Comcast-TWC: Cutting the Cord

Logo of Comcast Latina: Insigne Comcast (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Comcast, the communications giant that owns NBC, has called off its $45 billion merger with Time Warner Cable citing too many regulatory hoops they had to jump through.  Really, it was all the opposition from government and consumer groups that they couldn't overcome.

Together, Comcast and TWC would have controlled nearly 30 percent of cable subscribers and 57 percent of broadband users.  That's why, to satisfy regulators, Comcast-TWC was willing to unload some of its territories (such as Minneapolis and St. Paul) on other cable providers such as Charter Communications.

When the proposed merger was announced, alarm bells rang in Washington and for those who cared about the future of the Internet.  If the government had approved the deal, the new company would have had monopolistic powers over who got on their broadband and how much they would have charged subscribers.  Which isn't a whole lot different from what's going on now, "net neutrality" or not.

Comcast already has the lowest customer service ranking of any American company, behaving in a way that's reminiscent of AT&T before the government broke up the phone company monopoly in the 1980s.  Well, that's also true of most cable providers whose exclusive rights to serve certain areas have been in place for decades.

Now that Comcast-TWC have severed ties, other possible unions in the communications have come to the forefront.  Charter is taking a second run at TWC, according to media reports.  AT&T is combining with DirecTV, once they can figure out how to explain to regulators how a phone company can coexist with a satellite provider.

But that won't change the fact that cable is becoming less and less popular with consumers, who are sick of paying through the nose for channels they don't want, opting for Internet streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Plus in addition to keeping an antenna for broadcast TV.  The thing is, though, they still have to go through a broadband service--most of whom are owned by cable providers. 

This is what providers like Comcast and Time Warner Cable are facing, and they are losing.  They must either adapt or die, and not be so arrogant about it.  They can't afford to.