While federal regulators continue their review of the pending merger between Time Warner Cable and Comcast, it’s time to look at how these two companies fared in various customer satisfaction surveys from the last 12 months. We’ll give you a hint: It didn’t go well. [More]
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Dish, Consumer Advocates Ask FCC To Block Comcast/TWC Merger As Final Comment Deadline Hits
By 12.23.14
The Comcast/TWC merger is once again in a brief time-out, but that didn’t stop today from being a major milestone in the FCC’s review process. At long last, the final deadline for the back-and-forth of comments, replies, and replies to replies has come, and merger opponents are taking advantage of their one last chance to ask the FCC to prevent a consumer disaster before it happens. [More]
Comcast, Time Warner Cable Merger Review Delayed Again
By 12.23.14
Even with bought-and-paid-for Senators urging the FCC to hurry up its review of the pending merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable, there is only so much the regulators can do when they don’t have the documents they need to complete that review. That’s why the FCC has once again hit the pause button on the time clock for this mega-merger. [More]
Comcast Lobbyists Know How To Win Over D.C. Power Players — With Decent Customer Service
By 12.22.14
Sure, Comcast has no problem throwing around hundreds of thousands of dollars to win support from lawmakers who are willing to regurgitate whatever David Cohen tells them to say, but the company also knows how to really win people over to its side — by providing them access to customer service that isn’t horrible. [More]
Consumer Advocates Head Back To FCC, Continue Urging Agency To Reject Comcast/TWC Merger
By 12.17.14
After a long pause, the FCC’s review of the Comcast/TWC merger is back underway. Now, the wave of comments in response to Comcast’s last data dump are starting to roll in, once again asking the agency to block the merger. [More]
Comcast, Charter, TWC All Admit That Strong Net Neutrality Rules Won’t Actually Be The End Of The World
By 12.16.14
Every single one of the big ISPs has been spending the better part of a year telling both the government and the public that using Title II to regulate net neutrality would be so counterproductive, ineffective, and unlawful that it would ruin the whole internet for everyone forever. Their main threat has been that with tighter regulation, they will stop spending money investing in networks. But to their investors, company executives are telling a different tale entirely: Comcast, Charter, and Time Warner Cable have now joined Verizon in admitting that from an investment standpoint, Title II won’t really harm them or change much of anything at all. [More]
Roku And Comcast Finally Make Nice, Will Allow HBO Go And Showtime Apps
By 12.16.14
A personal anecdote, if you’ll allow… A few years back, I — ever a good son — bought my mother a Roku box for her TV (that I’d also bought her), only to find out that she, like millions of other Comcast subscribers, was not allowed to access the device’s HBO Go app because she’s a Comcast customer. But those darks days are coming to an end, now that Kabletown and Roku are suddenly buddies. [More]
Here’s What $184K In Campaign Contributions Gets Comcast — A Letter Of Support From Two Senators
By 12.11.14
Earlier today, the two U.S. Senators from Pennsylvania put aside partisan squabbling for a moment to agree that the only things more awesome than campaign contributions from Comcast are the things Comcast has told us are really cool about its pending merger with Time Warner Cable. [More]
New Coalition Steps Up To Fight “Mega Comcast” Merger As FCC Restarts Review Clock
By 12.3.14
It’s the plot of a certain kind of action movie or video game that we’ve all seen and played a thousand times: the big bad robot/alien/lizard comes crashing into town and the only thing that will stop it is when an unlikely band of allies group up and save the world. If politics and business are a game, as so many participants seem to think, then now they are apparently one of that genre, as an unlikely band of allies is now grouping together under one banner to fight the Comcast/Time Warner Cable mega-merger. [More]
Court Bars FCC From Disclosing How Much Comcast, DirecTV Pay Broadcasters
By 11.21.14
Last week’s last-minute legal battle between just about every major TV broadcaster and the FCC came to a quietly disappointing conclusion this morning, with a federal appeals court refusing to allow the government to share confidential details about the mergers of Comcast and Time Warner Cable, and DirecTV and AT&T. [More]
Charter Ready To Woo Time Warner Cable Again If Comcast Fails
By 11.20.14
Not even a year ago, Time Warner Cable was spurning the romantic advances of Charter Communications and its $37.3 billion offer of wedded bliss, all because it knew that Comcast was waiting in the wings with a more expensive proposal. But in case the Comcast/TWC marriage fails to get the blessing of federal regulators, Charter’s billionaire backer says he’s ready to be Time Warner Cable’s rebound relationship. [More]
Broadcasters Get Court To Stop Consumers From Seeing How Much Cable Companies Pay For Content
By 11.14.14
The FCC is currently mulling over whether to give its stamp of approval to two huge mergers — Comcast/Time Warner Cable and AT&T/DirecTV — and is intending to make information available to third parties about the deals that that these pay-TV giants make with broadcasters. But even though you and every other cable subscriber wants to know exactly how much Comcast pays for access to channels like ESPN, MTV, and the major networks, the broadcasters want that info kept under lock and key — and they’ve asked the court to stop it from possibly going public. [More]
Time Warner Wants $20,000 To Connect Rural Customer To Broadband
By 11.6.14
Ten years ago, a man in central New York decided to build a house in a rural area. This seemed like a pretty good idea at the time, but broadband Internet wasn’t as crucial to modern life then as it is now. There are Time Warner Cable lines in the small town of Pompey, southeast of Syracuse, a third of a mile from his house, but Time Warner says that it would cost more than $20,000 to connect him. [More]
NYC Mayor Raises Concerns About Comcast/TWC Merger
By 11.4.14
While 52 other mayors from around the country were recently reminded that Comcast is an important contributor to election campaigns, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City has been busy warning the FCC that the pending merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable is fraught with potential problems. [More]
NY Pols Want Free Broadband For Public Housing, WiFi For Parks If Comcast Deal Approved
By 10.31.14
Usually by this point in the review process of a mega-merger like the one pending between Comcast and Time Warner Cable, there are discussions about things the parties are willing to do or give up in order to make the deal more palatable to critics. But because Comcast and TWC proactively offered to spin off some 3 million customers, and because Comcast already made a bunch of promises and concessions when it acquired NBC back in 2010, there hasn’t been much chatter. But some folks in New York are making known their demands for signing off on the deal. [More]
Study Finds Internet Congestion Really Is About Business, Not Technology
By 10.30.14
Various enormous corporations have this year been at each other’s throats over how well or how poorly internet traffic travels through their systems. A new report indicates that some of the mud-slinging this year is true: interconnection, or peering, between ISPs is why end-users are getting terrible internet traffic. But, they say, it’s business, and not technology, that’s making your Netflix buffer. [More]
Yet Another City Moves To Block Comcast From Taking Over Their TWC Service
By 10.30.14
Comcast’s plans to buy Time Warner Cable are obviously heavily under review at the federal level, and states are reviewing the merger plans with a gimlet eye as well. But thanks to the quirks of the way cable agreements developed, the cities that cable companies serve have the power to allow or block new companies from coming in and taking over. And a city in Kentucky this week became the latest potentially to throw a wrench in the grand Comcast/Time Warner Cable/Charter plan by doing just that. [More]
Antitrust Experts To FCC: Comcast/TWC Merger Is A Terrible Idea
By 10.24.14
A group of antitrust experts spanning the country, from Harvard to Stanford and plenty of places in between, has asked the FCC to block the Comcast and Time Warner Cable union. In a letter, the experts urge the FCC to act to to “protect competition and consumers” by preventing the merger before it happens. [More]
