cableco

The Broadband Competition Problem

September 23, 2015

Big discussion over at AVC on Fred Wilson's blog post about the lack of broadband competition. After the broadband report came out, this apparently was a shock to some:

"Today, nearly 40 percent of American households either do not have the option of purchasing a wired 10 Mbps connection or they must buy it from a single provider. Three out of four Americans do not have a choice of providers for broadband at 25 Mbps, the speed increasingly recognized as a baseline for broadband access."

The discussion revolves around - surprise - arbitrage! There would be investment IF there was enough money in last mile residential; if regulation was lighter; if, if, if.

Posted in CLEC, ISP, Internet, broadband, cableco, cellular, duopoly, fiber, politics, technology, wireless, wireline

The Cable Dominance Push

September 19, 2015

From USA Today, "Altice Group, a European telecom company controlled by French cable entrepreneur Patrick Drahi, has agreed to buy U.S. cable operator Cablevision (CVC) in a deal valued at $17.7 billion."

Altice already is buying smaller cableco Suddenlink for $9B. That makes for a big stake in the US market.

Posted in CLEC, cableco, mergers, smb

FCC Moves on Frontier and the Internet

September 14, 2015

So the FCC set the clock on the Charter-TWC merger. Part of the order explains how confidential information will be handled. (This is not the first merger with confidential company info.) The two Republican Commissioners on the FCC are complaining loudly -- as they have over every order passed by this Commission. FCC Commish Ajit Pai is often belittling the FCC CHair and his decisions publicly.

Posted in FCC, Internet, broadband, cableco, fiber, mergers, telco

The WalMart Effect on the Duopoly

June 17, 2015

As pricing on bandwidth declines, it is having a ripple effect on the whole system. Bandwidth prices have been in decline but the last couple of years the megabits per dollar has really dropped. The more you buy - 1GB or 10GB - the less it costs now. [Which makes the whole inter-connection fight that Comcast and Verizon have had with Level3, Cogent and Netflix seem like nothing more than posturing with consumers caught in the middle per usual.]

Posted in Internet, bandwidth, broadband, cableco, channel, duopoly, voip

The Trend Toward Global Expansion

June 9, 2015

We are seeing an interesting trend. The ILECs are going global. AT&T, Verizon and CenturyLink are looking to other global markets to make up for a decline in revenue in the US.

AT&T made acquisitions in cellular in LATAM.

Posted in cableco, cellular, smb, telco

3 Cable Stories That Are Good Reads

June 2, 2015

As I wrote previously, our industry hasn't really applied the technology that we push on our customers. Don't you ever wonder Why Your Cable Company Doesn't Always Know If Your New Address Gets Service?

One reason is simple data logic. "That database suffers from the classic, timeless data-management problem of "garbage-in, garbage-out" -- they can't give accurate info if they don't get it to begin with.

Posted in FCC, Internet, cableco, telco

Phone Companies, Channel and Other News

May 29, 2015

Considering my client has been waiting 2 months to port DIDs from an AT&T PRI to Birch POTS lines, no kidding AT&T is not a Phone Company any more! Plus I have other clients that AT&T is calling to tell them to get off the copper. Move to fiber. The company only has one T1 technician for large areas (covering 5-6 central offices).

Posted in agents, cableco, cellular, channel, wi-fi, wireless, wireline

Charter Bulking Up

May 27, 2015

Charter bid on TWC before Comcast. Comcast wasn't going to get past regulators. Charter is hoping that they will with 2 bids in this week. One to buy TWC where Charter will pay $55 billion in cash and stock for Time Warner Cable.

Posted in cableco, mergers

Europe Invades American Cable

May 21, 2015

The French group Altice SA, controlled by Patrick Drahi, made a bid of $9.1 billion for Suddenlink - and is rumored to be looking at TWC. Yesterday, during a lunch discussion with TMC's CEO, Rich Tehrani, I mentioned how over-leveraged most of the Duopoly is. Verizon, AT&T, C-Link, Frontier, Comcast, WIND - all have an overloaded debt to revenue ratio. Rich explained that the name of the game is share price and cheap money.

Posted in cableco, economy, jobs, mergers, politics

Greedy Content Increases Your Cable Bills

May 4, 2015

As much as I have a mad on for the ILECs, in this case, folks need to know that the content companies are the ones increasing your TV bills -- not the cable or telco.

Bundling is a tactic that the content bullies use to force 7 ESPN's on you or the Speed channel or other nonsense. ESPN - owned by Disney/ABC, just one of the 6 - yes 6 - companies that own most of the media content - requires cablecos to carry all 7 ESPN channels AND that two have to be in the general package, so that they can bill for every subscriber that the MSO has.

Frontier demonstrated that FiOS TV was unprofitable, when it took over VZ territories in 2011.

Posted in cableco, video

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