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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

Note that this is AT&T buying Time Warner the content company [1], not Time Warner Cable the ISP [2]. It's analogous to Comcast's NBC Universal acquisition [3].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner_Cable

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_NBC_Universal...

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This is a very important distinction. To aid the lazy, the wiki articles JumpCrisscross link state that Time Warner Cable is a spin off from Time Warner in 2009 and they are independent of each other today, despite still sharing part of a name. Therefore, this doesn't really appear to be an actual consolidation.

EDIT: as drieddust notes, it is vertical integration of sorts.

While its legal vertical integration is equally evil. It ends up creating Oligopoly. Ones a few player becomes big enough, competition cannot rise.

Why would competition be unable to rise?

Because Time Warner's competition needs to rely on AT&T's network to deliver their content.

A big player with deep pockets can also make it a losing game for new player even if they can find alternate channels to reach consumer.

To deliver their content to some of their customers. AT&T only controls ~30% of mobile and a lot less than 30% of the landline ISP market.

Google and Apple control much more of the market via handset OS's. And we let them control media on their devices.

And after Net Neutrality, it's not even legal to discriminate against competitors traffic.

Starting an ISP is insanely expensive and needs long (10-15 years) wait before you start seeing any profit, if at all.

Mind clarifying the evil here? The word has a much stronger definition than seems suitable in this situation.

The combination of content providers and ISPs is deeply worrying from a net neutrality perspective.

Evil is a strong word but imagine a future where ISPs chop and charge your for your data like cable and try to keep you looking at "their" content.

That is their plan pretty much.ISP are feeling cheated for no good reason. They think while they invest in upgrading the infrastructure to support the higher bandwidth demand, content provider keeps Lion's. They want to control of that revenue stream.

In UK I recently asked for an upgrade of bandwidth for which they don't have to change anything since lines are already there, I still had to sign a new 12 month contract despite being a long term customer. Did I had an option? Not really because only they all have similar terms. There is so few of them that customer don't really have a choice.

Vertical integration looks consumer friendly in short term only. In long term it just kills innovation and competition and screws up user.

I agree with you on ISPs having control over the content is a bad idea. But I also urge you to consider that the pressure on lower price from customers and government regulators are a real pain. There is a reason why ISP sector doesn't have a lot of competition (some of it has to do with strong-arming by existing market leaders in countries like the US) because it requires an insane amount of investment on infrastructure that constantly needs to be upgraded and maintaining last mile fibre can be a major pain in the ass (and expensive). Most ISPs don't start to see a return on their investment 10-15 years after the fact.

There seems to be a lot of misconception about ISPs in general. I am an ISP owner and I wrote a small rant a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12691465

Thanks it's good to understand other side of the table. Your experience actually validates my premise that big player are squeezing out smaller players.

They can even run on a loss for years just to make it unattractive for smaller/newer player.

> Most ISPs don't start to see a return on their investment 10-15 years after the fact.

I think a fair amount of the anger at the huge ISPs is that they don't invest in many areas' infrastructure while raising rates, reducing the value of services by retroactively adding caps, and otherwise being exploitive in noncompetitive areas. AOLT&T (sorry, couldn't resist), in particular, is also well known to use threats of not expanding infrastructure as a political weapon, while Verizon is better known for pocketing billions in concessions while also not building infrastructure. But both do both.

Now they want to confuse, and of course raise, your bill further, blurring fees for connectivity with content.

Oligopoly is about horizontal integration not vertical. If there are 2 phone companies instead of 10, that's worse for consumers. The general history of content and pipes vertical mergers has been good for customers but bad for the acquiring shareholders. (Look at AOL Time Warner for example)

Time Warner Cable does not exist, it was purchased. They will not share a name, as it is folded into Charter Spectrum.

the wiki article does not reflect that exactly

how so?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner_Cable

Time Warner Cable (TWC) was an American cable telecommunications company. [...] On May 26, 2015, Charter Communications announced that it would acquire Time Warner Cable for $78.7 billion, along with Bright House Networks in a separate $10.1 billion deal, [...] the purchase was completed on May 18, 2016; Charter continues to do business as Time Warner Cable in its former markets, but plans to re-brand TWC's systems under its Spectrum brand in the future.

And separate from Time Warner Telecom (TWTC) which is owned by Level 3[1]. :-)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TW_Telecom

Also note that Time Warner Cable no longer exists, it was bought by Charter Communications with the deal finalized this year.

... and one of the first things Charter (now Spectrum, with the addition of Time Warner Cable) did was raise rates across the board and cancel the MAXX upgrades that Time Warner had been rolling out in a lot of areas... after spending months "convincing" regulators that the merger would not harm the consumer (lol).

The telecommunication "market" in the US is so amazingly consumer hostile right now, getting worse and worse and it is looking increasingly like feint efforts like Google Fiber won't really do anything to change it outside of a few very small markets. But there's nothing the consumer can do in protest because there are no options.

they also told us (TWC engineers) that there would be "absolutely no job cuts from the merger" well they have started forcing people to relocate or take severance as a way to cut work force stealthily.

I wish ISPs weren't allowed to also be media companies. Sets up a terrible conflict of interest.

fyi many are aware of this but TWC was bought and merged with Charter a few months ago. There is no "Time Warner Cable" anymore, most of the branding is switched over now.

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