The new AT&T could control the path from the cable box to your phone

This weekend saw one of the biggest corporate acquisitions in years as AT&T reached a deal to purchase Time Warner for more than $80 billion. If approved, the deal would create a massive new joining of the telecom and media business, along the lines of AOL-Verizon (combined in May of 2015 ) and Comcast-NBCUniversal.

But AT&T's new conglomerate has a unique combination. Comcast has a bundle of cable channels and a fiber network — a scary combination for many — but it doesn't have a wireless business (at least not yet). Verizon has a wireless business and a web empire, but it doesn't have any TV channels. The newly formed AT&T conglomerate would be the only company with the means to build a direct pipeline from Game of Thrones to your smartphone — which could be a powerful and frightening force in the years to come. If the future of the media business is mobile video, zero-rating could give carriers frightening new powers — and no one would benefit more than the newly joined AT&T-Time Warner conglomerate. For now, content companies are holding most of the cards — but that only means AT&T’s new powers are more likely to appear as a bonus rather than a restriction.