AT&T To Buy DIRECTV for $67 Billion

[dfergie]

Sen. Al Franken ‘Skeptical’ of AT&T-DirecTV Deal

I'm skeptical that this deal is in consumers’ best interest,” the Minnesota Democrat said in a statement. “We're witnessing a major transformation of the telecom industry — and it's going in exactly the wrong direction. We're moving toward an industry with fewer competitors — where corporations are getting bigger and bigger and gaining more and more control over the distribution of information.”

thewrap.com

 

[CK SatGuy]

Anytime a company says a merger is in the consumer's best interest, 99% of the time, it's BS. Mergers only benefit the bottom line and that's what this is all about.

 

[nelson61]

Bloomberg West says: "WHY", "It is a sign of a lazy CEO and these types of deals fail. The consumer gets ###, the shareholders get ###, and the executives get rich."

Hmmmm!

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[ZoSo925]

If you play the game correct there is money to be made in this. There is a bigger picture involved with this and it's all part of evolving technology. I am a Nokia shareholder and have tripled my money so far in last 2 years. Nokia is now more of a network company now that they bought out the other 50% of NSN. Nokia has thousands of networking patents and copyrights and I believe there is a great chance Nokia will be involved with AT&T/DirecTV designing these networks of the future.

Nokia does multi-billion contracts and has done stuff with Dish/Hughes. I really like the idea/rumor of Verizon buying Dish/Hughes. This would be perfect, especially that Warren Buffett has a half billion in Verizon.

 

[Bodo Fenrirsson]

Conventional wisdom would say that because ATT & Directv are merging,Dish Network should hook up with Verizon,Sprint,or T-Mobile. But I think other companies like the before mentioned will wait first to see if the FCC will allow ATT & Directv to merge before they exercise their own plans. I find that government agencies are very capricious in their decisions about who can & cannot merge. T-Mobile for one,T-Mobile seemed to be on their last legs with parent company Deutsche Telekom abandoning it. ATT acquiring it couldn't be any worse than it going bankrupt & out of business. You'd still have one less company to choose from. T-Mobile is STILL just as shaky financially now as it was then,is Sprint trying to acquire it or Dish Network trying to acquire it just as bad today as the idea of ATT acquiring it? If it goes out of business,you still lose choice.

 

[navychop]

mike123abc is right. AT&T has just handed the NFL a loaded gun that can only be fired at D*. The NFL knows they can get even MORE now. MORE. Out of who's pockets?


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[ranmic]

If you play the game correct there is money to be made in this. There is a bigger picture involved with this and it's all part of evolving technology. I am a Nokia shareholder and have tripled my money so far in last 2 years. Nokia is now more of a network company now that they bought out the other 50% of NSN. Nokia has thousands of networking patents and copyrights and I believe there is a great chance Nokia will be involved with AT&T/DirecTV designing these networks of the future.

Nokia does multi-billion contracts and has done stuff with Dish/Hughes. I really like the idea/rumor of Verizon buying Dish/Hughes. This would be perfect, especially that Warren Buffett has a half billion in Verizon.

I understand what you are saying and do not dispute it, but the average person is not a shareholder in Nokia, DTV, Dish or any other company for that matter. Most people are just trying to provide the best life they can for their family and deals like this usally do not benefit them at all. The CEO's get paid nicely and we are the ones paying more to allow that to happen.

 

[ZoSo925]

CEO's make filthy money while 70% they are not even involved with the company. They belong to all sorts of committees outside the company, attending seminars..etc

 

[Teehar]

Folks all i can tell you is what I have learned as a paying customer over the last 25 or so years.I have been a customer of DTV,ATT,and DISH.I had very few complaints during my time with DTV,customer service for the most part was pretty good.Switched to Dish 2000 or thereabouts,have been very happy with customer service with them over the years,sure there have been some misinformed reps,but I figured out where to get the most help real quick hint (satguys).ATT on the other hand,nothing but trouble,constant billing troubles,very poor service when it came to repairs,and that was with the so called inside wiring plan. Getting through to an actual person to report an outtage was a complete nightmare.Then when you finally did they would sugar coat things and say yes someone will be there to fix the problem.They never showed up when scheduled,oftentimes they would only half fix a problem,then the vicious cycle would have to repeated all over again.Now this was just for phone service the old landline,dsl problems were even worse.You would think having dsl and phone service with the same company would make things easier,definitely not the case.If you have a phone and dsl issue that requires 2 different tech visits.Yep phone man can't work on dsl,and vice versa.

I'm sure there are some that say ATT is ok,but I would be willing to bet it's a minority.They may be doing well when it comes to wireless,but hey they still offer landline and dsl services,you can't concentrate one one and just forget the other 2.From my vantage point ATT is one of the most incompetent,most anti consumer companies in the US.Now they want to buy DTV?Yep makes perfect sense to me.

 

[Big Dawg 23]

I still have a pink receipt from AT&T Broadband before they sold to Comcast, I can't make out the year but I think is 2000 or 2001

I moved out of my Apartment in November 2002 and it was AT&T Broadband at that time. I went to Dish Network and now been a happy Directv customer since 2008. I also have AT&T for 5 years with no issues.


As for the reducing competition part by some... Not all people have the option of four television providers(AT&T, Dish, Direct and Comcast/TWC/Charter or another cable provider). Where I live my options are Dish, Directv and Charter. Here in Minnesota VZW and AT&T don't exist as tv providers. When many people have three options you have choices. Look at KC some neighborhoods have Google, TWC, AT&T Uverse, Dish and Directv. No one convince me that going for 5 to 4 kills anything.




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[meStevo]

mike123abc is right. AT&T has just handed the NFL a loaded gun that can only be fired at D*. The NFL knows they can get even MORE now. MORE. Out of who's pockets?


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Not really. If the end result is it not being reasonable for D* to pay for exclusivity it doesn't mean they'll get some massive payday from their other options.

It creates leverage, sure, but now what people are trumpeting it up to be.

ST being an option for millions of ATT customers will possibly help offset any increase also.

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[Jimbo]

It will now depend on the govt. to approve or not this buy-out. If it goes through, say goodbye to the customer service and programming you had enjoyed over the years with DirecTv.

Plenty of people bitch about D*'s customer service already, it's not like it's the top of the line already.

Unfortunately the general feeling around here is that att will screw up everything ...

Some were talking about how to survive with one less option to chose from ... but they seemingly did fine with only 1 more previously.

 

[Jimbo]

Folks all i can tell you is what I have learned as a paying customer over the last 25 or so years.I have been a customer of DTV,ATT,and DISH.I had very few complaints during my time with DTV,customer service for the most part was pretty good.Switched to Dish 2000 or thereabouts,have been very happy with customer service with them over the years,sure there have been some misinformed reps,but I figured out where to get the most help real quick hint (satguys).ATT on the other hand,nothing but trouble,constant billing troubles,very poor service when it came to repairs,and that was with the so called inside wiring plan. Getting through to an actual person to report an outtage was a complete nightmare.Then when you finally did they would sugar coat things and say yes someone will be there to fix the problem.They never showed up when scheduled,oftentimes they would only half fix a problem,then the vicious cycle would have to repeated all over again.Now this was just for phone service the old landline,dsl problems were even worse.You would think having dsl and phone service with the same company would make things easier,definitely not the case.If you have a phone and dsl issue that requires 2 different tech visits.Yep phone man can't work on dsl,and vice versa.

I'm sure there are some that say ATT is ok,but I would be willing to bet it's a minority.They may be doing well when it comes to wireless,but hey they still offer landline and dsl services,you can't concentrate one one and just forget the other 2.From my vantage point ATT is one of the most incompetent,most anti consumer companies in the US.Now they want to buy DTV?Yep makes perfect sense to me.

I'm calling BS on this ...

I go out every day and repair Landline phones, DSL as well as Uverse , I do all of them, I am in ONE department, not 3 ... so the guy that comes out can work on all the items you listed.

Now, on the missing commitments, yup, it happens ...
I will get the sub that says, you were suppose to be here before noon ... yup, unfortunately I only got the ticket 20 minutes ago, what can I do other than fix the issue they have when I get there.

 

[Jimbo]

Not really. If the end result is it not being reasonable for D* to pay for exclusivity it doesn't mean they'll get some massive payday from their other options.

It creates leverage, sure, but now what people are trumpeting it up to be.

ST being an option for millions of ATT customers will possibly help offset any increase also.

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

D* will also have larger pockets of cash with ATT's help to get the ST, and the nfl also knows that.

 

[meStevo]

D* will also have larger pockets of cash with ATT's help to get the ST, and the nfl also knows that.

Yup, everything will scale to fit the new subscriber pool. Not like they'll be able to turn on ST for free for all these subs sharing a parent company.

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[chances14]

AT&T is Already Being Misleading to Get DirecTV Deal Approved

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/...isleading-to-Get-DirecTV-Deal-Approved-129016

I'm willing to bet that almost all of those 15 million people will only be able to get LTE, which most can probably already get right now. I highly doubt that they expand their uverse or DSL into new areas

 

[MikeD-C05]

mike123abc is right. AT&T has just handed the NFL a loaded gun that can only be fired at D*. The NFL knows they can get even MORE now. MORE. Out of who's pockets?


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Everyone that has DIRECTV now and all ATT customers too if they get a merger deal. Because they will spread the new higher NFL costs to all subs with basic programming to diffuse the costs. DIRECTV does that now with their subs and it is why all their programming packs are like ten dollars more than DISHs.

 

[Jimbo]

Everyone that has DIRECTV now and all ATT customers too if they get a merger deal. Because they will spread the new higher NFL costs to all subs with basic programming to diffuse the costs. DIRECTV does that now with their subs and it is why all their programming packs are like ten dollars more than DISHs.

You really can't compare D*'s packages and price to DISH as they don't include anywhere near the same programming.

 

[joed32]

D* will also have larger pockets of cash with ATT's help to get the ST, and the nfl also knows that.

They're saying that the ST deal will be done by the end of the year but approval of the sale probably won't happen until well into next year. They would have to have one price for ST if it goes through and another price if it is rejected.

 

[whitewolf8214]

AT&T's DirectTV Acquisition: The Cons Outweigh The Pros http://seekingalpha.com/article/2227583-at-and-ts-directtv-acquisition-the-cons-outweigh-the-pros