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Charter Communications to Buy Bright House For $10.4 Billion

Earlier this month reports began to emerge suggesting that Charter Communications would be buying Bright House Networks. The deal appears to be a consolation prize for the company after it was outbid on an attempt to acquire Time Warner Cable by Comcast. Today Charter and Bright House made the deal official, formally announcing (pdf) that the acquisition will be worth around $10.5 billion. It's just the latest deal in a cable industry that is increasingly and quickly becoming highly consolidated.

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"Bright House has built outstanding cable systems in attractive markets that are either complete, or contiguous with the New Charter footprint," Charter CEO Tom Rutledge said in a statement.

"This acquisition enhances our scale, and solidifies New Charter as the second largest cable operator in the US. I look forward to working with the Bright House team, whom we have known for years, in delivering great products and services to grow our market share."

Bright House currently serves roughly 2.5 million customers in Florida, Alabama, Indiana, Michigan and California (see our user reviews). Reports suggest that the acquisition deal will only go forward if Comcast's acquisition of Time Warner Cable is approved by regulators. Given the regulatory concerns about a larger Comcast's impact on broadband, TV, ad markets and minority ownership, approval at this point is not a given.

Should Comcast's deal be rejected, Charter has suggested it will return its gaze toward the acquisition of Time Warner Cable itself, leaving Bright House Networks at the altar.
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ihatedslr
join:2000-12-11
US

ihatedslr

Member

great job.

Congrats on the deal, Charter!

mergers
@googlefiber.net

mergers

Anon

Re: great job.

Hopefully the cost of merger doesn't take away from funding high speed upgrades for their footprint.

Red Hazard
Premium Member
join:2012-07-21
O Fallon, IL

Red Hazard

Premium Member

Re: great job.???

said by mergers :

Hopefully the cost of merger doesn't take away from funding high speed upgrades for their footprint.

Well you can be guaranteed that their past 9+% yearly increase for internet service will be increased significantly next time a price gouge occurs.

chuch
join:2001-04-11
Tampa, FL

chuch

Member

Re: great job.???

said by Red Hazard:

Well you can be guaranteed that their past 9+% yearly increase

That's funny because the local talking heads here on the Tampa News (a Brighthouse area) said that customer's shouldn't expect to see a change after the merger, including the standard 9% annual increase...

karpodiem
Hail to The Victors
Premium Member
join:2008-05-20
Troy, MI

1 edit

karpodiem

Premium Member

may it not go through

No one needs to merge with TwC or Comcast. Those two need to be on their own, they are evil enough as-is.

"Reports suggest that the acquisition deal will only go forward if Comcast's
acquisition of Time Warner Cable is approved by regulators."

Then I hope it doesn't go through. Charter and BH are a good merger for scale/size. Why does it need to be incumbent on TWC/Comcast's merger going through? So they don't have to compete with a merged TWC/Comcast?

It's like all cabelcos are carving up geographic footprints to NOT compete against each other. The only other competitor, at&t and VZW, can't get out of wireline quick enough.

THIS is the reason for all these mergers. Comcast/Charter/Time Warner are designing a terrestrial broadband monopoly in the US.
smcallah
join:2004-08-05
Home

smcallah

Member

Re: may it not go through

Of course cable companies have footprints that make them not compete with each other. Do you know how expensive it would be to build a coax network next to an existing coax network? You'd have avoid cutting the existing fiber and coax while you dig. Have to find places to locate your nodes and taps.

It's always been like this in almost any area of the country.

karpodiem
Hail to The Victors
Premium Member
join:2008-05-20
Troy, MI

karpodiem

Premium Member

Re: may it not go through

said by smcallah:

Of course cable companies have footprints that make them not compete with each other. Do you know how expensive it would be to build a coax network next to an existing coax network? You'd have avoid cutting the existing fiber and coax while you dig. Have to find places to locate your nodes and taps.

It's always been like this in almost any area of the country.

isn't any terrestrial provider subject to dealing with other infrastructure in the ground?

People in the industry - what % of costs does dealing with this extra infrastructure to plan around actually add?

telcodad
MVM
join:2011-09-16
Lincroft, NJ

1 recommendation

telcodad

MVM

Re: may it not go through

said by karpodiem:

said by smcallah:

Of course cable companies have footprints that make them not compete with each other. Do you know how expensive it would be to build a coax network next to an existing coax network? You'd have avoid cutting the existing fiber and coax while you dig. Have to find places to locate your nodes and taps.

It's always been like this in almost any area of the country.

isn't any terrestrial provider subject to dealing with other infrastructure in the ground?

Yes, it's no different that what Verizon FiOS and Google Fiber have to do right now.

mikedz4
join:2003-04-14
Weirton, WV

mikedz4 to karpodiem

Member

to karpodiem
just to wire the town where I live when I was thinking about it 10 years ago would have cost me over $20million. Plus the frachise fee,etc. That's just a startup passing 20,000 homes in one city.
Corporate
join:2014-10-04

Corporate

Member

BHN - TWC = ???

Should Comcast's deal be rejected, Charter has suggested it will return its gaze toward the acquisition of Time Warner Cable itself, leaving Bright House Networks at the altar.
Without TWC, there would not be a Bright House, therefore Charter would acquire BHN anyway.

mixdup
join:2003-06-28
Alpharetta, GA

mixdup

Member

Re: BHN - TWC = ???

Not necessarily. BHN can be independent of TWC.

Karl Bode
News Guy
join:2000-03-02

Karl Bode

News Guy

Re: BHN - TWC = ???

Yes, while Time Warner Cable handles all of Bright House's programming negotiations and a number of other things, Comcast is slated to pick those up. Company will inevitably be integrated by somebody in time, though.

mixdup
join:2003-06-28
Alpharetta, GA

mixdup

Member

Re: BHN - TWC = ???

said by Karl Bode:

Yes, while Time Warner Cable handles all of Bright House's programming negotiations and a number of other things, Comcast is slated to pick those up. Company will inevitably be integrated by somebody in time, though.

True. BHN is too small to really stand alone, but they don't *have* to sell if they really didn't want to. Especially since they're a private company, they don't have to answer to Wall Street.

If for some reason Comcast/TWC is denied I see Charter buying both TWC and Bright House.

Karl Bode
News Guy
join:2000-03-02

Karl Bode

News Guy

Re: BHN - TWC = ???

I can see that happening, yes. Bright House is making it pretty clear they're receptive to offers. Probably only a matter of time before Cablevision gets gobbled up as well.

mixdup
join:2003-06-28
Alpharetta, GA

mixdup

Member

Re: BHN - TWC = ???

Comcast has South Florida. I could see Charter buying Comcast's Florida markets to get Comcast "under the cap" and then Comcast picking off Cablevision.

The obvious long game is that Charter and Comcast are going to build mega regional companies like AT&T and Verizon on the wireline side. The way to squeeze money out of the system is to gobble up as much that is adjacent as possible.
mixdup

1 recommendation

mixdup

Member

Comcast/TWC

I think this means that Comcast/TWC is more likely to happen. This bails out Comcast which was having BHN customers attributed to TWC due to the programming agreement. Also, if the FCC or DOJ were going to deny the deal outright, they would have done so already. They killed AT&T/T-Mobile and Sprint/T-Mobile pretty quickly. This has dragged on long enough they will probably let it go through with some conditions. Would not be surprised if this was hinted at needing to happen by the FCC to Comcast/TWC.

karpodiem
Hail to The Victors
Premium Member
join:2008-05-20
Troy, MI

karpodiem

Premium Member

Re: Comcast/TWC

said by mixdup:

I think this means that Comcast/TWC is more likely to happen. This bails out Comcast which was having BHN customers attributed to TWC due to the programming agreement. Also, if the FCC or DOJ were going to deny the deal outright, they would have done so already. They killed AT&T/T-Mobile and Sprint/T-Mobile pretty quickly. This has dragged on long enough they will probably let it go through with some conditions. Would not be surprised if this was hinted at needing to happen by the FCC to Comcast/TWC.

I'd like to see the financing details (debt being raised) for this deal. Something tells me that Brian Roberts fingerprints are somehow on this - he called up someone at one of the investment banks and had them put together financing for this to save the Comcast/TWC deal.

mixdup
join:2003-06-28
Alpharetta, GA

mixdup

Member

Re: Comcast/TWC

said by karpodiem:

said by mixdup:

I think this means that Comcast/TWC is more likely to happen. This bails out Comcast which was having BHN customers attributed to TWC due to the programming agreement. Also, if the FCC or DOJ were going to deny the deal outright, they would have done so already. They killed AT&T/T-Mobile and Sprint/T-Mobile pretty quickly. This has dragged on long enough they will probably let it go through with some conditions. Would not be surprised if this was hinted at needing to happen by the FCC to Comcast/TWC.

I'd like to see the financing details (debt being raised) for this deal. Something tells me that Brian Roberts fingerprints are somehow on this - he called up someone at one of the investment banks and had them put together financing for this to save the Comcast/TWC deal.

Actually, Charter is not issuing any debt at all. They are issuing new shares. This will actually reduce Charter's debt load and give them the ability to borrow more in the future.

why60loss
Premium Member
join:2012-09-20

why60loss to mixdup

Premium Member

to mixdup
said by mixdup:

I think this means that Comcast/TWC is more likely to happen. This bails out Comcast which was having BHN customers attributed to TWC due to the programming agreement. Also, if the FCC or DOJ were going to deny the deal outright, they would have done so already. They killed AT&T/T-Mobile and Sprint/T-Mobile pretty quickly. This has dragged on long enough they will probably let it go through with some conditions. Would not be surprised if this was hinted at needing to happen by the FCC to Comcast/TWC.

The AT&T/T-Mobile deal took a long time for the government to rule on, Sprint withdrew it's bid.

It has less than a 40% chance to me of passing at this point and I want Comcast to buy TWC.

Yes I am ready for the hate mail of saying I want TWC the golden child with hand picking city's Maxx gone even if Comcast has to do it.

That and I really get the feeling a charter/TWC deal would go though if Comcast doesn't win. If none of that, then TWC will act like Verizon and sell off markets in mass to other cable ISP's.

mixdup
join:2003-06-28
Alpharetta, GA

mixdup

Member

Re: Comcast/TWC

said by why60loss:

Sprint withdrew it's bid

But they only withdrew after it was made clear to them that it would not be successful.

And I agree, if Comcast is somehow denied, Charter will snap up TWC and be successful, because a Charter + TWC or even Charter + TWC + Bright House combination would still be smaller than Comcast, and Charter/TWC/BHN wouldn't own any significant content like Comcast, either.

paradigmfl
join:2005-07-16

paradigmfl

Member

Please free us, Charter

Please free us from Bright house's ridiculous overcharging (especially for standalone internet) for substandard internet.

Hopefully it's not just trading one abuser for another though.

Brian_M
join:2004-06-19
Manchester, GA

Brian_M

Member

Re: Please free us, Charter

It's always hard to tell with hidden costs after promo time, but from what I can tell the advertised pricing on BH for the tier closest to the 60/4 that Charter offers, is within $5 of the Charter after-promo pricing.

The difference is with BH you can choose to pay less. I don't need/use 60/4, I'd be fine with 15/1 (heck, I'd be fine with 6/1).

I will say that my Charter connection has been one of the most reliable and steady that I've encountered. ~3 years now and I'm not sure that I'd have an outage... had a modem fail (one of theirs, replaced, no rental or replacement fee), but nothing from the service end.

paradigmfl
join:2005-07-16

paradigmfl

Member

Re: Please free us, Charter

said by Brian_M:

It's always hard to tell with hidden costs after promo time, but from what I can tell the advertised pricing on BH for the tier closest to the 60/4 that Charter offers, is within $5 of the Charter after-promo pricing.

The difference is with BH you can choose to pay less. I don't need/use 60/4, I'd be fine with 15/1 (heck, I'd be fine with 6/1).

I will say that my Charter connection has been one of the most reliable and steady that I've encountered. ~3 years now and I'm not sure that I'd have an outage... had a modem fail (one of theirs, replaced, no rental or replacement fee), but nothing from the service end.

How much is 60/4 with Charter where you are? I think the closest BHN plan would be the old 30/2 (now 35/2?) for about $75 or the 60/5 (now 75/5?) for about $90. From what I read Charter usually charges far less than that.

To give you an idea right now I have 15/1 with BHN. My bill is $54 + $4 for the modem so about $58/month.

scott2020
join:2008-07-20
MO

scott2020

Member

Re: Please free us, Charter

I pay $70.99 a month for 60/4 in Missouri with Charter.

cork1958
Cork
Premium Member
join:2000-02-26

cork1958

Premium Member

Re: Please free us, Charter

said by scott2020:

I pay $70.99 a month for 60/4 in Missouri with Charter.

$54.99 here for Charter's 60/4 plan.

I'd like to know why and how Charter thinks they can purchase TWC if Comcast isn't allowed to though? Doesn't really make that much of a difference really. I mean, what the heck, if you not going to allow one big conglomerate to gobble up another, why allow somebody else.

Either way, I see these merger's as garbage and nothing more than a way to NOT allow for the possibility of some competition, some day, maybe!

Brian_M
join:2004-06-19
Manchester, GA

Brian_M to paradigmfl

Member

to paradigmfl
I'm with Scott, $70.

cralt
join:2011-01-07
CT

cralt

Member

Re: Please free us, Charter

said by Brian_M:

I'm with Scott, $70.

I'm at $39.99 out the door for 60/4 on promo and if i keep it off promo it goes to 59.99iirc.
slckusr
Premium Member
join:2003-03-17
Greenville, SC

slckusr

Premium Member

Re: Please free us, Charter

I imagine those 2 are paying 5 bucks extra for charter to provide their wireless router and just rounding up since we dont pay taxes. 59.99 is standard pricing .
Poetique
join:2007-08-05
Auburn, AL

Poetique to paradigmfl

Member

to paradigmfl
said by paradigmfl:

Please free us from Bright house's ridiculous overcharging (especially for standalone internet) for substandard internet.

Hopefully it's not just trading one abuser for another though.

Unfortunately, nobody is getting freed today. You're just getting a new dictator.

All bow to our Charter Comm overlords. It's not like many of us have a choice anyway -_-

chip89
Premium Member
join:2012-07-05
Columbia Station, OH

chip89

Premium Member

Like Comcast

Like the TWC & Comcast merger this must be stopped! Service will be get worse & the first to go is online support!

paradigmfl
join:2005-07-16

paradigmfl

Member

Re: Like Comcast

said by chip89:

Like the TWC & Comcast merger this must be stopped! Service will be get worse & the first to go is online support!

I don't know. I'm really sick of paying about $60 a month for 1 mbps upload with Bright House. As I understand it Charter's normal pricing is either 30/4 or 60/4 for the same price! BHN has been gouging their customers for too long.

bcnc
@bhn.net

bcnc

Anon

Re: Like Comcast

said by paradigmfl:

I don't know. I'm really sick of paying about $60 a month for 1 mbps upload with Bright House. As I understand it Charter's normal pricing is either 30/4 or 60/4 for the same price! BHN has been gouging their customers for too long.

Though your correct about the price and yes the new price would be nice, we have no guarantee that even if Charter purchased BH they would change the prices to match Charter's current territory prices. After all it is about money and they might see that they can monopolize the area as ATT & BH has done with prices and service.

I agree with you that it would be nice to see the new speeds without bumping price.

OpTiC
Premium Member
join:2014-03-08
West Covina, CA

OpTiC to chip89

Premium Member

to chip89
said by chip89:

Like the TWC & Comcast merger this must be stopped! Service will be get worse & the first to go is online support!

The only part going to be worse is Customer Service. Charter got rid of social media support and live chat.

mikedz4
join:2003-04-14
Weirton, WV

mikedz4

Member

if twc/comcast is denied what's next for comcast?

Will Comcast look at buying charter? Maybe cox or cablevision?

rebus9
join:2002-03-26
Tampa Bay

rebus9

Member

Does Charter = Cap?

Obligatory question... anybody know off-hand whether Charter sticks caps on its users? Brighthouse does not, and I'm sure none of us BH customers would be happy to see such a thing in our future if the merger is approved.

•••••••
ham3843
join:2015-01-15
USA

ham3843

Member

Doesn't this deal need FCC and FTC approvals first?

This is not a done deal, they still have regulatory hurdles to cross. I don't think this one will come to fruition either. Hopefully, because consolidation it is NOT good for customers.