In NYC I am paying $69/mo (approximately 61.50 EUR) for 50/50, and that's fiber. No TV.

I have seen bandwidth prices cited in places like Bulgaria, Estonia etc. that are much better.

No TV, just net + router included

The annoying part is that I can't get Just Internet.

Though I do agree that returning to the earlier regional railways, along with additional mainline and freight train operators, would have been a better way to organise.

So in the this case maybe AT&T having vertical integration is a good thing.

Personally I haven't seen any positives for consumers from Comcast buying NBC Universal so I don't see how this would benefit consumers either.

If you would like to find something that is comparable, I'll recommend to look for it related to the roads.

Try to imagine a situation were single private company owns all the roads (of one region), including all the highways and local roads and has also a bus company.

While I don't want to put forth a defeatist attitude, clearly a much more robust strategy than "write your senator/rep" must be devised. Ddos attacks at an unprecedented scale are occurring and probing all internet infrastructure. Not only is this a single point of fail, but is anti competitive, dangerous and bad for essentially everyone in the country. I think something like Calyx networks has a good small strategy, but literally short of raising a SPAC and buying a controlling interest, it seems hard to thwart.

Time Warner Cable was spun out from Time Warner, Inc. seven years ago, and they no longer have any relationship with each other. Time Warner Cable was permitted to continue using the name under license, though they are now trying to rebrand themselves as "Spectrum" in markets where they already had a presence (such as New York City).

AT&T is reportedly talking about buying Time Warner, Inc, which is a media conglomerate that owns either part or all of brands like Warner Bros, CNN, DC Comics, and Hulu.

Is that a nice way of saying they're rebranding themselves to anyone already familiar with the brand. The assumption being anyone familiar with the brand has a negative image of it :)

I've been a part of situations like that. You can try and get ahead of it like TW is doing now where you create the second name ahead of time and try to build up the recognition and awareness around it in advance.

Charter also bought Bright House at the same time as Time Warner Cable. They are all being brought under the Spectrum name, which was and is Charter's pre-existing name for their cable services.

This is not the scenario at all that "rebranding" invokes. Especially not in the context that chimeracoder uses it. See ssharp's post [0] for an example of what the typical interpretation would be.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12762492

However, this potential transaction would be more similar to the Comcast purchase of NBC/Universal.

No, it's being replaced by Spectrum (which is a brand Charter already owned).

I can confirm this firsthand - when my service went out last week, I called the same number I have stored in my contacts[0], and the automated greeting introduced itself with both the old and new name.

[0] The fact that I have TWC's support number in my contacts should tell you exactly what I think of their service

I agree that "rebranding" is a seriously uncharitable interpretation of the circumstances.

Charter also bought Bright House at the same time as Time Warner Cable. They are all being brought under the Spectrum name, which was and is Charter's pre-existing name for their cable services.

This is not the scenario at all that "rebranding" invokes. Especially not in the context that chimeracoder uses it. See ssharp's post [0] for an example of what the typical interpretation would be.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12762492

I know techs are not always the most knowledgeable about business direction. But I figure if four people all individually say the same thing, there might be something to it.

[0] I've had quite a few, thanks to cutting through my line while gardening, and a lightning strike through the cable lines.

EDIT: A previous version of this comment mistakenly claimed AT&T owns Dish Network

(Source: SEC Form 15-12B, filed November 9, 2015.)

What's next? Verizon to buy Viacom?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFKoGtgg6Mo

...brought to you by YouTube, a Google company, whose parent company is Alphabet.

Everything has a price, though, one can imagine.

[1]http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160929005731/en/Viac...

I would think they also have other media properties, but AT&T already owns DirectTV, which has a little bit of production.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirecTV#Programming

(Obviously AT&T wouldn't actually do this, but there are many degrees between it and the current status quo: Timed exclusivity, bumping up pricing for non-AT&T subscribers, or even a cap-and-zero-rating scheme for AT&T's own customers.)

Not true. Time Warner and Time Warner Cable are different companies. Time Warner Cable was recently acquired by Spectrum [https://www.charter.com/merger-twc]

Investors are already prepping for a Sprint or TMUS acquisition under a Clinton or Trump administration. Expect continued centralization of power...

http://i.imgur.com/US2mwgq.jpg

The regulations did have an effect in the 1980s, of course. That was back when there was only one company that did long distance service, and (earlier) you rented, not owned, your home telephone. So long-distance calls were very expensive, and a Big Deal, and you had only one or two phones in your house, because they were so expensive.

[0] http://on.wsj.com/2dVLQM5

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_cross-ownership_in_the_U...

http://i.imgur.com/k0pv0.jpg

For example Dr Oetker owns half if the European food industry

It would seem so since there must be an active body to oversee corporate control.

At&t needs to be broken up by region again. Along with Monsanto, Walmart, Comcast, Verizon, Google, Facebook and Microsoft.

The only ones on your list that create problems would be Comcast and Verizon (assuming not wireless) as they are granted local monopolies by local municipalities and governments through right of way access to utility poles, etc. Breaking up the others, as you are suggesting, would only harm consumers.

Your own example, Bell System, is an example of an sub-optimal but obviously adequate regulated monopoly that worked moderately well over a century.

And US Steel certainly did _not_ have competition when anti-trust was brought against it. By 1907 there were no longer any competitors and anti-trust attempts only started in 1911.

What you do have today, for adopting pro-monopoly policies for decades is, among other things, the highest bandwidth prices in the developed world. Higher even than the comically inept regulated monopoly Telefonica. Which btw has phone plans and per minute charges a fraction of the US and where the idea for charging for an incoming call is unthinkable. And a food supply monopolies that inflates the price of food to stunning levels. The list is endless but my typing patience is not. So here's a link.

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21695385-profits-are-...

Ummmmm, no.

Whatever your economic viewpoint, there's no credible way you can claim that the Bell monopoly was healthy for the economy. This is the same organization that had to be taken to court to allow new devices to be plugged in. Remember these? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_coupler They weren't built because it's more efficient for computers to communicate over soundwaves.

The Bell monopoly invented the transistor. I think there's a credible claim that could be made that the invention of the transistor was healthy for the economy.

That's not too say nothing should be done to prevent abuse of the control they do have.

Edit: Really, it's an ongoing battle. Nothing is inevitable.

I wouldn't be surprised if Comcast releases an MVNO with devices that are intended to work primarily on comcast wifi, with secondary cellular.

And after buying DirecTV AT&T already used the excuse that because it paid so much money on the acquisition already, it can't invest too much in its services anymore.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160217/10525033624/att-m...

Bottom line is: these consolidations always make things worse for consumers, not better.

no one knows how to better treat human beings than faceless corporations with a fiduciary responsibility to faceless shareholders.

If this does go through you will be getting your internet from either AT&T or Verizon in the United States.

This is hypothetically one merger away from putting the old Ma Bell back together.

I'm waiting to hear the obligatory "This will be good for consumers" comment from these folks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System

You just have to see the repeat.

Company A has 50 billion dollars cash on hand, and their core business is valued by the market at 100 billion, so their market cap is 150 billion. Company B's core business is valued by the market at 25 billion and has no cash on hand, so their market cap is 25 billion.

Company A then purchases company B's core business for 50 billion dollars. Company A then has no cash on hand, their original 100 billion core business, and a new business that the market valued at 25 billion, so their new market cap is 125 billion (a 16.6% decrease).

Company B (or their stockholders, strictly speaking) on the other hand has 50 billion dollars in cash, and no core business, so company B now has a "market cap" of 50 billion dollars (100% increase).

More often than not, the market (i.e. those buying and selling the stocks) will assume that the company being acquired was correctly priced before the purchase and that the acquiring company overpaid.

There are a lot of unknowns, because every deal usually starts from an idea, e.g. we're going to acquire X for $10bn, and that will give us $1bn in extra profits + $2bn in synergies after integration. But they need to integrate the company first to achieve those results, meaning it's unknown, meaning it can fail, meaning there's a risk premium.

Half of what determines the price of a stock on the stock market is psychology. It's a herd.

In the event of a deal, Time Warner shareholders are getting a cash premium SOON. So the price goes up.