Charter Communications to acquire Cox Communications

[formulanone]

I don't think any of this is reasonable honestly. And as Scott said, if you want to live in the country, there are trade offs.

This is why they need to bring back analog TV: because analog had better signals, which didn't break up like digital.

And the rotary phone too.

From now on I'm gonna need everyone to send their posts, along with a self-addressed stamped envelope, to my P.O. Box.

Pony Express: when it absolutely, positively needs to be there by horse and rider.

[hotdogPi]

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=21490.0
(AARoads topics in 1864)

[bandit957]

If we had this thread in 1983, people would be talking about how great videodiscs are.

[bandit957]

If the federal government won't file an antitrust suit, the states should.

[SEWIGuy]

If the federal government won't file an antitrust suit, the states should.

Again, why? How is this anti-competitive?

[LilianaUwU]

If the federal government won't file an antitrust suit, the states should.

Again, why? How is this anti-competitive?

There would be too many places where the merged company would be the only option. Speaking of 1983, the Bell System comes to mind.

[SEWIGuy]

If the federal government won't file an antitrust suit, the states should.

Again, why? How is this anti-competitive?

There would be too many places where the merged company would be the only option. Speaking of 1983, the Bell System comes to mind.

My understanding is that their overlap is limited, but I guess we will see.  I also think that the industry needs to be defined as more than simply cable services. Are they the only ISP option in those areas as well?

[kphoger]

Here's hoping that there being more Cox now means you'll have more jobs, rather than less.

As a contracting company, it's not about total number of jobs.  It's about whether the MSO wants to keep doing business with us at all.  Right now, we're in one Charter market and one Cox market.  If the new merged MSO decides to re-analyze how they work with vendors, then who knows what might happen.  Again, though, this is just me shooting in the dark:  I haven't spoken to anyone at work yet, because I didn't find out till this week-end.

If the federal government won't file an antitrust suit, the states should.

Again, why? How is this anti-competitive?

There would be too many places where the merged company would be the only option.

My understanding is that their overlap is limited,

This.

I'm not very familiar with regions I haven't dealt with directly, but my understanding is that Charter and Cox aren't generally in direct competition with each other in very many places.  They might do work in the same area, but not the same type of work.  For example, Cox had been doing some fiber work in the Kansas City area, but KC wasn't actually a Cox cable market.

It's like if In-N-Out merged with Culver's.

[Scott5114]

As a contracting company, it's not about total number of jobs.  It's about whether the MSO wants to keep doing business with us at all.  Right now, we're in one Charter market and one Cox market.  If the new merged MSO decides to re-analyze how they work with vendors, then who knows what might happen.  Again, though, this is just me shooting in the dark:  I haven't spoken to anyone at work yet, because I didn't find out till this week-end.

I would think that you'd be in a pretty good situation, then, since you have an established relationship with both companies and therefore probably have a better view of the big picture than either of the companies that are actually merging.

But I understand the anxiety, because you can never underestimate management's capacity to do stupid, short-sighted things.

(Also, I'm sure you've said what MSO stands for at some point, but I couldn't remember so I looked it up and Google tells me it's the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. I had no idea they even did cable.)

[Big John]

Management Services Organization

[WillWeaverRVA]

If we had this thread in 1983, people would be talking about how great videodiscs are.

Betamax is clearly the wave of the future.

[SEWIGuy]

Here's hoping that there being more Cox now means you'll have more jobs, rather than less.

As a contracting company, it's not about total number of jobs.  It's about whether the MSO wants to keep doing business with us at all.  Right now, we're in one Charter market and one Cox market.  If the new merged MSO decides to re-analyze how they work with vendors, then who knows what might happen.  Again, though, this is just me shooting in the dark:  I haven't spoken to anyone at work yet, because I didn't find out till this week-end.

If the federal government won't file an antitrust suit, the states should.

Again, why? How is this anti-competitive?

There would be too many places where the merged company would be the only option.

My understanding is that their overlap is limited,

This.

I'm not very familiar with regions I haven't dealt with directly, but my understanding is that Charter and Cox aren't generally in direct competition with each other in very many places.  They might do work in the same area, but not the same type of work.  For example, Cox had been doing some fiber work in the Kansas City area, but KC wasn't actually a Cox cable market.

It's like if In-N-Out merged with Culver's.

And a way any geographic overlap can work is by selling off some operations to another carrier.

But IMO the issue is less "cable television" but "high speed internet." As long as there are other options for those servies in the area, I can't see why this is much of a problem.

[kphoger]

I would think that you'd be in a pretty good situation, then, since you have an established relationship with both companies and therefore probably have a better view of the big picture than either of the companies that are actually merging.

Oh, for sure.  Except that a zillion other companies just like ours are also in that same situation, doing business with both Charter and Cox.  It's not just us.

Also, I'm sure you've said what MSO stands for at some point, but I couldn't remember so I looked it up and Google tells me it's the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. I had no idea they even did cable.

Multiple Systems Operator.  Charter and Cox are both MSOs.  Technically, any provider that operates in more than one area is an MSO, because each area is its own 'system'.  But I don't know if anyone really uses the term in that strict sense.  Typically, when someone says 'MSO', they mean something like Charter or Cox or DirecTV or Comcast or Cable One or Verizon (Fios) or Frontier or...  You get the idea.

[kphoger]

OTA television

analog TV

I've been thinking about this.  There are things that digital cable does that OTA/broadcast TV cannot do.  For example, pay-per-view and video-on-demand both require that your request can be sent back upstream from your home to the headend.  Any sort of interactive service does as well.  Some or all of these may be doable by coordinating your TV service with your internet connection's upstream frequency bands, but they are impossible to accomplish with downstream signal only.  Now, you might not care about PPV or VOD or interactive TV, but that doesn't mean other people don't care about them.

[bandit957]

Is there even anything useful still on TV?

'Sesame Street' is unwatchable now. If 'Sesame Street' was still as good as it was in the '70s, it would be useful for today's kiddos.

[hotdogPi]

Is there even anything useful still on TV?

'Sesame Street' is unwatchable now. If 'Sesame Street' was still as good as it was in the '70s, it would be useful for today's kiddos.

There's a thread about this exact question.

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=33573.0

The consensus is sports only.

[kphoger]

What they really need to do is bring back analog TV.

Is there even anything useful still on TV?

There must be, if you want it so badly.

[SEWIGuy]

What they really need to do is bring back analog TV.

Is there even anything useful still on TV?

There must be, if you want it so badly.

I think Bandit is one of those guys who looks fondly upon the past, and for whatever reason, wants to roll the clock back.

[kphoger]

Honestly, the only things my family watches on live TV anymore are tornado warning updates and the Super Bowl, and the latter is usually at someone else's house.  We used to watch the Olympics on TV, but now we just use Peacock for that.

[vdeane]

To be fair, there's also the issue of bigger companies having more power/influence over the market, so mergers can be an issue even if they don't reduce competition per se.  There's a reason why Bell was broken up, after all.

OTA television

analog TV

I've been thinking about this.  There are things that digital cable does that OTA/broadcast TV cannot do.  For example, pay-per-view and video-on-demand both require that your request can be sent back upstream from your home to the headend.  Any sort of interactive service does as well.  Some or all of these may be doable by coordinating your TV service with your internet connection's upstream frequency bands, but they are impossible to accomplish with downstream signal only.  Now, you might not care about PPV or VOD or interactive TV, but that doesn't mean other people don't care about them.

ATSC 3.0 is supposed to do that (by leveraging internet for the uplink), though it personally seems like a gimmick to me (mostly - I do like that it would allow for weather preemption to be more targeted).  I don't like that ATSC 3.0 will allow OTA streams to be put behind DRM; sure, it allows PPV, but it also allows the OTA networks to go subscription-only and for broadcast corporations to take control of the "user experience".

[kphoger]

Some or all of these may be doable by coordinating your TV service with your internet connection's upstream frequency bands

ATSC 3.0 is supposed to do that (by leveraging internet for the uplink)

I'm not familiar with it.  Is it different than what I said?

[SEWIGuy]

To be fair, there's also the issue of bigger companies having more power/influence over the market, so mergers can be an issue even if they don't reduce competition per se.  There's a reason why Bell was broken up, after all.

It wasn't broken up because it was deemed too big. It was broken up because it controlled all long-distance, most local and all of the equipment that attached with the system. There was little to no room for competition in any of those areas.

Antitrust is about anti competitive behavior - not just size.

[bandit957]

For some reason, our local phone system (which was known for wiretapping public figures and journalists) said the AT&T ruling didn't apply to it, so we were stuck with AT&T thereafter.

[SEWIGuy]

For some reason, our local phone system (which was known for wiretapping public figures and journalists) said the AT&T ruling didn't apply to it, so we were stuck with AT&T thereafter.

Cincinnati Bell? Yeah, it was one of the exceptions to the ruling, I think because it was one of the few only partially owned by AT&T at the time.