After almost six years, the time has come to turn the page. As of January 16 Bright Side of News* and VR World have merged. All of the content from BSN* has been preserved and will remain accessible on VR World.

Expect the same great reviews and hard-hitting news from BSN* on VR World. 

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U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) again held up its review of the proposed merger of Comcast Corp (NASDAQ: CMCSA) and Time Warner Cable Inc (NYSE: TWC) on Dec. 22, citing delays in getting related documents from Time Warner.

FCC said that the deal was estimated to be worth US$45 billion.

FCC said that its officials are studying if the merger is in the public interests, while the combination will come up with the giant cable company that may occupy the majority of the market in the U.S. It had self-imposed an informal 180-day countdown for the review and the process will be resumed on Jan. 12, 2015.

FCC said that Time Warner Cable has improperly withheld more than 7,000 documents that were requested by regulators, based on an “inappropriate claim of attorney-client privilege.” FCC learned that more than 31,000 requested documents were missing because of a vendor error.

Time Warner Cable, meanwhile, said that it had submitted the privileged documents in early December, but expected to deliver a revised “privilege log” sometime in mid-January.

FCC had requested Time Warner Cable to respond to its data request by Sept. 11.

In response to FCC reviewers’ concern of the delays, Time Warner Cable said that it would produce the missing documents on Dec. 22, but FCC said additional time would be needed to study new submissions.

FCC’s last pause of the review was carried out between Oct. 3 and Dec. 3, for Time Warner Cable to respond to a massive data request and then to deal with a dispute over confidentiality of documents related to agreements with media companies.

“Today’s delay is a procedural issue, not a substantive one,” Time Warner Cable Spokesman Bobby Amirshahi said in a statement. “We already have provided the FCC more than five million pages of documents and we will continue to provide the FCC everything that they need to review this transaction.”

In response, Comcast Spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice said that Comcast remained on track for the review to be concluded early in 2015.

“We are confident that any outstanding documents will be produced to the FCC in an expedited manner,” she said.

The merger was first publicly announced on Feb. 13. Comcast began the regulatory review process of the deal by filing a public interest statement at the FCC on April 8, and is in the process of obtaining permission from the FCC and U.S. Department of Justice to complete the acquisition. Comcast shareholders, meanwhile, have approved the proposed merger on Oct. 8, while Time Warner’s shareholders made the same decision on Oct. 9.

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The idea of a merger between two of the largest cable companies in the United States has never been a popular one amongst consumers, and now a coalition of industry stakeholders has been formed to lobby the halls of power to block the deal.

Earlier this week The Stop Mega Comcast Coalition announced its formation to block the deal on the grounds that a merged Time Warner Cable and Comcast would have too much power and influence over the country’s telecommunications infrastructure. The Coalition is spearheaded by Dish Network (NASDAQ: DISH) and includes a variety of groups which have a stake in distributing their content over a telecom’s network: Glenn Beck’s The Blaze, the Writers Guild of America, the Parents Television Council, the Rural Broadband Association, and the Sports Fan Coalition are bigger names attaching themselves to the deal.

The coalition says that it’s concerned an enlarged Comcast would be a hostile “gatekeeper”. The group fears that Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) would be able to wield too much control over the prices it pays for signals carriage. In addition, a merged Comcast-TWC would raise concerns for the preservation of net neutrality; as Comcast also owns content providers it could hamper the ability of its rivals in that field to deliver their content down Comcast’s pipes.

What’s the alternative?

Consumers are becoming more and more skeptical of the intentions of Big Telecom. Comcast is not alone in this, AT&T (NYSE:T) has come under it’s own set of scrutiny. The solution to Big Telecom, as many communities are finding, is to build a city or region-wide network that’s classified as a utility and owned by the municipality. As the infrastructure is not owned by a profit-seeking enterprise, issues like net neutrality simply don’t exist. In addition, areas that are typically underserved and starved for bandwidth by Big Telecom will be able to catch-up to the rest of the country.

So far these efforts are rather niche; only a handful of communities are building them. But as hostility towards Big Telecom grows, this might be move from being the niche to the norm.

The post Coalition Against TWC-Comcast Merger Brings Together Strange Allies appeared first on VR World.

We’re not really sure what would possess someone to defend one of the most hated companies in America, but Forbes contributor Gene Marks went ahead and did just that. He claims not to be a shill of Comcast in any way shape or form (even though they’ve been shown to pay for positive pieces). They also recently cancelled a promotional event at a legislator’s house, the same legislator that proposed a bill in Kansas to block municipal broadband after the Kansas City Star contacted them about the event. Comcast has also made sure that their lobbying efforts are strong and effective as they’ve effectively got every important Senator and Representative of the Congress on their payroll. For example, 84 of the 97 congressmen that approved the Comcast and NBC merger received money from Comcast. The amounts range from token contributions of about $1,000 up to $25,100. Additionally, Comcast has spent over $3.2 million in 2012 (last data available) among federal candidates alone (does not count state or local) for lobbying. During the 2012 election, Comcast gave Obama’s campaign over $328,000 and Romney’s campaign nearly $100,000. Yet again proving how much our politicians are really in their pockets.

Now, getting back to Gene Marks’ so-called 5 reasons to admire Comcast, of which there are only really four (Sorry, Jimmy Fallon doesn’t count). So what are exactly his reasons?

• Comcast is a tech company that has improved the lives of its customers.

Really? Comcast has improved the lives of their customers? That explains why they’re the second most hated cable company in America, right? Because they improve people’s lives. I’m sure people hate their doctors, teachers and librarians as much, too. Yet, Comcast is considered one of the most hated companies in America (not even among cable companies, ALL companies). Not the banks, not the carriers, not the oil companies, the cable companies are the most hated and Comcast is easily in contention for the #1 place.

Cable Satisfaction

• Comcast technology is reliable.

He may actually have somewhat of a point here, while Comcast like many ISPs may have a lot of haters, places like DSLReports appear to support the fact that Comcast is fairly reliable. But it doesn’t change the fact that many customers absolutely loathe the company. Including people like Ryan Block who tried to cancel his service and was met with an agent that almost wouldn’t let him cancel.

• Comcast stands behind its employees.

He actually uses the example of Ryan Block’s call as well to talk about how Comcast supported their employee, saying that he was only doing his job. So, Comcast trains their employees to not be helpful and constantly be selling people services they don’t want. If you listen to the call, you can hear how this guy is literally trained to shove Comcast services down the customers’ throats. I don’t really know if this is a valid point, especially when Gene himself mentions all of the Comcast employees that complain about their jobs (and then questions their validity).

• Comcast is a ruthless, competitive, take no prisoners tech company…and good for them.

Gene is partly right here, but he forgets why they are the way they are. Comcast is fairly ruthless, yes, ruthless to their competitors, ruthless to the politicians that don’t support them, and ruthless to their own customers. I don’t know about you, but that’s not the kind of ruthless I want to support. Oh, and the competitive part? Who the hell is Comcast competing with? They’ve effectively got local monopolies in most of the areas they serve. If they’re not the only choice in the area, they’re probably the 2nd choice and the other choice is very likely AT&T which is no better than Comcast in any way (and is usually more expensive). Comcast can only be competitive if you look at the networks they own, which include all of NBCUniversal’s holdings which are numerous and even that acquisition is questionable considering how many people were opposed to it and how many people still believe it was not a justified acquisition.

Hey, maybe it was all just clickbait, but in the end supporting a company like Comcast is simply unjustified, especially when you consider what they’re doing to companies like Netflix. Comcast really really wants to acquire Time Warner Cable and it seems as though they will do whatever possible to make that happen. Meanwhile they will essentially become the de facto internet provider for over 30 million Americans and further stifle competition where there already was very little. So, please do tell us why we should admire Comcast, because it only really seems like there’s one reason to and that’s because their reliable and last time I checked that’s not really good enough.

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In one of the most depressing rumor squashings I have ever had to personally experience, I am reporting to you today that Time Warner Cable’s rumored 300 Mbps, 200 Mbps services are not rolling out on July 7th. In fact, after speaking with Time Warner Cable’s representative for the San Diego area we got some even more depressing news.

According to Bret Picciolo of Time Warner Cable, the company will not be rolling out their 300 and 200 Mbps services in the San Diego area. This is in spite of multiple CSRs indicating to myself and other people that such services would be available starting July 7th. Bret made it clear that there was no hard date for any such services and that they were mostly intended for the Los Angeles and New York areas. He said that any such roll outs would be done by hub and not city-wide, which would take time to do rather than doing all at once.

What’s even more depressing about this rumor squashing is that not only is Time Warner Cable neglecting a clear desire for their customers to get 300 and 200 Mbps speeds, but they are also not bringing 100 Mbps speeds to San Diego. That’s right, San Diegans are STILL going to be stuck with 50/5 Mbps service unless they are blessed by the gods and Webpass is available in their building (or Webpass is willing to install).

As if all of that horrible news wasn’t depressing enough, Bret gave absolutely no indication of ANY plans to expand their 100, 200 or 300 Mbps services anywhere or any time in San Diego. He said that if the company were to do so, they would make a public announcement like they had for Los Angeles, New York and Austin. If you read our original article about the rumor you can see what kind of competition (there’s basically none) that exists within the San Diego area. This means that San Diego customers are basically stuck between Time Warner Cable, AT&T Uverse or possible Cox cable if they’re not in a Time Warner Cable service area. Either way, its a disgusting duopoly and this rumor squashing is a perfect example of that.

If anything, this confirms my belief that San Diego should start its own municipal broadband or municipal fiber network in order to keep the city competitive with places that will get Google Fiber or already have fiber.

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Level 3 Communications has announced that they will be buying the former Time Warner Cable internet service for enterprise division (TW Telecom) for $5.6 billion ($7.3 billion with debt), further increasing their size and scope. Some news sites have made the mistake saying that Level 3 Communications is buying Time Warner Cable, which is simply not correct. TW Telecom was started as a joint venture between Time Warner Cable and US West which is now a part of Centurylink. However, TW Telecom has operated as an independent entity for quite some time and is publicly traded on the NASDAQ as TWTC.

The deal is currently structured as 24% cash and 76% stock (in Level 3 Communications) and will come to a total sum of $7.3 billion after the purchase price and debt are accounted for. We already know that Level 3 Communications is quite a big tier 1 ISP because they stated how many different companies they serve when they talked about the problems they’ve been encountering with US ISPs. If you read our article about it, you will find out that Level 3 Communications currently has something like 180,000 miles of fiber laid around the world and has a total interconnect capacity of nearly 14 Tbps.

Adding TW Telecom to Level 3 Communications’ network would simply strengthen the company’s offerings and broaden their customer base, allowing them to achieve better efficiency and possibly even more importantly, be a protector of things like net neutrality. After all, if Level 3 Communications is all about making sure the internet is a fair place, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing if they’re in control of more of the internet. However, companies like Level 3 Communications may also become easier targets for hackers and governments to attack or approach in terms of getting easier access to the internet. So, as thing always are, there are both good and bad things that will come with Level 3 Communications getting better. With this deal, though, Level 3 Communications gains 27,000 route miles of fiber and over 16,000 “on-net” commercial buildings connected. As well as two National Operations Centers (NOCs) in Littleton, CO and O’Fallon, MO, where its solutions are monitored for quality 24/7/365 to assure the best and most reliable service.

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Once again, the T-Mobile and Sprint deal continues to move forward now that we have an actual purchase price. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the general terms of the deal between Sprint and T-Mobile have been worked out and that the two companies have agreed to a $32 billion sale of T-Mobile, which actually seems a bit low when you consider that T-Mobile’s current market cap is $27 billion and they are getting a mere 20% premium over their current price.

This deal has gotten a lot of regulatory flak before it ever happened and will likely continue to as the two companies try to push the deal through. While few exact details are known, there is a very high likelihood that we could see the Sprint brandname go away in favor of T-Mobile’s and Sprint’s Dan Hesse replaced by T-Mobile’s John Legere. Speaking of Legere, he’s been probably one of the most outspoken CEOs in carrier history. And Sprint hasn’t been left out of his continuous Twitter bashings including this one that might come back to bite him…

Remember when people actually liked @sprint? Yeah, me either. #SprintLikeHell

— John Legere (@JohnLegere) March 6, 2014

 

The real truth of the matter is that T-Mobile’s CEO has said some pretty nasty things about Sprint, yet the company continues to move forward with the acquisition of T-Mobile by Sprint. There’s a very good chance that Sprint will take on the T-Mobile name and Legere as CEO, but it still doesn’t change the fact that most of Legere’s criticisms are accurate and while sometimes over the top, warranted.

This also does not address the biggest problem this merger will likely face, which is the regulatory approval from the FCC, DoJ and FTC. If any of those three government agencies doesn’t approve the deal, it simply won’t happen. Sprint’s parent company, Softbank, believes that it is a necessary and justified purchase after they paid $20.1 billion for Sprint. While this deal for $32 billion is vastly larger in scale, Softbank is buying a very capable competitor and one that is stealing their competitors. Furthermore, T-Mobile has a marketcap of $27 billion, which makes the $32 billion offer a 20% premium on the current market cap. The problem with this is that T-Mobile is in a much better position than Sprint right now and they’re poised to replace Sprint as #3 carrier in the US very soon. Especially when you look at the fact that T-Mobile has already surpassed Sprint as the #3 smartphone buyer in the US.

Also, let’s remember that T-Mobile’s previous attempted merger with AT&T didn’t get regulatory approval and that offer was for significantly more money ($39 billion) and when T-Mobile was a significantly weaker competitor. It just seems a bit odd that T-Mobile is now going for less money than they did when AT&T made them an offer even when they’re vastly bigger and more competitive than back then. It just doesn’t seem like this deal is big enough or good enough for T-Mobile to just walk away from essentially walking all over their competitors unless this was their plan all along… which I don’t think it was. T-Mobile’s strategy is sustainable, contrary to what everyone else in the industry (that’s for the merger) would lead you to believe. T-Mobile does not need Sprint to succeed, because they are ultimately a very broken dead weight on any potential merger.

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Since most people’s contracts are usually 2 years long, you don’t usually see any significant movements of subscribers from one carrier to another. They happen slowly and quarterly, after all, it would take at least 8 quarters for a company to theoretically lose all of their subscribers if every single person wanted to leave. So, it comes as little surprise that Sprint still holds the numbers 3 spot in terms of subscribers when compared to T-Mobile. Based on T-Mobile’s last earnings call, they ended the first quarter of this year up 2.4 million with nearly 50 million customers, coming ever closer to Sprint’s 54 million. And if you take into consideration T-Mobile’s JUMP program and the millions of customers that are involved in that, it seems logical that T-Mobile would be buying more phones from manufacturers. Also, keep in mind that T-Mobile also offers a no-contract plan option and actually encourages a lot of users to buy their owns outright and just pay the base price of T-Mobile’s service.

According to Reuters, the fact that they had added more subscribers than any other carrier in the US significantly added to this overtaking of Sprint. T-Mobile bought 6 million smartphones in the first quarter of this year while Sprint only bought 5 million, according to Neil Shah of Counterpoint Technology Market Research. There wasn’t much other useful information from Reuters or Neil Shah in the article, although one can surmise that if a carrier is ordering more phones than their larger competitor that they’re clearly doing more business ans signing up more customers for plans. And now that T-Mobile is selling more phones than Sprint, its merely a matter of time until they surpass Sprint in subscribers as well. However, that might change if the T-Mobile-Sprint merger/acquisition is approved by the DoJ and FTC.

This is also possibly because T-Mobile is also a leader in technology, adopting certain technologies like VoLTE ahead of their competitors, especially Sprint who has yet to deploy enough of an LTE network to even consider the idea of VoLTE. T-Mobile is also vastly faster and cheaper than Sprint in a lot of scenarios so, I have a feeling that a lot of T-Mobile’s customers are AT&T and Sprint customers, which could be why Softbank, Sprint’s parent, want to buy them.

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