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It is their right as private parties to mergeThe companies are not governmental entities (and thankfully for that much) and it is their rights as private property owners and parties to a business transaction to decide to merge with each other. Any of us being dissatisfied with their services does not give anyone of us or the government the legal right to prevent the businesses from engaging in a merger transactions of their private properties that they've agreed to - however foolhardy any of us or the government may think it is. They are not competing with each other and thus there are no anti-trust laws here being violated. Keeping TWC as a separate corporation from Comcast will not result in improved customer service. |
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KearnstdSpace Elf Premium Member join:2002-01-22 Mullica Hill, NJ
2 recommendations |
Kearnstd
Premium Member
2014-Aug-19 4:48 pm
Regulation of business is an integral part of maintaining a stable country, We have been cutting those regulations which is why America is circling the drain. |
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Regulations are not carte blanche for government to decide and enforce its preferences over any business transaction. Furthermore, deregulation of the airline industry resulted in 40% lower fares (in inflation adjusted dollars). Telecommunication deregulation has also resulted in lower rates and more innovation. In any event, here there is nothing to deregulate. It is simply a lawful business transaction that the government has no legal basis to prevent. |
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Zoder join:2002-04-16 Miami, FL |
to josephf
You're 100 years late. See the Clayton Act of 1914. |
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None of Clayton's provisions would enable the government to block this merger of non-competing companies. It does, of course, require notification and allow time for review. |
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The Bell System didn't compete with anyone either. |
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The Bell system was broken, by consent agreement, because they were preventing other companies that wanted to compete from interconnecting and competing with their own Western Electric equipment subsidiary. Different circumstance. |
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rody_44 Premium Member join:2004-02-20 Quakertown, PA |
to nothing00
The bell system was built with public money, not private money. |
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2 recommendations |
to josephf
So, like, to boil it down to something I can understand... They had enough market power to dictate terms and were able to make it difficult for competitors to enter the market? That is starting to sound familiar. |
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nothing00 1 edit |
to rody_44
I see. So if it was built with private money it would have been correct to leave it alone?
edit: I can't find any indication that the Bell System/aka AT&T was built with "public money"? |
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to josephf
There was competition in those industries. No one airline or telecommunication company had a monopoly on the market. Break the cable companies stranglehold on the local market and see what happens. |
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How do you propose to "Break the cable companies stranglehold on the local market"? |
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josephf 3 edits |
to nothing00
Like the market for electric delivery. And the railroads. And water delivery.
Feel free to run cable wiring across your entire city. Any city would love you to build a fiber optic network in their town. And don't forget to cover every residential and business address like the existing cable company, so you can fairly compete with them. |
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I like how you said "electric delivery". That's a great place to start. The electrical delivery infrastructure is open to many competing electrical suppliers. I'm guessing that, after the Comcast/TW merger, you'd open up the New Comcast infrastructure to competitors at competitive rates? Kind of like how they did with the Bell infrastructure? Common carrier and all of that?
And on to water which is typically provided by governments. If Comcast didn't have to open their infrastructure up to competitors surely you'd support turning that infrastructure over to local governments? Instead of, you know, allowing them to pass bills that don't even let local governments build their own infrastructure?
Or if capitalism is your starting and end goal please front me the cash to start my own operation. Providers in other countries show that a much better product can be delivered for far less and Comcast's numbers show it's crazy profitable. There's plenty of margin in it for me. And if other countries don't suit you Google has proven it can be done right here at home in the USA. |
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to josephf
"Any city would love you to build a fiber optic network in their town"
That's if the city does not have one of their own. They and build a fiber in EPB's territory and you will see how quickly they will behave like Comcast and AT&T. |
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battleop |
to nothing00
It had heavy subsidies, tax breaks, and special incentives. |
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1 recommendation |
And so does almost every other large company out there. Comcast and Verizon are no exceptions. |
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What fund makes direct payments to Comcast like AT&T and Verizon get? |
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Roger to josephf
Anon
2014-Aug-19 8:43 pm
to josephf
Would you really want one company to have that much power over the internet? You're right there is no competition which is the problem. We have to have anti-trust regulation to protect consumers. If this merger happens why would comcast not favor their video programming and throttle netflix? Who could stop them? This is about control of high speed internet and the power they would have. I'm a conservative and this pains me to say but sometimes big business is the same as big government. |
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NormanSI gave her time to steal my mind away MVM join:2001-02-14 San Jose, CA TP-Link TD-8616 Asus RT-AC66U B1 Netgear FR114P
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to rody_44
said by rody_44: The bell system was built with public money, not private money. Since when? There was nothing like the rural electrification program involved in the foundation, or growth of Bell. |
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1 recommendation |
to josephf
Break as in split the TV from the ISP. And to provide the incentive for ISPs to compete, clear the roadblocks holding back community owned fiber. Turn off the "incentive" money spigot for ISPs to build out the last mile..which they never seem to do, and give that money to communities that will. |
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KearnstdSpace Elf Premium Member join:2002-01-22 Mullica Hill, NJ
2 recommendations |
to josephf
Actually they do have a legal requirement to prevent monopoly . remember they broke up standard oil, if we do not control mergers we could very well end up with the standard oil of cable TV.
Also unlike the airlines I doubt this merger will bring anything more than yet another round of rate hikes. |
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dra6o0n join:2011-08-15 Mississauga, ON |
to dmhowell
He's not responding anymore. |
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WhatNow Premium Member join:2009-05-06 Charlotte, NC |
to dmhowell
Separate content from the physical network. Build FTTH locally hopefully country or region wide network that any content provider can lease to serve a customer. Each customer chooses the service provider who supplies the electronics on both ends. |
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to Zoder
Bell had a government-sanctioned monopoly that dates back to 1913 under Theodore Vail, then president of AT&T who coined the term "Universal Service". Even though they were not benefactors of any direct government subsidy, they were granted guaranteed profits (rate-of-return regulation). A key element of this concept was telephone service was "for the public good".
Now, compare and contrast to Comcast. How does their service and total-world-domination mentality measure up? Is a single nationwide cable monopoly in a similar public interest? |
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