Comcast Agrees to Buy Time Warner Cable

Chanur_sl said:

A supermarket that can provide better internet service than a huge cable company. Tell us more about the impossibility of it all Remit.

Also I work for an energy company, if we operated like Comcast we would be throttling your electricity unless you bought our light bulbs or appliances . Not using our bulbs? Hope you enjoy enough power for 1 thing at a time. So stupid.

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What? I guess you don't understand rolling brownouts. And power companies like Avista send you free energy efficient bulbs. And give you rebates for energy efficiency. And charge you more the more you use. And pay you for backfeed. And make you pay cost for new buildouts. And this is a terrible comparison

EDIT: Blackout, not brownout. Im not up on my utilities jargon
EDIT2: Nope i was right the first time... And on second thought, this is a great comparison to prove my point.

And this really will be my final post, I swear.

For every successful municipal internet service venture, I would wager 10 fail within 3-5 years. However, this is 2nd hand knowledge, and not my area of infinite wisdom

The biggest factor with streaming is that the bit-rates are scale-able. The faster of a speed you provide a customer, the higher the thoughput demand is, with little effect on customer expectations (most will not notice a difference between 720 to 1080, or 4k with 7.1 surround, etc). This is something never before seen in internet traffic. 3 years ago, if you provided faster speeds, it enabled customers to get on, and OFF, faster. Sure there were a few torrentors (<5%), but they were either throttled, or capped, or such a low percentage that it didnt matter. Now, usage can grow pretty much exponentially with faster available speeds, and it is being delivered to a statistically significant percentage of the user base (which will continue to grow at a rapid rate as more streaming capable devices are sold and become the standard for entertainment).

And, cost of infrastructure. Because that is what you are paying for. Wholesale + transport (or infrastructure costs) + maintenance + CSR/Billing/Misc + profit margin = cost to consumers.

Kirun_sl said:

Oh, I am? So why aren't they upgrading it and providing me with faster speeds? Instead, we're talking about things like throttling, data caps, etc.

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Existing infrastructure. See other costs if infrastructure is already paid for. Get all your neighbors to pay $200/month + $5000 install charge and you will have fiber by the end of the month

Chanur_sl said:

With the huge profit margins ISP are earning how can you claim the lack of infrastructure is a matter of money?

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Already covered in detail. Cost is insane, usage has crippled profit margins.

I do just fine. And yeah, looks like they were prepping to buy more existing infrastructure.

Edit: after 26 quarters of losses

Remit_sl said:

And charge you more the more you use.

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This is really all you had to say.

Not whining. Explaining why all you whiney customers will actually start paying more for less than you do now, in the near future. And it's not because of a Comcast monopoly

Kirun_sl said:

Oh, so they werelosingmoney, back when nobody was streaming shitloads of content(according to you)? Yet, suddenly,afterstreaming usages explodes, they are making massive profits(coincidentally, it all happens in the era of data caps, throttling, etc.). Yeah, that doesn't sound like horrible mismanagement at all..

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I was already proven wrong on this. It was customer losses. And even if they were, you could thank the IRS for that one

Deathwing_sl said:

Wrong

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How about not ONLY due to a Comcast monopoly.

I am stuck with and fucking hate comcast, I hate them so much I would pay triple for equal speeds if I could switch ISP. I await the day I can tell them fuck you with my wallet

Cox Communications seems to be the place to be, and I'm going to be sad to give them up and switch to TWC or Comcast sometime this year when I move to San Antonio TX.

I've seen speeds increase quite a bit without much of a price increase in their packages. Their "Premium" package used to be advertised 25 down, and then it went up to 50 down just recently. Seen these speeds increase for a while. I'm pretty happy with it all.

Crone_sl said:

Cox Communications seems to be the place to be, and I'm going to be sad to give them up and switch to TWC or Comcast sometime this year when I move to San Antonio TX.

I've seen speeds increase quite a bit without much of a price increase in their packages. Their "Premium" package used to be advertised 25 down, and then it went up to 50 down just recently. Seen these speeds increase for a while. I'm pretty happy with it all.

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I'm on their Ultimate package and they bumped me from 50 to 100 last year. Only, slight, down side is I have a 400gb a month 'cap' which I seem to go over every other month or so. If I go over all I get is a nastygram in my email telling me I went over and should consider upgrading though so I can't complain too much about it yet.

Comcast $avings: Your Bill Isnt Going Down, Nor Will It Increase Less Rapidly | Stop the Cap!

"We're certainly not promising that customer bills are going to go down or even that they're going to increase less rapidly," David L. Cohen, a Comcast executive vice president, said in a conference call with reporters.

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