Dish: If Comcast Can Buy Time Warner Cable, We Can Buy DirecTV
- Thread starter Poke
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Different situation. Comcast buys TWC and still have other cable operators in the business. DISH buys Directv and you have only ONE sat company with NO sat competition. Besides it's Charlie Ergen , they hate him at the FCC.
Not quite different to the customer. AFAIK where you live defines which cable company you can choose... there are no cable alternatives. As far as Charlie goes, you have a point.
There are still a lot of channels that aren't in HD on Dish Network and bandwidth is the issue. Without a merger will the satellite companies be able to compete with the cable companies and IPTV ? Especially when customers start demanding Ultra/4K HDTV services.
Won't those two cablecos merging make for a larger pool of original programming that they can use as a cudgel against other MVPDs?
Bingo. Where I live, I have TWC (formerly Adelphia). There in no other choice, not Cox, Cablevision, Charter, or any other cableco. The only new alternative to appear in decades has been U-verse.
That is the case in the majority of areas - only (1) cable provider. Services like Uverse, while they may be in a lot of cities, they aren't available at every address. ATT chose where to make it available, neighborhood by neighborhood.
Compared to Time Warner, Uverse can be years ahead. From what I've seen, the PQ is good as long as you're not "watching" (streaming) multiple HD channels. The equipment is more up-to-date too, not to mention the user interface on the set-tops. It hasn't changed in almost 10 years.
The service in New Britain Ct was terrible. Freezes were the norm, box would reset, replacement box would reset, etc etc.. This was at my Daughter's apt. PQ was not good. It is entirey possible it is better in other places.
What does being able to afford something, have to do with buying it anymore?
I can't believe that the Comcast-Time Warner acquisition is almost a done deal. It just goes to show the power of money in Washington. Congress is so deadlocked they can't pass anything but Pa Senators Pat Toomey (R) and Bob Casey (D) can agree on something and are solidly behind this. Maybe the 18+million dollars that Comcast spent on lobbying last year and the contributions to both Senators reelection funds had something to do with it
They don't have to okay it. I think they can simply say they have "no opinion". There's no rule that says companies can't merge without gov't approval. In fact, I think someone has to object to the merger and ask the gov't entities to look at it.
part of the reason it may go through is Comcast is going to argue they are in different markets and their is no overlap. How ever with dish and direct you can get one or the other in same area so there is over lap and could be seen more of issue. I know I see dish and direct dishes all over my town but we have just one cable provider.
I'm wondering at what level does the gov't decide to step in ? In our area, we used to have Continental Cable and Viacom. Time Warner came and bought them both out. To clarify, you didn't have a choice of picking CC or Viacom - they each had their own, non-overlapping territories. When TW entered the picture, nothing changed as far as "choice" goes.
