 | | Please.... "Lenders claim Charter's using sophisticated trickery"
Haha, the quote of the day! | |
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 | | | Re: Please.... Yes, coming from lenders it's all fairly amusing.... | |
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|  Romney2012Defeat Obama 2012-Chg we can believe inPremium
join:2002-03-03
USA
kudos:4 | agreement with Allen that would allow him to retain a 35 percent, controlling voting stake in the company, and a 2 percent equity stake. Now that is what is wrong in corporate law in the US. No one should be allowed to have a greater voting interest in the company than they have invested in the company. If Obama & the Congress want to straighten out the financial industry, then making sure that voting control of stock is directly tied to ownership of that stock. No special shares should be allowed where voting rights are multiples of the number of shares held.
Of course, a law like that would, for example, end the Robert's control of Comcast and many other companies where families control companies while owning under 10% of the company's stock. Return power to the shareholders and many companies will see improved performance.
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My BLOG .. .. Internet News .. .. My Web Page | |
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| | | | Re: Please.... Shareholders are short-sighted Wall Street maniacs.
Eliminating special voter control would completely destroy companies like Google, where the majority of shares is controlled by its original 2 founders. | |
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| | | iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 | Re: Please.... I'll bet if the shareholders had ther way they'd listen to Craig Moffet and everyone on Comcast would stop out at 8M down, 768k up except in FiOS areas. | |
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| | How? I fail to understand how a large cable company with little to no competition could go bankrupt. | |
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| | | Re: How? said by sonicmerlin:I fail to understand how a large cable company with little to no competition could go bankrupt. Too much debt. They expanded too quickly and borrowed way too much to do it.
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It's a trick. Get an axe. - Ash | |
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|  AMDUSERPremium
join:2003-05-28
Earth
kudos:1
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| Paul Allen bought cable systems (that were overpriced- and needed considerable work),bought Marcus Cable (1999) $2.8 Billion also bought Charter Communications. $3.4 Billion [He paid for it out of pocket.] Then had Charter 'buy Marcus Cable' from him. Also had Charter
spend $4.5 Billion to rebuild them to offer digital cable etc.
»news.cnet.com/Short-take-Paul-Al···905.html
»news.cnet.com/Paul-Allen-to-buy-···861.html
There as also that accounting scandal with off the books debt - (it didn't help any.)
The problem was Charters debt [and kept borrowing] / intrests payments wiped out what the company earned leaving it unable to pay down /off its debt and make improvements in the cable systems. | |
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|  KrKHeavy Artillery For The Little GuyPremium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
 ·AT&T DSL Service
1 edit | said by sonicmerlin:I fail to understand how a large cable company with little to no competition could go bankrupt. You borrow money to buy out your competition. You overpay. Hey all is good, the economy is booming and your stock is high.
Then, crash. The networks you buy are outmoded and need upgrading. The economy tanks and your stocks plunge, but your debt level remains the same. The value of your stock-to-debt becomes scary. Speculators play with your stock value. Your credit rating is wrecked, and now you can't get financing to finish your upgrades or meet your previous obligations. Saddled with debt and assets you overpaid for, you now find yourself (and all your captive customers) totally screwed. Sometimes you're selling off the same assets you bought for pennies on the dollar, but guess what, you get to keep all that debt.
Growing your company by buyouts, mergers and acquisitions has risks. Sometimes, there's a deal that everyone cheered about in the beginning, but fast-forward a year or two and economic conditions have changed and now everyone talks about what a huge blunder it was.
Many companies get themselves into trouble doing this. That's one of the things about stock value. So much of it is built upon perception... not reality.
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"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
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| | reason why charter has issues? it isn't how much you make but how much you spend
that normally holds true and I would guess that would be the reason for charters "issues" | |
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 jester121Premium
join:2003-08-09
Lake Zurich, IL | Simple They need to bring in some White House advisors to learn how to boss creditors around and threaten anyone who stands in the way of the "restructuring". | |
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| | Die, Charter, Die! Terrible company that deserves to die, and their "customer service" jerks (particularly in the billing department) deserve to be the first ones out the door.
Fortunately, the UAW does not appear to have a large stake in Charter, so hopefully they won't get a taxpayer bailout... | |
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|  morboComplete Your Transaction
join:2002-01-22
00000 | Re: Die, Charter, Die! Charter also does not seem to be connected to AIG or Goldman Sachs, so I think they will not get a bailout. | |
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| iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 | Wonder who'll buy up the markets that will be left behind when Charter dies. I think Comcast is bumping up against the 33% rule, and TWC might be as well. So that would leave SUddenlink? Don't think you want them... | |
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 HpowerRoflmao
join:2000-06-08
Glendale, CA | Just die already I really hope charter dies because they've been nothing but a big EPIC FAIL on providing a working, stable and reasonablity fast network. Just die already so someone else can buy them and do a better job (I hope). It's kinda funny how they are going to bring docsis 3.0 out later during the year during a damn bankruptcy. I really doubt their systems will be able to handle it since they never were able to handle docsis 2.0 anyway lol. Fail.
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The Internet is about to go down....it is actually. | |
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| rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO | Re: Just die already In St. Louis I believe their network is decent. Based on casual observations, it seems some Charter areas are good and others are not so good. If they don't have chronic execution problems, it probably means the quality of their service is related to the condition of any given area's network. This means that a new owner may not be able to substantially improve quality without significant investment. | |
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| | | said by Hpower:I really hope charter dies because they've been nothing but a big EPIC FAIL on providing a working, stable and reasonablity fast network. Just die already so someone else can buy them and do a better job (I hope). It's kinda funny how they are going to bring docsis 3.0 out later during the year during a damn bankruptcy. I really doubt their systems will be able to handle it since they never were able to handle docsis 2.0 anyway lol. Fail. As long as TWC doesn't get them in SoCal... Maybe Comcast? | |
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| | Would Comcast buy them? So in the event they fail does anyone think comcast would purchase them? | |
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| DolganPremium
join:2005-10-01
Sun Prairie, WI | Re: Would Comcast buy them? Comcast can not purchase Charter under current marketshare/ownership rules for cable cos. They are already near the market cap allowed by the FCC and would have to spin off almost as many assests as they would be purchasing. | |
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| | | | Re: Would Comcast buy them? Maybe the gov will waive that rule under the "too big to fail" theory
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BF69~~~Please stop suffocating gerbils! | |
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| | | bicker
join:2007-05-10
Burlington, MA | Re: Would Comcast buy them? They won't. They'd sooner see AT&T or Cablevision take Charter. | |
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| | | | | | Re: Would Comcast buy them? I would like to see Time Warner Cable take over for Charter systems close to Lincoln, Nebraska. Maybe Bresnan, Suddenlink, Windjammer, Nexhorizon, or Mediacom take over for the rest of the Charter systems in Nebraska and other states where Charter serves cable television in rural areas. Maybe Time Warner Cable can take over for the Charter systems in the Los Angeles area and in the Dallas-Forth Worth areas. | |
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| | | | | | | Re: Would Comcast buy them? said by JamesJimCie :
I would like to see Time Warner Cable take over for Charter systems close to Lincoln, Nebraska. Maybe Bresnan, Suddenlink, Windjammer, Nexhorizon, or Mediacom take over for the rest of the Charter systems in Nebraska and other states where Charter serves cable television in rural areas. Maybe Time Warner Cable can take over for the Charter systems in the Los Angeles area and in the Dallas-Forth Worth areas.
ICK!!!! No TWC! | |
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| | | | | | iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Verizon Online DSL
·Comcast
| Re: Would Comcast buy them? As long as they have some sort of competition (read: not AT&T) I think their taking over former Charter territories would actually be fine. Around here we're lumped in with competitive amrkets (San Antonio/Austin) and as a result get 15/2 internet for $50/month. Of course, if Grande Communications didn't have their cable systems all around the SA/Austin area (12/1 for $50 and an intelligible triple-play deal) things would probably be different... | |
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| | | | | | | zed260Premium
join:2007-09-30
Cleveland, TN
kudos:1 | Re: Would Comcast buy them? no anyone but time warner cable
ill take comcast cablevsion cableone anyone but time warner | |
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| | | | | | | | iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 | Re: Would Comcast buy them? You don't want CableOne. Their speeds top out at 10/1 for home usage and their caps are restrictive.
Trust me, TWC isn't so bad. | |
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| | | | | iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Verizon Online DSL
·Comcast
| TWC - Okay (for now)
Bresnan - Crappy, don't let them take over anything
Suddenlink - Crappy, improving somewhat but still crappy
Windjammer - Crappy, should be okay in about three years (see Suddenlink's progression)
Nexhorizon - Who?
Mediacom - They seem to be okay
I wouldn't wish Bresnan on anyone, from what I've heard. As for Suddenlink, I wouldn't wish that on anyone who actually has halfway-decent internet access now. You'll end up paying ore for less. | |
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| | | | | | bicker
join:2007-05-10
Burlington, MA | Re: Would Comcast buy them? I thought we were talking about saving Charter, not dragging another weak company down into the toilet along with it. | |
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| | | | iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Verizon Online DSL
·Comcast
| AT&T sold all their cable assets to Comcast awhile back. I don't think they're going to want anything from Charter.
As for Cablevision, they're not expanding out of their current market area unless, for example, TWC decides to bail on their NYC market due to competition from FIOS (not sure whether this is likely or not). Cablevision's M.O. is based on heavily populated markets that are all near NYC so bandwidth can be had cheaply. If Cablevision was more spread out, you wouldn't see a 101/15 cable tier for $100 as far as I can tell. | |
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| | | | | bicker
join:2007-05-10
Burlington, MA | Re: Would Comcast buy them? said by iansltx:AT&T sold all their cable assets to Comcast awhile back. That was a different company, a company that was subsequently purchased by SBC, who, from personal experience, I know is generally willing to eat anything. | |
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| | | | The cable ownership cap will fall (again).
The Court of Appeals for D.C. struck it down in 2001 for a lack of justification. The FCC re-imposed it with a new reasoning. But, the new reasoning was just as flawed. Comcast is still fighting it in court.
The concern is that content providers could be locked out of the market. That could be dealt with specific regulations dealing with that, just as there are specific regulations with vertically integrated operators (cablecos/satcos owning networks) to not discriminate against competing distributors. Or it could be imposed as conditions for mergers/acquisitions.
It's also a matter of fairness. Cable competes against satellite providers and phone companies, the latter is increasingly offering video as well as internet and voice. No other cellco, telco, satco has a ownership cap targeted at them. Telcos were allowed to re-consolidate with little to no conditions (e.g. ATT/BellSouth). And cellcos have consolidated very quickly, beginning with Cingular/ATTW (ATT and VZW have over 50% now).
The cablecos have generally been a lot more competitive than telcos. They have fiber far deeper in the neighborhood than telcos, and offer internet access at higher speeds. Here's a good anecdote: when I moved to my current residence in 2003, there was no broadband available. Comcast had bought ATTBi about a month earlier, did significant upgrades (including a fiber extensions and node splits), and I had broadband within a year. Meanwhile my lethargic, life sucking telco AT&T still can't offer DSL to my house (not that I would buy that slow crap). Comcast pulls fiber to a node in front of my house (DOCSIS 3 recently available as well), while AT&T can't be bothered to install a RT within a mile of my house to provide any DSL. It's a night and day difference, so why tie Comcast's hands?
An ownership cap didn't make sense in 2001, and it doesn't make sense now. | |
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| | | iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 | Re: Would Comcast buy them? Additionally, telcos can be as big as they like these days. Why not cablecos?
Since we're talking about incumbent cablecos (not overbuilders) buying other incombents (also not overbuilders) why not? | |
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| | they are all i have If they do go belly up, I would hope that another company would buy their territory where I live. I have a house in the middle of a very populated town and ATT will not give me DSL. I can see the brand new equipment from my window. ATT makes everyone on my street use some old (probably at least 15 years old) equipment further down the road that can only service about 14 homes. Charter was able to accommodate me. I'll be very pissed if they go away and nobody else can service my area except in my opinion even worse ATT. | |
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| rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO | Re: they are all i have This is not uncommon. I live in a subdivision that is not short on disposable income. Charter provides good service (digital TV, HD, On-Demand, telephone, HSI) but ATT barely provides POTs service. The subdivision next to me has the new uVerse service. I cannot even get DSL.
The subdivision next to me is 20-something years old. My subdivision is 30-something years old. Perhaps the age difference has something do to with the quality of the wires or technology that was deployed years ago. | |
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| | Do us ALL a favor... ...let Charter fail...LOUSY Customer service...Program "trickery" ALWAYS resulting in higher bills...
Anyone who buys them CAN'T be any worse!! | |
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| iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 | Re: Do us ALL a favor... Yes they can. Meet JetBroadband. | |
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| | | | Re: Do us ALL a favor... I hope Charter survives they are the fastest isp in my area and I don't have any service problems with them. They came through about a year ago and installed all new fiber | |
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