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Comcast/Time Warner merger could spur $170B deals [Comcast Roundup]

"Comcast Corp.’s bid to buy Time Warner Cable Inc. may be the opening act for a yearlong festival of telecommunications deals that would alter Internet, phone and TV service for tens of millions of Americans."

  • Comcast’s Race for Customers May Spur $170 Billion Deals [Bloomberg] “Comcast Corp.’s bid to buy Time Warner Cable Inc. may be the opening act for a yearlong festival of telecommunications deals that would alter Internet, phone and TV service for tens of millions of Americans. […] All told, the three deals could total more than $170 billion in equity and net debt and affect more than 80 million U.S. customers. The slew of transactions — announced and prospective — reflects companies’ desire to get bigger to keep pace with surging broadband growth that requires faster Internet speeds and new methods of transmitting video on all devices.”
  • Why Comcast’s $10 a month Internet isn’t all it’s cracked up to be [Washington Post] “Critics say Comcast is using the Internet Essentials program to brighten its public image and paper over deeper problems posed to consumers by the deal. In Philadelphia, where the company is based and where it arguably has the most control over the program’s outcome, participation rates are especially low.”
  • Comcast exec: Internet ‘fast lanes’ were always allowed [The Hill] “As the Federal Communications Commission faces backlash over Chairman Tom Wheeler’s plans to allow Internet “fast lanes,” Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen said those deals were always allowed.”
  • Netflix keeps getting faster for Comcast subscribers, for some strange reason [Washington Post] “Comcast customers now get Netflix content faster than customers using most other Internet providers, according to Netflix. Only Cox and Cablevision provide faster service.”
  • Comcast Wants To Put Data Caps On All Customers Within 5 Years [TechCrunch] “The reason they haven’t done so already? They’re still working out exactly where they can cap things before they start getting phone calls — that is, before people start calling up to cancel. Meanwhile, making things more complicated tends to scare people away, so they don’t want to just offer up multiple plans/tiers — so before they make any changes, they need to find that plan that works for almost everyone.”
  • Comcast disables commercial fast-forwarding on new video on demand content [Philly.com]
  • Comcast partners with Asian carriers, eyes mobile market [Reuters] “ Comcast Corp is offering at least two Asian cellular operators access to its WiFi hot spots in the United States, in trial partnerships that illustrate the cable company’s ambitions to compete with U.S. wireless carriers.”
Companies: Comcast / Netflix / Time Warner Cable

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