Comcast Agrees to Buy Time Warner Cable

opiate82

opiate82

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Yes, I still torrent HBO, Showtime, etc. but I would pay for a subscription to HBO-Go if they offered it. Movies, I usually just wait till they come out on AP or Netflix, sometimes I pay to digitally rent new releases on Amazon Prime. I haven't torrented any new music but I do torrent music that I have previously owned but have lost/destroyed the media over the years.
 
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Remit_sl

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Celestein_sl said:
This is such bullshit. Not all, but many, people who try to do fiber co-ops(myself included) are blocked by the cable companies having deals with municipalities.
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Blocked or just not interested in joining your co-op? I'd be interested to hear more details on an item like this.
 
Deathwing

Deathwing

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Crone_sl said:
Cable a la carte will never work. It's been said a million times over, but it works just like health insurance. The healthy people paying premiums, make the sick persons premiums a bit lower. If all you had on health insurance were sick people, their rates would be sky high.

Same with cable service. All those people that pay the high price, and watch 2 channels? They still are paying their share for ESPN, versus the dude that watches Sports Center all damn day and pays the same price.
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Here's the problem with your analogy. I care if sick people die. Most of the time, it's not even their fault. And either way, we usually lose productive members of society and there's lots of collateral damage.

Outside of the employees laid off, I really don't care if "sick" channels die. Can't offer shows people will watch? Fuck em.
 
Chanur

Chanur

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Celestein_sl said:
Blocked as in TWC had a deal with the municipality to prevent us getting the rights to lay the fiber to the node, even with the consent of every landowner already given.
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No man they just can't afford it. Stop using so much internet you greedy bastards.
 
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Remit_sl

shitlord
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Celestein_sl said:
Blocked as in TWC had a deal with the municipality to prevent us getting the rights to lay the fiber to the node, even with the consent of every landowner already given.
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Why not just have your upstream in the IXP build out 100 ft to your own hut?

Even TWC will do this for wholesale to competitors
 
Crone

Crone

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Deathwing_sl said:
Here's the problem with your analogy. I care if sick people die. Most of the time, it's not even their fault. And either way, we usually lose productive members of society and there's lots of collateral damage.

Outside of the employees laid off, I really don't care if "sick" channels die. Can't offer shows people will watch? Fuck em.
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Just because you care if a sick person dies, doesn't make the analogy wrong. An intelligent person like yourself probably wouldn't care if their cable package offered them fewer channels, for the same price, as long as it was the channels you wanted to watch, right? Problem is, everyone is different, and if the entire customer base isn't cost sharing, things get much more expensive.

I do not disagree that shitty channels are shitty, and why should they be carried if no one wants them. At the same time, the popular channels people do want, would be crazy high prices just for those, because they are popular, and the channel realizes this, and charges the cable company a bunch of money to carry that channel.

This battle has already been going on over the last year or so with the channel black outs between a cable company and a certain network or channel.

But I figure supply and demand would even things out. That shitty channel that you think should die off? Get that for $1. ESPN ? $40. HBO or Showtime? $50. (prices completely made up)
 
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rinthe_sl

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Here's something I don't understand.

I heard netflix offered free to Verizon the actual hardware to host like 70% of their traffic locally and Verizon turned it down. Why?
 
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Remit_sl

shitlord
521
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rinthe_sl said:
Here's something I don't understand.

I heard netflix offered free to Verizon the actual hardware to host like 70% of their traffic locally and Verizon turned it down. Why?
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I think they were probably holding out for some form of reimbursement or just planning to throttle the shit out of it.

The problem with caches is it really doesnt change anything for the end user, and changes little for the provider (especially a large one like Verizon). They will save a little on upstream, but this does nothing to reduce their local congestion.

Unless you can prove >5Gbps of netflix traffic in one location, Netflix will not provide a caching appliance. This leaves the cache to far to the edge of the network to resolve local congestion. If they cant deliver Ultra HD streaming at a profit now, a cache will do nothing to change that.
 
Arative

Arative

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rinthe_sl said:
Here's something I don't understand.

I heard netflix offered free to Verizon the actual hardware to host like 70% of their traffic locally and Verizon turned it down. Why?
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Its called open connect
Netflix offered a solution to help Internet Service Providers manage its video traffic. Netflix's Open Connect offers free peering at common Internet exchanges as well as free storage appliances that ISPs can connect directly to their network to distribute video to customers. Free is always good, and Netflix claims many ISPs around the world have already taken them up on the offer, slashing their transit costs along the way.

A few major North American ISPs have also agreed to take part in Open Connect, including Frontier Communications, Clearwire, Telus, Bell, Cablevision and Google Fiber. Open Connect participating ISPs also got an initial bonus for participating they could offer customers - exclusive access to SuperHD streaming.

But most Americans would not get super high-resolution streaming because the largest ISP's refused to participate, seeking direct compensation from content providers to carry traffic across their digital pipes instead.

On Sep. 26, 2013 Netflix decided to offer SuperHD streaming to all customers, regardless of their ISP. As a result, one major ISP told the newspaper Netflix traffic from Cogent at least quadrupled. ISPs taking Netflix up on Open Connect saw almost no degradation from the increased traffic, but not so for Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner Cable, and Comcast customers.
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Joeboo

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Here's the deal though with a-la-carte. I would HAPPILY pay more for the channels I want than what they cost now when bundled. I pay $90 a month for like 400 and some odd channels. I watch 7 channels 99% of the time. (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, FoxSports, AMC, FX, Comedy Central)

ESPN costs like $5 a month to cable companies that want to offer it right now. That's the most expensive channel by FAR. 99% of channels are under $1 a month.

The Most (And Least) Expensive Basic Cable Channels, In 1 Graph : Planet Money : NPR

I'd pay 5x the current going rate for the channels I want. My 5 channels would cost me $55 a month($25 for ESPN, Then $5-ish for the remaining 6 channels). My bill would be cut in HALF, while the cable channels collect 5x the amount of money from me. Win/Win. The only people that get screwed are the channels that no one wants. Random shopping channels, infomercial channels, etc would all disappear because no one would subscribe to them. The big dogs would probably make more money. ESPN, AMC, HBO, etc.

If you want people to subscribe, better pony up and provide good content.
 
Crone

Crone

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joeboo_sl said:
Here's the deal though with a-la-carte. I would HAPPILY pay more for the channels I want than what they cost now when bundled. I pay $90 a month for like 400 and some odd channels. I watch 7 channels 99% of the time. (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, FoxSports, AMC, FX, Comedy Central)

ESPN costs like $5 a month to cable companies that want to offer it right now. That's the most expensive channel by FAR. 99% of channels are under $1 a month.

The Most (And Least) Expensive Basic Cable Channels, In 1 Graph : Planet Money : NPR

I'd pay 5x the current going rate for the channels I want. My 5 channels would cost me $55 a month($25 for ESPN, Then $5-ish for the remaining 6 channels). My bill would be cut in HALF, while the cable channels collect 5x the amount of money from me. Win/Win. The only people that get screwed are the channels that no one wants. Random shopping channels, infomercial channels, etc would all disappear because no one would subscribe to them. The big dogs would probably make more money. ESPN, AMC, HBO, etc.

If you want people to subscribe, better pony up and provide good content.
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Everything I've read, which is probably all wrong, has said it'd be way more than that per channel, making your bill not cheaper. But who knows.
 
Joeboo

Joeboo

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That's what cable/satellite companies want everyone to think.

How about this...tv networks just start offering subscriber-based internet sites. You subscribe, you get the channel via your internet connection. You could have ESPN.tv, CNN.tv, ComedyCentral.tv, whatever. Just cut the middle men out that don't want to participate. Basically, every network would just have their own version of HBO GO that you could subscribe to, that not only archives past shows but live-broadcasts their current feed.

Of course, since the largest ISPs are also cable companies (Comcast, Time Warner) whatever revenue they lose on the TV side because of that they'll probably just raise rates on the internet service side of things. What a system!
 
Falstaff

Falstaff

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Cable companies probably pay double too for TBS East and TBS West, TNT East/West, etc etc.
 
Arative

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Tarrant

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joeboo_sl said:
That's what cable/satellite companies want everyone to think.
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They want you to think that because it's true. While providers share a lot of the blame in the shit prices we pay, you need to look above them to the networks if you really want change to happen. Providers are forced to give you all those 295 shit channels to give you the 7 you watch and you better believe if they didn't then then networks would take them to the cleaners to make up for lost revenue and advertising dollars.
 
Kirun

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Tarrant_sl said:
They want you to think that because it's true. While providers share a lot of the blame in the shit prices we pay, you need to look above them to the networks if you really want change to happen. Providers are forced to give you all those 295 shit channels to give you the 7 you watch and you better believe if they didn't then then networks would take them to the cleaners to make up for lost revenue and advertising dollars.
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And what are the networks going to do if Comcast/TWC/etc. stop offering those channels like that?

I'm so sick of nothing being the cable companies' fault. Infrastructure subsidized by the government? "FUCKING CONSUMERS AND YOUR STREAMING USAGE!! We can't afford to upgrade this shit! Even though we saw the writing on the wall years ago, but sat on that sweet, sweet government cash instead!". Not being able to sell their cable packages piecemeal? "Fucking Networks ruin everything! They're forcing us to make you pay for 200 channels you don't want!".
 
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Creslin

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There may be an argument that its the networks fault. The people making the argument that it would be more expensive to have no bundling of channels are retarded tho, literally the entire purpose of bundling is to raise firm profits, I can't think of a single example where it lowers consumer costs unless you have some kind of free rider problem which clearly isn't the case here.
 
BrutulTM

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The entire purpose of everything is to raise profits. What bundling does is allow less profitable shows/channels to exist. Some of them you don't like, some of them you probably do. If we paid a la carte they would be making less shows and catering to the least common denominator. If you like shows like Breaking Bad and Mad Men then you are probably a beneficiary of the bundling system. If you like neutered network dramas like NCIS/CSI et al or the Real Housewives of whatever then you probably don't need it.
 
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