Per this report
I should probably be thrilled, but I still pay a ridiculous amount of money each month to Comcast for internet access. I still have no option for a different provider because Comcast has ensured there is no competition. My internet is still slower than any other first-world nation’s. Comcast still has no incentive to provide good customer service or technical support. So how does the failed merger positively impact me?
It’ll be slightly less difficult for Google Fiber to break into your market?
Where are you that you get a choice. Here in California (At least in L.A. and the Sacramento area), if you want a different provider…you have to move. I cannot tell you how frustrated I was being in Time Warner’s coverage area when AT&T Uverse area was literally a couple of blocks away.
I have said the same of Time Warner, the fuckers.
Laughably, Comcast used this exact reasoning as to why the merger should go through. They and Time Warner have already carefully avoided competing with each other, and so they claimed that a merger would not result in reduced competition.
I’m soon going to be leaving a Time Warner zone for a Comcast zone. Believe it or not, I’ve generally been happy with Time Warner. Uptime has been good, they actually give me the bandwidth they’re selling me at all times, and they’ve got a decent slate of other features like the TV app. The few times I’ve had to deal with customer service weren’t bad either.
I’ll be interested to see how it goes with Comcast. If it gets to be too bad, I might just cut the cord and go with something like Centurylink for Internet and phone, seeing as how they can get me a speed almost as fast as Comcast.
Damn straight. If ever an industry needed a disruptive event its cable.
Now if only the government could banish Comcast to the deepest, darkest depths of hell the world would know justice.
That’s my point. I have no choice. It is either Comcast or nothing.
Between Comcast and TW, they would have owned all the NBC and Universal channels, all the Turner channels, CNN, HLN, Cartoon Network, HBO, etc. So, at least you’ll still have two companies owning the content providers rather than one. For what it’s worth, I suppose.
I’m in a Comcast and Verizon FIOS area, so I have two choices. Yay me.
They’re headquartered in Philly. How much worse could it be?
I got rid of cable TV two years ago because I was paying over $200 a month for Comcast’s Triple Play program. It just ate at me that I was paying so much for something I rarely used as my wife and I are not TV watchers.
So now I pay a little over $130 a month for Internet and phone, which is still ridiculous if you ask me, but get this, if I cancel my phone service with Comcast, my monthly payment for Internet-only will actually go up!
Yeah, I don’t know how they get away with that. It seems like clearly anti-competitive behavior. I use Vonage for my phone, but I still pay for the triple play because it’s cheaper and I get more other stuff. I just don’t use the phone number that comes with my cable service. It’s actually been fantastic for keeping away spam callers, though. I don’t get them.
I don’t know why, but I thought this topic would turn into a debate, which is the reason I placed the thread here. Doesn’t seem like a debate is brewing, so a moderator can move it to a more appropriate locale, if desired.
It seems that hating our overpriced and anticompetitive internet service providers is something the entire SDMB can agree on!
I don’t see why people pay for expensive cable TV or Internet service at all. There’s nothing on the so-called “Worldwide Web” that I can’t get from my VIC-20 and 1530 Datasette, and I’ve yet to see any form of TV entertainment that’s superior to my shoe box and finger puppets.