The dissolution of Comcast’s mega-merger is great for consumers

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[Commentary] For consumers, start-up companies, the telecommunications industry and the future of broadband and the Internet, Comcast/Time Warner Cable was a bad deal from the start. The funny thing is that it took so long for federal regulators to come to the same conclusion.

The combination of Comcast and Time Warner Cable would have given one company a dominant share of the broadband market and an outsized slice of the pay TV industry. From that position, the combined company would have been even more insulated from competition than the two companies are now and would have had a freer hand to raise prices. It also would have posed a huge, looming threat to start-up companies and non-traditional competitors like Netflix and Sling TV. The deal would have reduced indirect and potential competition, posed a threat to companies like Netflix, further insulated the combined company from competition and customer complaints and would have provided few tangible benefits to consumers. We can only cheer that the regulators got up the gumption to put a stop to it.


The dissolution of Comcast’s mega-merger is great for consumers