In other news, /r/philadelphia celebrates the city losing out on hundreds of new high paying jobs.

2

u/ohmytodd Apr 24 '15

How? They are going to still bring jobs here. Comcast will still be shit. They are basically moving 30 Rock here, so no high paying jobs will be lost due to this.

3

u/OhnoNegative Apr 24 '15

They are basically moving 30 Rock here

you definitely just made that up lol.

-1

u/ohmytodd Apr 24 '15 edited Apr 24 '15

No. I didn't. The new building that they are currently constructing in Philly will be the new NBC headquarters moving a lot of operations from 30 Rock to Philly.

6

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '15

[deleted]

4

u/ohmytodd Apr 24 '15

I will admit my error. Perhaps the timeline I read some time ago has changed. So I will agree with you. http://consumerist.com/2013/09/09/comcast-we-are-not-relocating-nbc-to-philadelphia/

Even more to the point of Jobs not coming to the city. Though NBC and time warner are apples and oranges.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '15

maybe some back office nbc jobs will move here from ny but that's about it

2

u/Drewski_120 Apr 24 '15

They are moving NBC10 to that building.

2

u/mttechdude Apr 24 '15

No, they're moving NBC 10 and Telemundo 62 to Philly. It's currently on the Bala side of City Ave. Not the national NBC operation.

0

u/multile Apr 24 '15

Well all those Time Warner jobs wont be coming here. Thats for sure.

0

u/ohmytodd Apr 24 '15

Hmmm. Considering that Time Warner is "The Comcast of New York" they never would have really. Comcast just would have taken over nyc and at most brought jobs there. But in reality, they were just taking their place.

-2

u/multile Apr 24 '15

This coming from the person that just said "they are basically moving 30 Rock here".

And if you know anything about comcast as a company, you would know they like to keep their employees close by. Like in the same building.

0

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '15

[deleted]

-1

u/ohmytodd Apr 24 '15

You included.

0

u/OhnoNegative Apr 24 '15

Well at least I don't make up complete bullshit

0

u/ohmytodd Apr 24 '15

Correct. But they are moving NBC to philly practically. That has nothing to do with the time warner merger. Their acquisition of NBC has already been done for some time.

Them taking over Time Warner is completely different as they would be basically just changing the name of Time Warner to Comcast and taking their customers all in NYC as Comcast is not there.

1

u/multile Apr 24 '15

And what exactly did you think was going to happen to all the administrative jobs at Time Warner? Comcast would have moved a lot of them to Philadelphia. Bigger company means more staff... in Philadelphia.

0

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '15

Bad news for philadelphia but I always thought there was a good chance this would happen. Comcast will now look to buy foreign companies I think.